Travel, plus day one!

Jambo, friends!

i arrived in nairobi early last night, accompanied by 17 others from three churches. the flights (3) were pretty uneventful, minus the minutes before the first flight where betsy found out she had grabbed her expired passport, and the overhead page about halfway through the second flight for the help of any onboard medical personnel to help in row 37, three rows ahead of me. we had small layovers in both detroit and amsterdam; in detroit we walked around for the few minutes, and in amsterdam i grabbed a delicious coffee, then ran up and down the stairs for twenty minutes to get the blood flowing before our second 8 hour leg... we arrived around 7:05, kenya time, which was... well, i have NO idea denver time! got through customs and visa line with no problems, and arrived in our guest house after surviving a harrowing drive through the darkened city.

Our team is staying in a small guesthouse outside of the nairobi city, and the slums that we will be serving in. our host is a very tall, very cheery American man named Doug, and his wife Jenifer, who moved out here about 8 months ago with their youngest teenage daughter, from Los Angeles. Doug works with the ministry we are partnering with, which is headed up by Mary and Wallace Kamau- we met Doug last night as he took us to the guest house, and listened to Mary tell the story of Hope Partnership this morning during orientation....

Today we had devotions together (which I pretty much missed, accidentally sleeping through my alarm and not having a roommate to wake me up!), then had breakfast with the team (a buffet that is surprisingly delicious and well-stocked.. even real mango juice!). After breakfast we headed out to the Mathare slums, where Hope Partnership's main center is located, in the Pangani village.

Here we met Mary and some of her team, and heard the story of the ministry. An amazing story to hear; Mary's vision started when she was a young girl in her first year of university, wondering where all the street kids in the villages came from. A year later, she met a man that used to be a street kid and told her about his horrible childhood, and brought her to the slums to visit. She started visiting every weekend, helping where she could and building relationships with the families. She saw that the family relationship was how to reach the kids, and after a lot of prayer, and a few years, Mary and Wallace began this partnership ministry that works with a few other ministries to bring education to the kids in the slums. It started with 50 kids in the Pangani area, and now has grown to over 3000 kids in 9 different slum villages. One of the great pieces of her ministry (and there are SO many I can't even tell you) is that the parents of the kids get to 'own' the education of their children by helping pay for it; the parents pay what they can, and the kids are all sponsored by outside organizations (such as Southeast Christian, and somewhat like the Compassion International program) to make up the difference. The 'buy in' is key, really, and the great part, because the parents and the kids both get to own their experience- the kids know their parents believe in them, and the parents invest what they can, when they can. There is so much more to say about the partnership, the ministry and just the amazingly huge heart of Mary, Wallace and company- I would love to share more with you if you're interested!

After the brief orientation (and a DELICIOUS snack of little fried dough and chai tea) we toured the Mathare Village Area 1 slum. There are really no words to describe this experience, and I think that I am still soaking it in and processing everything I"ve seen today- and it's almost 10 hours later. The word 'poverty' sounds like luxury compared to what these slums really are... they are made of tin shanties, all put together with scraps and pieces of cloth and flattened cardboard. The shanties are on either side of a small dirt pathway that holds a small stream of dirty, gray liquid that may, at one point, have been water. Trash is stomped deep into the dirt, so it's almost a part of it, and there are bits and pieces everywhere on the ground and in the water. Emaciated dogs covered in flies, small, scrawny molting chickens and empty-eyed goats wander around, pecking and eating what is floating in the dirty gray stream. Adults stay close to the shanties, but stay outside, looking at us white folk, all in matching tshirts, tromp through their reality. Some hold children sparsely dressed in mismatched clothing and stocking caps, some just cross their arms and watch us walk by with cameras in hand.

The most encouraging and similarly discouraging part of the slums, is the children. Small children run around everywhere- most barefoot or clad in small rubber shoes that remind me of crocs. Many are unafraid to come up to us, running with hands out to touch our hands ('so soft!' they say in English and Swahili) and many shout out the phrase 'howru', a singsong version of 'how are you' that I don't know how to answer. The children love love love to get their picture taken, and delight in seeing themselves on the digital screen afterwards. They grab my hand and hold it as we walk, and our host has to tell them in Swahili to leave. The children laugh and smile and play around, oblivious to the trash and dirt they are walking through every minute.

We visit a home and enter a shanty- four of us Americans and our two Kenyan guides, social workers at the Pangani school we were just at. The woman in the shanty speaks very softly and holds a small child with immobilized leg, a lazy left eye and drool coming out of his mouth. She explains, our host translates, that her husband is Muslim, she has three other children-two of which go to Mary's school- and that she is so blessed and pleased and happy to have us in her house. Zelda, a woman I've bonded with, offers to pray for her and we spend a moment in prayer with the woman- whose name is too long and I can't remember. All in all, the visit lasts five minutes, and we leave, weaving our way back through the maze of shanties to the main trash road. We have lunch right after this. Later, in another school in another slum, the group of children sing songs to us in English and give us 'Wows', my favorite part. I am moved to tears both times I hear the group of children sing.

The hardest part for me at this point is feeling like I am touring the slums, a white smiley girl with camera in hand, exploiting the reality of these strangers' life. I expected feelings like this, but am still a bit embarrassed when our group leader speaks loud English to the kids and takes picture after literal picture (over 200 already) as we tromp along. I want to be helpful I want the people to know I am there to help them, to learn about them, to not judge them or force my American ways on them. I can't tell them that though- the only Swahili I know at this point is hello, good day, nice to meet you and thank you.

I trust that these feelings will be constant on and off throughout, and that I will process them as the trip goes on. I also have faith that they will start processing more as we start our work here tomorrow.

now, off to dinner. i'm already late - again!!