Air and Water

Ah yes, have I mentioned the smoke-belching vehicles in Nairobi? Any of us who are over about 40 years old or so (pre-catalytic converter, pre-emissions standards in the US) will remember (or not) what it used to be like when we were kids. My best friend in 5th and 6th grades was Terry Richardson, and he used to love to run behind city buses as they took off from the corner, sniffing wildly because he loved the smell of bus fumes. It's not one of the loves we shared, but still, that smell was normal when we were growing up. Hard for me to believe now.

But here I am in Nairobi where it's just like that, everywhere. It's not as bad as Istanbul, or Cairo (from what I've heard). The sky is blue here, unlike the smog filled skies of Los Angeles. But on the ground, on the street, sitting in traffic, it's awful. Traffic is very congested, and you sit behind smoke-belching buses, trucks and cars, sometimes for hours, breathing in the fumes. You can roll the window up, but it gets hot quick. And I'm not sure that the nice SUV Alice drives has air conditioning. She doesn't use it if it does.

Well, after five days of breathing in toxic fumes, I'm feeling it today. Had a bit of a sore throat last night. Began sneezing some. Today I've had a runny nose, and a scratchy feeling in my throat. Fortunately, I was able to stay in today for some rest. Did some reading (Brian McLaren's Finding our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices -- go buy it and read it!), prayed, journalled, napped. Did my laundry in the sink and hung it out in the sun to dry. Blew my nose a lot.

With all this time on my hands, I couldn't help thinking about where I was yesterday -- Korogocho. One image kept coming back to me that I didn't write about last night. It was in the second school we visited -- the Rehabilitation Center was its name -- a nursery through 8th grade school. After visiting the youngest children, we went down the street to an annex of the school in some additional rented rooms. That's where the 5th - 8th graders go to school. We walked into the dark building, very rough, corrugated tin held up by poles an inch or two in diameter. The last room we visited had all the 6th through 8th graders in it. The reason given by the teacher was that he was doing a special lesson on water that he wanted all the students in those grades to hear. I suspect he is the only teacher for all the grades in this part of the school. We saw no others -- only a few fifth graders sitting in a classroom all alone while this was going on. In the 6th - 8th grade room, students were packed like sardines, almost on top of one another. The teacher explained to us that they were learning all about water, where it comes from, why it is important, how it is connected to and sustains life.

Here in the beautiful house where I'm staying, in its colonial-like surroundings in Karen on the outskirts of Nairobi, there is no on-demand hot water (the burner has to be turned on to heat it first -- a minor inconvenience, but still unimaginable to most Americans). We also have to drink bottled water here -- just to be safe. But those kids in that schoolroom don't know what clean water is. There is none in Korogocho. They've probably never seen a clean stream of water or a lake. How I wish they could take a field trip -- just to experience the clean water they're learning about in school.

As I was thinking about all of this I saw Kevin walk by the window with a hose in his hands for watering the gardens. Kevin is a very sweet young man that Alice employs. He takes care of security and the grounds. He also does a mean shine on any shoes that happen to be left right outside the door -- first shine my boots had had since I took them out of the box about 10 years ago. I had been listening to him working in the garden all morning, sometimes whistling, sometimes singing, mostly just being very quiet and going about his work. He must be in his early to mid 20s, a Kikuyu (I would guess), and seems to be very happy to be here working for Alice. She tells me that he has her put about half of his pay each week in a savings account that he uses to pay his sister's school fees. The rest he sends to his parents in western Kenya to help them. Kevin has designed and built such beautiful flower gardens here in the enclosure. Rocks, flowers, rosemary shrubs, and hedges of lavender -- all in a dark, rich soil that doesn't seem to even need mulch or fertilizer.

Yesterday when we returned from Korogocho, he opened the gate for us and stood close as he always does to be helpful in any way as we unload the car. As he and I were walking in I told him where we had been. He doesn't usually say much, but he looked into my eyes, his brimming with tears, and said, "thank you."

It made me wonder about where Kevin has come from, and what he must think of the wild contrasts between that and where he is now -- even if there isn't an instant hot shower.