I left
from Munich on the 27th at 7:10 am, had a connection in London, and
then arrived in Nairobi at 10 pm. One of the ladies, Sarah Josiah, who works
with HOPE Worldwide, the organization I’m working with, picked me up from the
airport with her 9-year-old daughter Aisha. It was so weird because I had to
withdraw Kenyan money due to the fact that all I had were Euros and American
money. By the way, the currency here is Kenyan Shillings, and so different from
Euros and Dollars. When the options were given to me on the ATM screen asking
how much to withdraw, it ranged from 1,000 KS to 10,000 KS. My mouth literally
dropped open because my mind immediately thinks in Dollars or Euros now.
However, one US dollar is equal to 80 Kenyan Shillings. So once you do the
math, it’s not really that big of a deal. It’s even kind of fun spending 100 KS
and it only equals $1.20.
Sarah,
Aisha, and I drove to where I’m living for the next five weeks, which is with a
lady who is a part of the church and works with HOPE. Her name is Fridah (it
reminds me of zufrieden in German, and that makes me happy), she’s twice my age
and extremely sweet and hospitable. Her room is just a little bigger than mine
in Studentenstadt and she’s sharing it with me for over a month. If any of you
know how small my room is in Stusta, than you absolutely understand that it’s
not made for more than one person, and how much she is sacrificing by letting
me stay there.
By the way, the weather here is
INCREDIBLE. I was and have so much been looking forward to the warmth after
having been frozen to death for the last three months or so. I haven’t worn a
jacket at all since I’ve been here J.
And on my first day on our trip out to one of the slums HOPE works with,
Mukuru, the weather still did not disappoint. I was sweating only after an hour
of being there. And I think for maybe the first time in my life, I was not complaining
about hot weather. Before going there, Fridah and I walked to a hotel where a
volunteer group from Canada was staying at, and they were going to Mukuru with
us to distribute everything their program collected for the kids. They work
with program called “Sleeping Children around the World”, and I’m pretty sure
it’s not in the United States. Here’s the link though, if you are interested in
checking it out: http://www.scaw.org/about/index.html.
They were the nicest group of people, two older
married couples, and a younger engaged couple in their late twenties. They were
cracking up together the entire time and made everything extremely
light-hearted and fun. Plus they are all very well-traveled and had some
amazing stories to tell about their adventures. We drove from the hotel to the
slums, and OH MY GOSH, the driving here is insane. First off, they drive on the
opposite side of the road (when there is a road), and second off, there are no lines dividing the two sides of the
road. And no one really follows the driving rules here, everyone drives all over the place (Mom, don’t freak out).
And then by the time we got to Mukuru, the road started to get extremely bumpy
and eroded, which reminded me a lot of the roads we drove through in Panama
three years ago. On the way to the HOPE section in Mukuru, many shacks were set
up with people selling the most random things. Things ranged from shoes, to
food, to hair dressers, to furniture shops, to auto-mechanic repair, to even a
mini store selling Apple products. It was so odd to see these places that are
so normal in everyday life, minimalized into a shack, with no windows, and broken
doors. It looked so out of place, and confusing because I couldn’t understand
how these people could sell these products when they couldn’t afford a home, or
a safe building to sell them in.
The
slums of Mukuru are home to over 600,000 people. Most of these people have left
their rural homes because of poverty and came to the city in the hope of
finding work. Some are successful but the majority, being unskilled and
uneducated, remain jobless. They live in very poor shacks made from cardboard
or plastic material while those who are a little better off have houses made from
corrugated iron sheets. The one-roomed houses are approximately ten by ten feet
and have no sanitation or running water. There is no waste collection and most
of the waste, household and other, goes directly into a nearby river. About 60%
of Nairobi’s population lives in slum conditions. Slum dwellers pay rent for
their shacks to landlords who ‘own’ the land. The amount varies from US $12-25
per month depending on the location of the house. There is no space for
children to play. There are no recreation facilities for adults or children
with the exception of bars, video shops, pool tables. Many turn to local brew,
drugs and crime.
We spent the majority of the day giving over 700 kids
living in Mukuru pajamas and bed sets
from the program in Canada. However, it took a very long time for a job that
shouldn’t have taken the whole day. The problem is that some kids were not
eligible to receive the pjs and bed sets because they were not as ‘needy’ as
other kids in Mukuru. So those kids and their parents sat outside of the barred
wires all day, looking in and watching, with some of the kids even crying. The
sad part is that children had to be given their beds one by one, and marked
with a black marker on their thumbs after getting them in order to make sure
the kids who weren’t eligible for beds didn’t sneak in and steal a kid’s who
was eligible, or the same kid trying to take a second bed that wasn’t theirs.
Apparently things like that happen a lot there, and it’s usually because the
parents of the kids are encouraging their kids to do it. I think that’s the
saddest part of all.
My job for the day was to take pictures of the
children, which I was extremely happy to do. I ended taking 345 pictures only
having been there for a day. Almost every single picture is of the kids. I was
told constantly to just go up to the kids and take pictures of them, but I felt
like I was invading their personal spaces. But then I quickly found out why
they said that—the kids LOVE taking pictures, cameras, and seeing themselves in
the pictures. They were absolutely adorable, posing, laughing, showing peace
signs, ‘modeling’ for me, and some were even trying to teach me some Swahili.
There were two younger girls who at one point asked me to come sit with them
under the white tent in some chairs. I was really confused and followed to be
polite. They looked really shy at first, and then they started singing to me!
It was so precious; they sang “Stand By Me” and sounded so good! And while they
sang, other girls played with my hair (my favoriteeee) and asked how I got my
hair so soft haha. The kids of Mukuru are really delightful, and I’m so excited
to continue working with them for the next five weeks.
After Mukuru, Fridah and I went to the grocery store,
and I was incredibly impressed by their selection. I guess my only previous
view of Africa was like slums, tribes, safaris…very stereotypical stuff, and
it’s weird to me that there’s a semblance of normalcy here, like in Germany or
America. They do have little weird things though—the city bus is really sketchy, looks broken down, and
has no indication that it is the city bus, but it only costs about 20 Ksh per
ride. They also have these super sketchy vans called 'Matatu’s, which are vans
that people literally just buy and ride all over the city, charging people
however much they want and driving like crazies. My first experience with a
Matatu was the door man (they have door mans because of how fast they go, you
literally have to run into the van before they start back up again and shut the
door in your face) sticking up his middle finger up at me, and the second time
a lady fell out from the side and almost landed on her head on the ground.
Needless to say, they’re not my most favorite contraption in the world.
Wednesday was my
first day at the HOPE Worldwide office and I finally was able to access the
internet since I’ve been here! It was so nice because it always helps me in
feeling some connection with both of my homes. I received some emails from
Clemson, some in German, and a few from Africa as well. I’m literally at the
point where I’m living three lives and spreading myself across three countries.
I find it very exhausting at times. Even at Midweek (they’re called the Nairobi
Christian Church) I was introduced as Jessica Kirkus from Munich, Germany, and
then at the end of the message I was Jessica from South Carolina. Everyone was
extremely confused, and had no idea whether I was German or American. Ha,
welcome to my life. It was cute though because they kept asking me how to say
things in German at first because they thought I was a real German. That made
me really happy. Not because I’m trying to prove myself as a German, but just
because it helps me feel a stronger connection with Germany as my current home.
I won’t be able to call it home much longer and any chance to meet new people
while I’m living there is just really exciting. Not to mention, I was really
glad to not just be another American showing up that only knows the English
language.
I was supposed to
have my orientation at the HOPE office on Wednesday, but I got an email from my
research professor saying I needed to get my research paper in as soon as
possible so that Clemson will release my scholarship money for second semester.
So I literally spent most of the day writing my research paper and getting
situated with little things like paperwork, meeting the staff, finishing my
Paris blog, and uploading the photos I took from the first day in Mukuru. I
even got to skype my mom twice, and David and Patrick once. And then I went
with one of the lady’s there (about half of the employees at HOPE are a part of
the church) to Midweek.
I had no idea what
to expect for church here. I didn’t know what language anything would be in,
how everyone would respond to me being there, if they had anyone my age, how
big they were, and I felt myself getting extremely shy like I first did when I
got to Munich. The Nairobi church has around 1,500 people, which is the biggest
I’ve ever been a part of. They were really sweet and welcoming, with half of
the songs in English and the other ones in Swahili. Although I had no idea what
the Swahili ones were saying, they were my favorites out of the songs played.
When they switched to those songs, they didn’t just sing and sway back and
forth, instead they shouted, they laughed, they danced, they played these huge
bongo drums, and they just had soul. It
sounded incredibly amazing and I caught myself smiling the entire time. The
message was in English (thank God) as well. And at the end one couples
announced their engagement, and another couple I had just met is getting
married on Saturday and invited me to their wedding. Apparently in Africa,
everyone is invited to the wedding, and I think that’s really cool, and
encouraging. It will be the first wedding in the church that I’ve been to since
being baptized J.
I’m so, so excited.
Thursday and Friday consisted of much information
concerning Orientation. There are many different sectors, jobs, and roles in
HOPE, all of which are very interesting. The more I learn about what they do,
the more I feel like I could want to be a part of something like this one day.
They work together as a team to really build their community. They have this
passion that I really haven’t seen in a work area before. True, my experiences
are limited, but if there’s ever a chance in the future where I could be a part
of something like this, I don’t know if I could say no to it. I found out today
that I will be working with three different programs while I’m here. For my
first week, starting on Monday, I will be working with ‘Orphans and Vulnerable
Children’ (OVC), the second week I’m working with Shuuja, which is Swahili for
‘hero’, and then with the Blood department, which I’m not entirely sure
entails, I just know there’s a huge blood shortage in Nairobi and Kenya. I will
be sure to write out in detail what each program is about in my next blogs, but
for now I’m going to end this one.
My first week has been really exciting, tiring,
nerve-wracking, but super beneficial in helping me figure out what my passion
is so that I can follow that passion down whatever road I want to take in life.
I don’t ever want to pursue something I don’t truly have a passion for because
I know myself well enough to be sure that I will never be able to force myself to have
enough patience for it. But so far, this feels like the right direction. I’m
not sure whether I’ll have internet next week, but if I do, I’ll do my best to
post a Week 2 blog then. The internet here is really slow, so I’m going to wait
until I get back to Munich to post pictures. Until then I hope you all enjoy my
ridiculously longs blogs!
Love, Jessica
Links to photos on Facebook:
Sleeping Children Around the World:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381371380235.829331.654390234&type=1
Random:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381350015235.829321.654390234&type=3
Links to photos on Facebook:
Sleeping Children Around the World:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381371380235.829331.654390234&type=1
Random:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381350015235.829321.654390234&type=3
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