Eventful Weekend

Sunday
Kibera Slums of Nairobi
From rags to riches. Never has that been more true to us than from our Saturday experience at the lush tea farm where we feasted on rich foods to our Sunday experience, where we picked our way through sticky, slimy, smelly trash where over one million live in one acre. Our guides were Reagan and Bossman each about 18 years old and both had grown up in this slum. They now attend the same church as Yeen-lan and she had set up this most heart wrenching experience for us.
How can one describe this slum? Bits and pieces of sticks, cement, metal, mud and plastic piled together to make so many tiny huts--each home to several adults and many children or a store front selling whatever they could scrounge up. A long ditch dug along the sides of the alleys filled with crud. Small charcoal fires in the middle where pots boiled and food--what little we saw--was being cooked. Lines of people standing in line with plastic cooking oil containers--waiting to pay for some water. On top of a large mound of plastic bags and other trash sat two small buildings--the bathrooms for those who got a key when they paid their rent. Since it was too dangerous to go out at night, if you needed to relieve yourself, you went in a plastic bag and added it to the mound in the morning. That explained the mound of plastic bags. Yes, I said rent. Each hut paid between $12 to $30 a month to live there. That did include electricity for some and for those who pirated electricity, they could expect to have their homes torched. Reagan took us into his mother's home. She was ill with malaria so only peeked around a curtain from her bed to say "Karibu"--welcome. Three small couches lined the walls each covered with very clean, white sheets that his mother had embroidered flowers on. The only bedroom & this livingroom was about 12' x 6'. The walls were made of sticks covered with mud but curtains covered most of it. No windows only a door that you needed to crouch down in order to enter. In one corner sat a small TV and a single light bulb hung from a wire. I asked if most homes had a TV and Bossman said yes. It made me sad to think that the TV showed them a world so different than theirs. And every where there were children--laughing, playing, running to touch us and say "How are you?" "How are you?" How ironic that they wanted to know how we were? Mud piles, empty bottles, broken glass, pieces of string, plastic bags and sticks were their toys. So many children. I saw the faces of some of the orphans here at Rafiki in some of their faces and knew that this is where they'd lived if not for Rafiki Orphange. Reagan told us that most families here could not afford the $700 a year that it cost to send a child to school. And so the cycle will continue. It amazed me to see how clean most the adults looked. They also smiled many greeting our guides. I asked Bossman how many children most women had and he smiled and said, "If they are working, two or three. If they are not they have more time for love making and have very many." He also told me birth control pills we available free but most feel having babies made them more of desirable woman. Both boys talked about their family tribe in what they called the 'upcountry'. I asked why they and other didn't move back there. They said, no jobs and there you would get old very fast. When they got old, about 40 or so, they would go to the up country to live. They explained that most people who live in Kibera would not want to move away. They were close to shops, Nairobi and family and many friends. It was home to them. Reagan joked with Rog asking if he would like to trade homes with him--then he could go to school at U of M. He and Bossman were lucky ones. They had found sponsors to help them pay for schooling--though right now they'd run out of money so were trying to find more sponsors. Bossman said either the youth go to school or became thieves. Those who turn bad bullied others into joining them so their gang was stronger. We did hear church hymns being sung, the salvation army marched through and also they were holding an outside service and Reagan proudly showed us the medical center that was run by his church, the Baptist Church of Nairobi. We thanked our guides and then went to the Baptist Church meeting up with Yeen-lan.
I'm sure you know what we prayed for.



Saturday
Kiambethu Tea Farm
We went to a tea farm on Saturday. We weren't sure why but everyone told us it was a great trip and we should go. So we just took their advice. We were surprised how quickly the city changed to rural country side just to the north and we passed through several small towns along the way. Small towns and rural scenery was a welcome change from the urban crowds of Nairobi. The road was good as we gained altitude to about 7200' above sea level. We had been advised to bring a jacket as it can be chilly there but it was sunny and very nice there. The owner of the tea farm and his wife met us in the yard and invited us to take a walk around their garden (it was beautiful with lots of huge blossoms), then we stopped by their porch for a drink. Soon we were inside the house sipping tea and listening to stories about the history of the family and the tea farm. Fiona's grandfather had come to this very place and started growing coffee in 1906. He had 350 wooded acres that he eventually cleared. The coffee did not do well because it is too cool there due to the altitude she started growing tea for the local Indian population (they had come to build railroads and were big tea drinkers). The fields looked like huge patchwork quilts laid out on the hillsides with many shades of green alternating across the field in fairly regular patterns. We next went on a short walk through a wooded area that had never been cleared for growing tea. Our guide told about the native plants there and he said that the vine growing in spirals around a tree would be spiraling the opposite way if we were north of the equator. I would like to ask Barry if that sounds like accurate information. Soon we were walking past geese,calves, donkeys, and ducks in their farm yard. Lunchtime! A great meal followed with homemade butter, rolls, and soup.Then salad, maize (white corn) and cheese, potatoes, green beans,carrots,swiss steak, followed by fruit and homemade ice cream. Back out to the porch to watch colobus monkeys climb around on the roof of the out buildings and visit with two other couples (from Maryland and Minnesota). It was so pretty there that we hated to go.

Friday
Baseball in Kenya
On Friday I had the 6th grade class for PE class. Their teacher had asked me to teach them baseball. It was a small class and all of them are from Mwiki (the community outside our compound). The oldest orphans here arein 5th grade. I started by asking them if anyone had ever heard of baseball. Not one student raised his hand. So I just started at the beginning...they were very attentive and somewhat interested so with a whiffle bat and a hard sponge ball and old tires for bases (home plate was set up under an acacia tree for shade) we played. Everyone including their teacher ran the bases and swung the bat several times at pitches I threw to them. Surprisingly there were many hits and we all had a good time. They asked if I could come back and show them some more. It was a treat to hear them cheer for their teacher when she came across home plate!

My Wife is a Slave Driver
Actually she has a way with putting her foot in her mouth at times (don't we all?) Jane was apologizing to one of the National(Kenyan) teachers for returning a student to class later than planned and she said "what can I say? I guess I'm just a slave driver!" After thinking about that reply she felt like crawling into a hole.