Korogocho

All I knew when I woke up this morning is that I was going to go with Alice to meet with a couple of families whose children are prospective students at the school. I thought we were leaving around 11 and would be back in a couple of hours. I had slept late after staying up very late last night trying to post some video to YouTube (unsuccessfully). I felt very rested, but I didn't have any breakfast except for a couple of dried apricots and a cup of coffee. (I'm learning here that it's common to have only one meal a day, and that a cup of tea or coffee in the morning is about all one gets.) We set out a little after 11, and didn't return until around 7 pm. I still haven't eaten now at 9 pm. But I can't complain, given where I've been today.

Alice and I went to Korogocho, one of Nairobi's largest slums. As in 300,000-400,000 residents in this slum. It's a very large slum.

We first went to the office of SOLAK (Solidarity Against HIV/AIDS in Kenya), where we met Fred Oganga and Jacqueline, a case worker. HIV/AIDS affects at least 4% of the people in the slum, perhaps more. SOLAK offers services for those living with the disease, including counseling, food and nutritional support, and assistance with school fees and uniforms for children of families affected by AIDS. They operate on a shoestring budget provided primarily by a foundation in Canada. These are two very dedicated people, doing some incredibly demanding work in one of the most difficult places I have ever seen.

It's hard to describe Korogocho. Abject poverty and misery on a massive scale -- and at the same time children everywhere who smile and say "how wa you?" and run to shake your hand when they see a person who looks like me. This kind of cheer in spite of the fact that some of them get only 3 meals a week (yes, a week), consisting primarily of rice or some other staple. At one of the schools we visited we were told that they have nearly 100% attendance on Thursdays (unlike other days), because that is the one day they can offer the children a lunch -- some cooked rice that is provided to them each week by the Hare Krishnas.

We visited two schools that are served by SOLAK. Each of them was packed with uniformed children tightly packed in school benches in crowded classrooms. The first school we visited, the Ushindi Academy, has 375 students in 10 classrooms, with 11 teachers. 37 children can be packed into a room about the size of a generous Andover bathroom. The school (probably the whole neighborhood) was having a blackout when we were there, so the principal's office where we first met had only a small gas light which had been taken from one of the classrooms so that we could meet. Mr. Boniface Anyonyi is a very nice, warm, caring man who has enormous compassion and seems to be quite competent. We later visited the classroom the light had come from, where 30-40 children sat in total darkness, still as could be, until their gas lamp was returned. They were delighted to have visitors, and the quiet in the rooms quickly erupted into chaos when I entered and began greeting them and taking their pictures. I could go on and on about the conditions in the schools -- but I won't. You get the picture. Actually, you can't unless you actually see it, but I'll resist what could only sound like hyperbole or sensationalism by trying to describe any more than I have already. I have pictures that will show you the smiling faces, and video that will record all the "how wa you?"s. They can't possibly tell the whole story, however.

After the two school visits, we went off the beaten path down through little narrow alleyways of corrugated tin hovels, across open sewers and piles of garbage to the homes of three different families. The first mom we met was Elizabeth. She looked like she was probably in her late 20s -- about the same age as my own Elizabeth. This Elizabeth has five children. She is HIV+. So is her husband, but he refuses to admit it or to get any kind of help. He is also an alcoholic who abuses her, but who (mercifully) is not around very much. Her children are ages 2-7. The four of us, Elizabeth and her five children barely fit into their living space. Two of her children had to leave school last week because she could no longer afford their school fees. All five are at home with her now. After visiting with her for about 20 minutes, she wanted to walk us back out to the street to thank us and say goodbye to us. She is hopeful that one of her children might be chosen to go away to a new boarding school in Kinangop, an idea that meets with only enthusiasm and absolutely no resistance from such a desperate mom.

We visited two other homes, one a 35 year old mother of four and grandmother of two, whose husband has already died from AIDS, the other one also a mother of four, the last two of whom were born after she was diagnosed with HIV. Only the youngest was born with HIV however, and she received sero-immune therapy as an infant and thankfully no longer has the virus. This kind of therapy is something that Alice worked on for the World Health Organization in Zimbabwe a decade ago, and it is paying off for many newborns, including this little girl. One of the moms we met makes the only money she ever gets by washing things for other people. She usually gets about 20 shillings a day -- that's about 30 cents US. Her rent for the corrugated room she calls home is 400 shillings a month (that's about $6.50 a month). That's before she buys any food or anything else to live on. She's part of the 1 billion on our planet who live on less than $1 a day. She and her four kids, that is.

And, I have to say, neither she, nor anyone we met today, asked us for one thing. They were just glad we were there. I did see Alice slip her a 50 shilling note to buy some food for herself, since her kids got a meal today at the feeding program.

We walked for block after endless block of slum housing and shops, children everywhere reaching out to us, smiling and laughing, while the faces of their parents and grandparents grew increasingly hopeless with each passing year of their lives. The flames of their desperation were fanned in the recent post-election chaos, and Korogocho was hit by some of the worst violence in the country. Violence, apparently, is a result not only of political corruption and stolen elections, but of the poverty and resulting desperation they breed.

As we left Korogocho Alice asked me how I was. I said I hadn't really known what I was in for today. She smiled and said, "I didn't want to scare you off!" I have been in some pretty tough places -- in Latin American slums, in refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, and in some pretty poor places at home in the United States and Canada -- but I had never been to a place like this. We talked on the way home about how difficult it is, but how important it is also that we have these experiences. She said there are many people right in Nairobi that have only the faintest idea where Korogocho even is. It's easy for the world to forget them. But I experienced today that their hearts beat just like mine does. Their blood is the same color as mine, even if their skin is not. They hunger when they are not fed, just like I do. They get depressed when there doesn't seem to be any way out. They are human. They are us. They are the ones Jesus spoke of when he said "inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me." (Matthew 25).

Alice has just walked in. She just got back from taking her son, Joshua, back to his school. She has brought a pizza for our dinner. I'll do my best to enjoy it.