Day Two in Kibera

We spent another day in Kibera yesterday. As I indicated in my last post, words and photos are inadequate to describe the conditions there, the filth, and the grinding poverty people live in on a daily basis with no hope of change given that the government refuses to acknowledge that the place even exists and does not provide the residents of the slum with water or sanitation services, much less schools. I cannot imagine the hopelessness that people of Kibera live with day in and day out.

One ray of hope of course is young (25 years old) Kennedy Odede's Hope to Shine nonprofit. Through that organization, Kennedy began the Kibera School for girls a year ago. More recently, Hope to Shine completed a green bathroom outside the school that is used by the students and teachers at the school and will be available to residents of Kibera for a very small fee. (Waste products from the bathroom are composted and used to fertilize the vegetable garden behind the Kibera School. The vegetables from the garden help to provide students at the school with a healthy diet during the school day.) Kennedy has plans to build similar bathroom facilities throughout Kibera and the income they generate will help support the school and his other projects, which include expanding the school, running a medical clinic, and constructing a community center. In August, the clinic should be up and running (All of the supplies and equipment it needs are in a storeroom at the school ready to be used. AFK got most if not all of those items donated and shipped to Kenya.) and Kennedy just completed assembling the parcels of land he needs to build the community center. Meanwhile, I am sure that he has many, many more projects and ideas to improve the lives of the people of Kibera percolating in his head and I have no doubt that he will bring them all to fruition given his intelligence, charisma and drive, not to mention his success at fundraising.

We began our 2nd day at the school with an assembly. The students' parents or another caregiver, plus some of their young siblings, were all crammed onto wooden benches in a room and all of the AFK volunteers crammed into the room too. Soon, the students walked into the room one by one and singing in unison. Then, also in unison, they recited words about how each of them was a unique person and that they had the power to create their own lives using education as the key. I doubt that there was a dry eye in the house. The school is helping give the girls the self confidence, self esteem, self awareness and power they will need to improve their lives and focus on their futures.

Beth spent her second day in Kibera helping conduct physical exams. She and the rest of the medical team examined all of the students, their parents and I think the teachers too. Amazingly, the team did not see a lot of serious medical problems, although nearly everyone was dehydrated and some of the people they examined had infections of one sort of another. Beth said that probably the saddest situation of the day was when they had to tell a woman, who already had three children, that she was pregnant with twins. Taking care of one infant would be a challenge in Kibera, much less two at a time. Although many mothers-to-be in the US would great the news with joy, this mother's reaction was very understandable given her circumstances.

The library team spent the entire day continuing to log the hundreds of books that will soon line the many bookcases in the school's small library. The volunteer who heads up the library team is going to create an electronic database for the library once she returns to the US.

I spent the day with another volunteer helping students create their own books about themselves using construction paper and crayons. Each of the girls drew pictures of themselves and wrote about themselves in their books. All of the girls wrote in English -- pretty impressive given that a year ago they did not know a word of the language. After everyone finished their books, each girl was invited to stand up and read it to the rest of the class. Very sweet. I found a line in one girl's book especially poignant. She wrote that she loved her teacher because the teacher was clean. I imagine that her teacher is one of the only clean people she knows. I also helped in the library.

Last night most of the volunteers went to a restaurant called Carnivore. As you probably guessed, the theme of the place is meat -- endless amounts of it. The waiters brought all kinds of meat (beef, lamb, crocodile, boar, etc.) on big skewers or platters to our table and then each of us indicated whether or not we wanted any of what was being served. They also brought around a whole turkey and a chicken on big skewers. The waiters continued to serve rounds of meat and poultry until we put a little card up on the table indicating that we'd had enough. The food was not wonderful and based on all of the white faces at the tables, Carnivore appeared to be a tourist place, but our group had a lot of fun there, so it was a great choice for the evening.

Tomorrow we have the day off. We are going to visit a wild animal preserve so next time I blog I hope to be able to report that I saw lots of zebra, giraffe, rhinos, lions and elephants. Stay tuned.