Kibera… Where to begin. The most beautiful place on the face of the earth that represents some of the worst poverty you could imagine. From a distance, all you can see is a sprawling mass of uniform orange tin roofs that stretch from the streets of Nairobi out to the edge of a forest, with rolling hills intermittently changing the scene from the orange tin to the aluminum siding of the slum houses, only contrasting slightly from the brown dirt roads, rocky paths, green patches of grass and a small river containing more garbage than water. As you get closer, you realize that this inspiration for millions of paintings and countless photographs is not beautiful at all. It is arguably the hardest place to live on the face of the earth. It is a representation of so much of what is wrong with Africa. One million-three hundred thousand individuals who eat, sleep, play, cry, pray, laugh, and sing. One million-three hundred thousand individuals who are born and most of which will eventually die in this open air prison. Not a prison in the sense that they can’t get up and leave. A prison in the sense that they are so deeply rooted in Kibera that they will never leave. Whether it is the sheer poverty, the family ties, the sacrifices that force them to stay or the invisible bars placed by drug addiction and violence that keep them in the quick-sand like pull of Kibera, it is a black-hole where lives are sucked in and never seen again. It sounds dramatic, but I believe it is rightfully so. This is the place where thousands upon thousands of people were slaughtered during the violence in the late 2000’s. This is the place where my friend Will was robbed at gunpoint by a group of gangsters at the front step of the school that he volunteered at for 6 months, flying to Nairobi from Australia, giving not only his time but his money to serve the community. The people that robbed him were not American gangbangers. They are people who have NOTHING, not even the unity of a gang. They would die and kill for something so minuscule that someone with anything to their name wouldn’t even recognize it. During the day it is dangerous don’t get me wrong, at night it is a place that you couldn’t pay me to walk around, even with a Kenyan and you couldn’t force me at gunpoint to go there by myself at night. In 2008 Kibera was Mogadishu. It was Port-au-Prince. It was Dante’s Seventh level of Hell (yes, I chose 7^Th for a reason… do some reading/research). There is a man that works for Fadhili (the organization that I am working through) that lives in Kibera. Just having a job alone, not to mention working for Fadhili which is a SOLID position in Nairobi would allow him the funds to move out of Kibera. But he has no parental support (didn’t ask if they were alive or not) and he has been paying to put both of his brothers in boarding school. He can’t afford to move out because of all the money that he is shelling out for his brothers and because of his sacrifice he is living in a aluminum house in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world where being robbed is a weekly occurrence. With all this being said, I decided to wander in by myself on Sunday morning while I figured the entire 1.3 million residents would be in church… kidding. Two of my friends from orientation have been teaching in a school in Kibera and the man who started the school is a local politician and a very prominent figure in the slum. He offered to take the two girls on a tour of the slum and told them to invite friends. When they told me, I jumped on the opportunity! I still took precaution. Only bringing a cellphone, no money, no camera etc etc, but I couldn’t miss this chance to see a huge chunk of Kibera  with someone who knows the slum and is known in the community and would not be messed with.

A tiny taste of the natural beauty of Kibera in contrast to the filth and lifestyle that actually takes place there.

So it was settled. Six wazungu and a local politician trekked into the Sowetto village of Kibera Slum (Kibera is split up into many different communities because it is incredibly huge). We met at his house. His name is Raphael, but he urged us to call him by his acquired nickname “rafiki” (friend in Swahili… also the name of the monkey in Lion King). Rafiki introduced us to his family and brought us into his home for tea. It must have been 150 degrees but you can’t refuse tea so we sweated it out (literally). His house was really nice, considering it sat in the heart of Sowetto Village. He is not poor by Kenyan standards but he lives in Kibera to be closer to the community and also to help monitor the school that he set up and runs. After tea he took us to the school, where my two British volunteer friends have their placement. We walked through the crowded, dirty and narrow streets of Kibera, heads up for anything flying through the air (there is no sewage or plumbing in Kibera so people use plastic bags and throw them out of their houses into the streets… not trying to get hit in the face with a bag of poop, not on a 100 degree day at least… That’s gonna ruin your day). The passage ways between houses are so narrow that you can only fit one person at a time, oncoming traffic has to wait, and at times you have to turn sideways and sidestep through because the opening is not even shoulder width. Now imagine it is 2008 and someone was chasing you in this neighborhood. If you were cornered, you were cornered, you can’t go ANYWHERE. The image of violence, burning houses, rocket launcher and machetes, blood spilling on the tiny streets haunted my thoughts even after leaving the slum. We made it to the school that Rafiki set up. It was tiny little shack that housed 50 students. Despite its modest accommodations, it gives 50 children an opportunity for an education, a way out of Kibera and a better life. They raise chickens at the school and sell the eggs that they produce in order to cover the fees for children, get food for lunchtime and keep the school running. It is an incredibly inventive way to keep the school running but needs constant care. After that, Rafiki took us to Sowetto West Academy; a beacon of hope in the middle of a hopeless community. It is a school that starts with baby class (pre-pre-school) and continues all the way through high school. Rafiki led us into the school (it was Sunday morning so there weren’t any kids) and introduced us to the principal. The principal talked us through the entire operation of the school and answered all of our questions. Even in the heart of Kibera, they are able to keep the kids in school and have about a 90% graduation rate of their 300 plus kids. Talk about impressive. They do this by staying involved at every level of the students’ lives. School, family, social lives… they are there. They teach about sex and drugs and violence inside and outside of the classroom… and they start earllllly. The principal was an impressive man who couldn’t have been more than 35 or so who has dedicated his life to the school and to the slum. That is one thing about Kibera that stuck with me; so many people dedicate their entire lives to the place and so many people that make it out are more than willing to come back and try to help. After the Sowetto Academy, Rafiki led us up a hill and over a tiny wooden bridge over the garbage water where pigs were bathing and kids were playing. We traveled through Sowetto cutting around 90 degree corners going down a  huge incline with shoulder width space between the rusted metal house on your left and a barbwire fence on your right with a nearly invisible clothesline across at eyebrow level. After navigating the treacherous obstacle course that are the back alleys of Kibera, we reached a man’s house. A man, his 6 sons, 2 daughters and his wife’s house, I should say. It was probably 15 feet long and 10 feet wide, made of aluminum and plastic siding with a tarp over the top and an old tablecloth as a door. We met his eldest son and Rafiki translated his story to us (he didn’t speak English). We ended up getting in a conversation about family and Rafiki asked us why our families were so small. Coming from a family of 2 kids, I thought that this was an acceptable number, but in Africa, I found out this is nowhere near enough. Rafiki has 8 kids, the man whose house it was had 8 kids and Rafiki told us that a man he went to school with has 207 kids. 72 wives and 207 kids. He is a tribesman and his tribe not only allows, but encourages multiple wives. Well this guy took that to heart. 207 kids!!!! (I promise you this is not made up or exaggerated… why add any more kids than what was told to me?!) The Kenyan government granted him town status. He has a doctor as a son, a son who is a lawyer one who is a pharmacist… he has all his bases covered by his own procreation. He doesn’t need to pay for anything, he just has his wives and kids take care of him. I have no idea how these kids became successful, but if a man can have 70 wives and 200 kids, I figure he can find a way. Sorry, I had to get that story in here somewhere, didn’t know how exactly, so I just plugged it in… After the man’s house Rafiki led us up one of the biggest hills in Kibera to give us a view from the top. It was breathtaking. It is the most eerily beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It gives me goosebumps even writing about it. If there was music playing in the background it could have been a scene from a movie. City of God meets slumdog millionaire meets the air up there (?)…. But seriously, the sheer size of it was mind boggling. It stretched as far as you could see in almost every direction. I’ve been there, touched the ground, smelled the air, interacted with the people and there is still a part of me that is in denial that this place exists. The view from this hill choked you up and you were unable to tell if it was from happiness from this inexplicably beautiful view or the devastation that 1.3 million people live there. Kibera is a place that you have to see to believe, to feel in order to recognize. I will not pretend that I know this place or understand it because there are Kenyans in the government and in the slum itself that don’t know it or understand it. I think that is part of the problem. But where is the solution? Is this the type of thing that can’t be solved? Is it too big, both physically and symbolically? As much as I hope that isn’t the case, I don’t have the answer. But I do know that it is here in Kenya, and it is real, for better or for worse. The people here (especially children) weren’t given a choice, they were dropped in this situation without any perception of what they were getting themselves into. They were brought into this world with the same amount of chance and fortune as I was… as you were, we were just lucky. I know that everyone goes through times that are difficult and nothing ever goes as planned, but this experience has opened my eyes to how lucky I am just to be put in the position that I am in. There are kids in Kibera who if they were born in my position would excel beyond measure. But they weren’t. And I was. So I’m not going to waste the opportunity that was given to me and I’m not going to take it for granted. I can see that now.

 But seriously… 207 kids?... Really? Is that necessary?