Our Day in the Slums

How does one describe the slums of Kibera?

It is very difficult.

The area is about 2 square miles. It ‘houses’ anywhere from 800,000 to 1.2 million people. The dirt is a dark red, and you can’t escape getting somewhere on your clothes, caked on your shoes.
It clings to you as if to say, “You won’t be able to just brush this off.”
There is only one or two roads going through the nicer parts, everything else is a winding footpath between huts. An average house in Kibera is maybe, mmm…ten by ten. One of these rooms will sleep 5-8 people.

I’m not sure how to describe the reaction I had the other day when we went to visit a boy who was home sick from school. Rick and I went with the school chaplain and a boy named Moses, who lived with the sick boy. Our journey took us about a half mile from the school, and down a narrow path off of the main road. The path weaved its way among metal shanties and mud houses, and we were forced to step around women and children doing the washing outside their doors. Now, you must understand, a ‘path’ means the dry places and high spots where you step to avoid muddy piles of plastic bags and the trickling stream of water and sewage. It pulls the bottom right out of your stomach. If this was your life, this would be your daily walk to school, to work, to go anywhere.

The two boys who lived in this small room together were lucky, we were told. To be out on their own and to have so much space to themselves was unusual. Their room consisted of one bed small bed (which they shared,) a small table, a couple of stools, and some water jugs. A light bulb hung from the ceiling, and their towels hung above the edge of their bed to dry. We prayed for Eric, who had chicken pox, and left.

For some reason I imagined slum dwellers to be something very different from myself. It is easy when you see a documentary about such places to distance yourself from the human-ness of it. The visuals are all chopped up so you can digest small portions. You can’t smell the smells, you don’t hear the sounds, and you listen to some person far away through the voice of a translator. But when you are there, you can’t get away from it. You can’t pause the experience or change the channel. But Moses and Eric live there. I know their names. I have shaken both of their hands, looked them in the eyes. They are very good boys, and they are both good students. Eric is first in his class. He wants to be a journalist. Moses wants to be an accountant. Are these the people who live in the world’s slums?

On the way back, I listened to Moses tell me everything I could wish to know about the Kenyan system of government. I can now tell you how many readings a bill goes through in the Kenyan Parliament before the president signs it. And as we were walking and talking, I realized, this guy is just as intelligent as I am, maybe more so. He knows more about his government than I know about mine! Forgive me for saying it, but I always imagined people in slums to be very…simple. Maybe like…they could only be educated so far, but their circumstances really have handicapped them. But no, they are no different than me. And I don’t know why, but that’s scary. I need a bigger God for that, a bigger God to sort this one out. How can so many, over 1 million just in Kibera, be so shortchanged? It’s easier to deal with it when we can assume that there is some sort of justification for why they are there, and that there really isn’t much hope for helping them.

But thankfully, Chris and Irene are here, helping one child at a time. First Love makes a world of difference to the kids who come to school because there is food, and also hear the Good News there. The orphanage is coming along SO WELL! Rick was amazed at how much they had gotten done in just a few months since he was last here. I’m impressed as well.

Kwaheri! (goodbye in Kiswahili)
-Steve the Intern