Week 3: Outreach Week

This week has been not quite as busy as last week. We spent the last couple days visiting various organizations around Nairobi. On Monday we visited an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS. It was a really great facility and the kids seemed to be well loved and well treated. Yesterday we also went to another orphanage for abandoned children. This one too was well run and was overflowing with volunteers. As we had a tour of this place we got a chance to look at some pictures of the babies that were found. Most come into the centre malnourished and emaciated. There was a picture of one child who was so skinny that a wedding ring could fit around his forearm. Most of the children were abandoned. One was found beside a pit latrine (“toilet”—hole in the ground). Guz said that most likely this child was abandoned by a teenage girl who didn’t know what to do with her child. Now I don’t want to just shock you with stories that play on your emotions because I think that we do that too much in North America. This is just the reality. The hopeful thing is that beside each of these pictures there was an after shot of each child. In the shots the once abandoned infants were healthy and happy. Not all of them made it, but most did.
We also spent some time at various schools that QMO and YESS have taught in the past. We went to encourage the students to continue to work hard and get to university. We visited Kibera. This is the biggest slum in all of Africa with roughly 1.5 million people living in an area the size of an average golf course (in fact there is a golf course right beside the slum). I felt pretty prepared going into Kibera. We drove to the end of a road and got out to face a sea of rusty tin roofed houses stretching up and beyond a hill. This is the beginning of Kibera. We then started our way up through what seemed like a labyrinth of houses and alleyways. A narrow stream that provides the water supply for Kibera runs along the path that we took. It is a yellowish, green colour and garbage litters the gutter and the path. Because the houses are so close together, I felt like at each turn we were intruding into someone’s living room. Most people are outside and kids are everywhere. At one point a 5 year old boy and I exchanged a game of peekaboo.
The school that we went to is sandwiched by houses on all sides and is the shape of a narrow rectangle. There are probably about 10 classrooms. Five on the first floor and five on the top. This is probably one of the only two storey building in the area.
Despite all of the poverty, the people of Kibera are quite industrious. The main road is littered with hairdressing salons, welding shops, “fresh” fish stands and even hotels (one in particular, “Lord’s Blessings Hotel”…probably smaller than my room at school.) The people are brilliant and seem to have a resiliency that is so foreign to our cushy North American lifestyle.
One more thing to add about Kibera to give a full story is that though many people live in the slum out of necessity, there are those that live there to reduce housing costs so that they can afford good cars and live close to the city.
There is so much more to talk about…. I’m learning so much… especially about our responsibility as affluent North Americans. I can’t go into it now, but please ask me about this when I return.
On Wednesday we visited a school that QMO has taught at in recent years to encourage the students. After spending about an hour with them, we traveled to look at the YESS office nearby. This took about an hour. After this we got back onto the highway to travel back to Nairobi. This was about 5:00pm. As we started down the four lane highway we noticed a crowd on the side of the road. As we got closer I noticed a body on the ground, covered in a cloth except for legs sticking out. We pulled the Matatu to the side of the road just up ahead and some of the YESS members darted out to see what was going on. As we were waiting in the car, we noticed beside us a large flat bed truck containing bricks. The left side mirror was completely smashed. After we noticed this, the YESS members returned with grim looks on their faces and I immediately had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What had happened was this girl was waiting or walking on the side of the road and the breaks on the flat bed truck gave way and he hit this girl. The girl was dead. The incident probably happened five minutes before we got there. The horrible thing in all of this was that this girl was one of the students that was at the school that we had gone to see a hour previous to this.
….life is so fragile. And judging from the reactions of some of the Kenyans, this sort of loss is not uncommon. Death is an ever present thing. One of our wonderful YESS members lost her niece and sister to pregnancy complications last week.
Taking all of this in, it’s so easy to emotionally detatch myself. I don’t want to. Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism….or maybe it’s because I can’t relate completely to the commonness of death. I don’t know….

So other than that, Kenya has been amazing! It’s been so wonderful to see the impact that YESS is having on students. As cheesy as this is, it’s true: Knowledge is power. It’s not by money or resourses alone, it’s education. This is what makes the difference.
Tomorrow we’re hosting a Sports Tournament and VCT (Volunteer Counselling and Testing Day) in a local slum. It’s going to be great. There are a lot of teams entered into the tournament and from what I hear the teams are going to be pretty intense. Pretty much everybody and his mother plays football here. It’s going to be crazy because we have no idea how many students/ local kids are going to show up, but I’m pretty excited to see what happens.
Also on Sun we went to Nairobi National Park. It was an overcast day so we didn’t see a lot. We did see this giraffe, baboons, army ants (the coolest), waterbuffalo and their sidekick white bird that eats their ticks. We also saw a rhino and a crocodile. I’m excited to go to a more southern park in Kenya where we will hopefully see lions, zebra and elephants.

Lastly, I wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mr. Chan, Alanna’s church and Frank and Joyce for their generous donations. Your recent support has gone a long way. Some of the money will allow high school grads the oppourtunity to go to a career fair that will basically guarantee jobs. This is a once in a lifetime oppourtunity for these students. In Kenya the government supports some students with need (the majority) to go to university. The application procedure takes 2 years after high school. In this time, students can loose interest or get involved in other things. This career fair will be really great to get these students plugged into some successful jobs and secure a lot of their future. It only takes a little from us to have a big impact. So again thank you.