We visited the Kibera Slums today. Kibera is the 2nd largest urban slum in Africa. It is crowded, dirty, smelly, unsanitary and would be unfortunate for anyone to live there, yet 1/2 to 2 million people are that unfortunate. It has a 100 year history that can be found easily on the web so I won't go into that. I don't have any pictures from our time here because it was recommended not to take any pictures. Some might take offense at it, others might try to steal the camera. So for safety concerns, no cameras.
We had two soldier escorts with us to ensure safety. We drove all in one van down one of the main strips of Kibera which was littered trash and shops. Shops selling anything from cell phones/credit, to tailoring, furniture, water, vegetables, meat, welders, grinders, hair salons, and even photocopying/computer services. Any and all of the normal shops you'll see in any Kenyan city. This blog post here has a great descriptoin and some pictures of such shops. Oh, and I would not suggest the meat, they don't refrigerate. My western stomach would hurl mightily if it attempted to ingest such food I'm sure. Eventually we got as far as we could with the van, so we parked and walked 1/5 to 1/10th of a mile for a few home visits of people in the community that could use prayer. On the way, we walked past a man who was peeing into the rain trench (which is generally filled with rubbish and feces). I'm sure we surprised him more than we us, how often does he have a bunch of white westerns walk behind him in the middle of the slums?
Home Visits:
- Young boy (under 3 yrs old) with deformed feet. He had a metal brace attached to his shoes that will force his limbs into a proper placement as he grows.
- Young girl (under 5 yrs old) who had been raped by a grown man. This was hands down the hardest part of the trip. Justice is the Lord's was something I had to consider.
- Family of 3 girls where the oldest girl (13 yrs old?) is taking care her sisters, one of whom doesn't talk or is deaf (couldn't quite get that figured out), and one who had a huge goiter on her throat.
- Happier visit to some kids that a gal from Westside sponsers. Checking on how they are doing and such, they are in school and seem happy.
WorldComp Kenya supports a school in the middle of Kibera and feeds the kids who attend one meal a day (beans and corn mainly with a banana) to help keep them in school and somewhat healthy. The kids were delightful, and gave us some poems, songs and other such "presentations". At the end some of the ladies associated with the school (moms? teachers?) produced some of their bead work of which we brought home a bunch in order to sell at the garage sale and on Etsy. Overall their going rate is about $1 to $1.50 per day of work. So a bowl that takes 2 weeks may cost 12$-15$ bucks, but a pair of earrings may go for $2. Which, surprisingly is enough to sustain their lives there (1 meal + rent basically; I doubt much if any is left over).
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