Visiting Kibera - East Africa's Largest Slum

Hey Everyone,

I hope that everyone is well.

I had the chance to visit my very first slum on Tuesday of this week,
and it was very... enlightening and saddening to say the very least.

It wasn't anything of which I had imagined it would be with just a
touch of absolutely everything you could see on the television. I know
that everyone reading this would have seen those advertisements for aid
in Africa asking you to please donate after seeing the children in the
slums. Well I saw the largest one, and it is still hard to put into
words even after having the chance to think about it for two days.

As you approach the slum you don't see anything that is really that out
of the ordinary. Buildings lining the streets much in the same way I
had seen for nearly a month now and I didn't see what all f the fuss
was about. These buildings, as I quickly found, were an attractive
facade put up to hide the nearly 800,000 people living behind the
markets and buildings.

As you step out to over look the valley in which Kibera sits you are
immediately hit with the smell of fermenting garbage and human waste.

Literally a dump of plastic, old clothes and food scraps is strewn
throughout the temporary housing in which people live. The houses are
entirely made of mud and if the houses were lucky enough to have doors
or windows they were usually made from old car parts or scraps of

metal. The slum literally stretches as far as you can see. So many
people living in a swamp of disease and sickness. A swamp due to the
fact when it rains the water runs down into the village and turns the
already non-existent road and walk-ways into a pool of the plastic and
garbage it is built on. I asked our guide what happens to those who are
try to get to work after a large rain storm, he just looked at me with
a look that obviously signified that these people, many of whom live
day to day off of the kindness of strangers, may not get to go to work,
therefore they and their children go without what little food they get
for a day.

We began our decent to the familiar cheers of "Muzungo"! Which of
course means white person (namely me). The little kids also a lot in
general with excitement and joy of seeing people who may be coming to v
is it them, or possibly even aid them. The children love to run up and
hold your hands, just to see if it is really that white! Very cute
little kids just running around screaming "HOW ARE YOU?" over and over
again is enough to make you smile a little bit, even though you feel
absolutely overwhelmed by the whole scene you are walking through.

The biggest thing you notice about these kids is that they really are
just kids living their lives within their own means. Regardless of
their hardships they still skip ropes, play tag and roll old tires
around to keep themselves entertained. No one is ever watching them
however. Mother and father all working hard to ensure that they are fed
in the night, so the kids are running around in huge packs finding some
sort of mischief and fun. It is amazing to think that they wake up
every morning and truly do not know of any different life. They live

life as happy as they can. It makes you really think about kid's back home sitting with their Xboxes and television sets. So privileged, so blessed, and yet no matter how many times you tell them that there are children who don't have those sort of things they could never know the impact unless they turn 21 and decide to head clear
across the world to see it for themselves.

As we continued to descend into the slums I watched as children
defecated in the middle of the street. Dogs and pigs and ducks eating
little scraps of garbage and drinking from the highly polluted stream.

Which really makes you think that even the most privileged living in
this slum have no idea what sort of a risk they are putting themselves
by simply eating the animals which they have worked hard to nurture
from birth. The people simply look at you with blank stares, knowing
that regardless of how bad you feel you could never ever know what it
was like to live a life like they have led.

There are some toilets available that looked really clean and modern.

But you then realize why. The door reads 5 shillings to use. 5
shillings is often what some people make in a day. Imagine spending all
of your days wage to simply use a toilet that wasn't your sideway.

There is hope here for the people though. For those of you that have
ever seen the movie "Constant Gardener" may have recognized that Kibera
was used as the setting. The cast and crew from that movie did a lot to
repay the people of Kibera by creating public toilets, creating fresh
water tanks and building bridges across the highly polluted river. It
is also good to see that organizations like UNICEF and the UN have
really stepped up to put structures in place that aid the people of
Kibera.

While the government seeks to displace the people for development
projects, there are tons of organizations working to improve the lives
of the people in Kibera. It is a very good, but a very disheartening
feeling to realize that your country may be doing more to support the
people living in this slum than the host country itself.

As I walked away from the slum I realized that it was a moment that I
will never forget. Not because of how sad it made me or how sorry I
felt for the people there. But for the fact that these people showed
such determination in the face of adversity. Seeing people fighting
each day to live really makes you re-evaluate your level of stress
about making deadlines and driving in congested freeways back in
Canada. Nothing I will ever go through will be like what I saw people
going through today. No amount of stress will ever compare with the
level of stress I would feel if I had to beg, steal, and slave for
enough to eat in any given day.

I have now seen destitute and my perspective has once again shifted to
account for the emotions and things I have seen.

I don't know if I am actually of to Tanzania, as plans seem to fall
through here fast than the Matatu's driving down the highway.

Hope to have some pictures from the slum in my next update, which

HOPEFULLY will also involve pictures of ZANZIBAR!

Much love,

Devan