Just got home from Outreach (4.5 hours late) and I have to say I have never looked forward to Ugali (Oo-gah-li) so much! I was starved. Now my stomach has nearly as much to digest as my head.

My weekend started at 5:30ish on Friday when Abi and I woke up and caught our first Matatu (a minibus used as public transportation, more on these to follow in future posts) all by ourselves. Pretty uneventful besides the conductor trying to charge us double the normal fare. Then we met with the other volunteers at Junction and grabbed my very first Kenyan coffee before setting off on our adventures.

First stop was the KCC Slum in Navashia. This was easily the most mild project we saw all weekend, and even so it was heartbreaking. KCC is currently home to about 6000 people who were living in metal shacks and had no access to clean water. The housing accommodations for the people of the slum were what shocked me the most. Can you imagine living in an aluminum heat of African summer? Honestly though, to me, KCC was an experience of hope and inspiration. The volunteers took the initiative into their own hands and have since then set up a school (all the teachers being women of the slum) and have been able to provide the children with lunch five days a week.

Reading to the kids during activity time.

One of the many faces from the KCC Slum

After feeding the kids and spending lots of time playing different activities with them we left for Hells Gate National Park. This was (obviously) the fun part of the weekend. It started out with a four mile bike ride through the park. For someone who is chronically lazy and hasn't ridden a bike in many many years I have to say I did quite well. On the ride down to the gorge we saw the famous Pride Rock and actually had to stop once to let some zebras cross the road in front of us. It was pretty wild, no pun intended. When we got to the end of the bike ride we started our descent into the gorge..barefoot (due to rising water levels). I can now say I've successfully hiked in Africa sans shoes. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. No pictures can do it justice. After making it back to the top of the gorge we headed to Gilgil where we would be staying for the night. The HOT SHOWERS at our hotel were worth every penny of the $130 we paid to go on the Outreach weekend. Running water is a rarity here in Kenya, but to get a hot shower is an event to be cherished.

In the gorge! How I didn't break my neck will forever remain a mystery.

Pushing our matatu out of the mud.

In the morning we had breakfast and then started our next project; divvying four 90k bags of flour into about 240 smaller 1.5L bags for distribution to the people of the IDP camp and Garbage slum. Then we loaded the bags into the matatu and set out for Vumilia IDP. As we were driving across the mud-filled field our matatu spun off the dirt road and into the bush facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Then we proceeded to get stuck in the mud as we tried to get back the road. Children came running from the camp to help us get the truck unstuck, it was precious. In the end we (the volunteers) pushed it out of the mud and we finally made it to IDP .

The Vumilia IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp was quite an eye opener. It was the first time since coming to Kenya I didn't feel like I was ready to see the things that I saw. The luckier people of Vumilia are living in 'tents' that the UN provided in 2007 after the violence, which is fine... except that the tents were only made to last six months. The not-so-lucky people have made their own tents from flour sacks and sticks. When we were invited inside of a 'home' the heat was unbearable. The tents also leak causing mold and damp beds. The heat, along with the mold, made the air hard to breath and being in the tent for just ten minutes left me feeling dizzy. For these same reasons many of the people at the camp have respiratory problems that they cannot get medication for. One thing that I feel like really sets the IDP camp apart from some of the other slums here is that these people had no choice but to relocate. They lost their property, their homes, and in some cases their families because of other people's actions. Then when the government promised each family 10,000 shillings in repercussion it was stolen from them by a middle man leaving them nothing once again. These people had lives, jobs, educations. Now they are depending on the small bag of flour they get every two weeks and prostituting their daughters for extra money. The volunteers placed at the IDP camp have started a school and also feed the kids Ugi (a water and flour porridge, no nutritional value) a couple times a week. This seems to be successful so far and I hope it continues to work well for them.

A woman working in her garden outside her home in the IDP camp.

Last comes the Gioto Garbage Slum. I have researched the slum quite a bit before I came to Kenya, so I thought I knew what to expect... I was wrong. Upon approaching the slum the smell became repugnant. Tons and tons of trash in heaps rotting away, I suppose I should have expected this. Trying to breath as little as possible as our matatu navigated the pathways through the dump I was shocked to see children who couldn't be a day over four sorting through the garbage. When we finally made it to the top of the hill we exited the car and were greeted by a man who would show us around. He first gave us some history on the slum. It has been in existence for nearly 17 years now meaning some of the kids there have never seen life out side of the slum. Rape is prominent, so there are tons of unwanted pregnancies, and approximately 40% of the population is HIV positive. Along with the smell there were flies everywhere and since it's beginning the rainy season we were covered in mud within minutes of exiting the matatu. Mud isn't generally a big deal, but imagine your 'house' is located on a hill of trash... as water rushes down the hill is sweeps mud and trash through your bedroom floor. Mind you the houses (10x10 huts) were also built from trash found at the dump; plastic siding, sheets of metal if you're lucky, and old towels. All held together with branches and junk, one could hardly call them sturdy. Since so many of the girls are getting pregnant so fast the majority of the homes accommodate four generations of family at a time. Digging through garbage for a living, cramming 8-9 people in a tiny damp hut... can you imagine the disease? However, as with the first two projects, there is some hope being made in the Gioto Garbage Slum. Volunteers have set up a school for some of the younger children (though is recently collapsed) and better yet have raised funds to send 15 of the older kids to boarding school. Currently they are working on gathering sponsors for the other children to help get them out of that place and into boarding schools where they eat three times a day and have a chance at a decent education.

A child collecting plastic bottles to sell for his families income.


The garbage dump, notice the houses in the background.

That was my weekend. It was absolutely incredible and horrible at the same time. I've seen things like this my whole life on the news and in National Geographic, but to be there smell it, see it, hear the children crying... it changed my life. Media makes things so easy to ignore and tune out. If it's ugly and not perfect you change the channel or pick up a gossip magazine instead. The experience was sobering in ways I can't explain. This weekend made me want to live. I may not be able to give all the money I'd like to these people but I can do my part by getting the word out there. I am not going to turn this into a guilt trip or beg for your money or donations. I will say, however, that if any of these causes strike you (like sponsoring a child) or you would like to find out more information please please get in touch with me. I can put you in contact with some really wonderful people.

One thing I will ask, and will harass you to do is to vote for the Gioto Garbage Slum here. They are in a competition of sorts for a $5,000 grant, and of last time I checked they were in first place. Please help us keep it that way. The money they would win would be able to send many more of the children to boarding school and with the feeding program among more. It only takes a couple minutes, and I was able to do it from a dinky internet cafe in Ngong, Kenya.