Saturday in the Kibera slum of Nairobi

Pat here.

Yesterday we went into one of the large slums in Nairobi. It's called Kibera. It's hard to describe since we don't see anything like that in the US. Lauren has some photos we can share when we get home. We visited two Saturday bible clubs. The children were age 4 to 14. They were very curious about us. The condition of their clothing was indicative of their poverty. Mismatched shoes, flips flops that were broken so the foot would not stay in the flip-flop, a 4 year old wearing a "onesie" as a shirt that a baby would wear. They recited bible verses that they had memorized and sang us songs. After each child recited or sang, all the children would do a chant with the words "You are the best". Very young kids here don't know English well. But they seems to understand better than they can speak. Older ones do much better. At each place they were served a meal which might be the only meal for the day for them. At one place they served us some porridge. It was a dark and soupy , a bit sweet. We were told it was made with sorgum with a little sugar. It was a bit chalky but not too bad. I doubt if it would go over big for the western taste. At the second place we were served a beans mixture with ugale. The beans were good. It's pretty common to have both. Beans were pretty good. Ugale is one of their staple starches. It made from cornmeal. Not sweet like cornbread and much denser. It does not have a distinctive flavor. Being in the slums is sort of an assault on all your senses. There is rubbish everywhere and the smells are not always so pleasant. Houses and shops are tiny and squeezed together. The "roads" are really just wide dirt paths and are uneven and rutted. When it rains., we are told is just a mess.

Today we go to church with a Daystar alum who works for the International Justice Mission.