Flying toilets don't necessarily make it to the river

We went to Mathare twice this week. The first time was to join in a children's program with the library boys. The library is now run by three boys--the girl who used to run it is about to have a baby and has moved out of Mathare. Whenever we walk through Mathare, we are always accompanied by at least one of them and often all three. They keep anyone away from harassing us. Yesterday, someone approached Malachi but just before he could touch him, one of the library boys grabbed his outstretched arm and stopped him. Last year when I was here, I was always approached and asked for money or food. It hasn't happened once in Mathare this time. And these boys have such good intentions. They love helping the children with their homework in the library or helping an adult that is struggling with literacy.

Anyways, I digress. We walked through Mathare to a 'nursery' school. The building was...rustic. The floor was rough concrete. There were no lights on inside, so I am not sure if they have electricity. It was lit inside by a couple of "skylights" where the corrugated plastic roof wasn't layered and more daylight came through. It was pretty dark. There were about 80 children there sitting at little tables and desks. They all wore dark green uniforms and many also wore touques. (it was 26 degrees that day). We arrived at the start of lunchtime so they all filed past us to wash their hands at a little water dispenser. 

After lunch we accompanied them with one of their teachers to the park (the organization that I am working with built the park a few years ago--I wrote about it last time I was here).  The library boy brought a soccer ball, 2 badminton racquets, and a volleyball. He got Lizzie to teach some kids how to play badminton and Malachi to teach some how to play volleyball.

Can you see the boy with the unraveled sleeve?

These kids were about 4-5 years old, and hadn't yet learned English, so teaching them wasn't easy. They kept crowding in on Malachi. One of the kids sweater was unravelling, but he didn't seem to care. We taught them a janken game where the loser has to lengthen their step until one of them falls over. It was fun.

Afterwards, we walked them back to their school. The younger ones were napping with their heads on the table. The owner of the school came and talked to me. From what I gathered, this is a service she provides to the mothers in Mathare. The kids bring 10 shillings (11 cents) to school everyday and from that she makes their lunch (beans and rice). It seemed to me she does not collect a wage from this. But I never clarified.

I have been working on a report about Mathare so I have learned some of the alarming statistics. It is the 2nd largest informal settlement in Nairobi and one of the most densely populated places in the world. There are 70,000 people per square kilometre. Most people subsist on less than $2 a day which they earn through informal labour. 50 of the 55 participants in our study rated severely food insecure. It makes me feel sad. But it just makes me admire the people volunteering here even more. 

There are no private toilets in Mathare. Several families will share one toilet. It may be 200 metres away from their home and it costs 10 shillings every time they use it. In my research I read that some people instead, make use of  "flying toilets," which means they do their business in a bag, then step outside and throw it--anywhere. I didn't  believe it, so I asked one of the library boys and he confirmed that it happens (mostly at night).

Elizabeth has started a rigorous schedule of marvel movies for her and Malachi to watch before Avengers Endgame--Encore comes out so that Malachi will be caught up and understand everything that is happening. Unfortunately, she can only get Disney plus on her phone. This is how they got comfy->

Saturday we were invited to join in a tree planting event and to watch the Mathare river queens football match. When we arrived, our library boy escorts were waiting for us. They brought us down to the river where there was a big clean up happening. The asked us which side of the road we preferred to work on, and the organizer was about to encourage us to work on the side without trees, but Malachi was adamant he wanted to work on the side with trees (it was hot!) . He soon came to regret this decision when we discovered that we had to carefully watch our steps because they area has been "used as a toilet" by some people and there was all kinds of human feces in various states of decay. Ewww. The task was to move the garbage to the edge of the road into a big pile. We were given shovels to help out.

I don't think pictures can convey the scope or magnitude of how much garbage there was

Eventually people came and took over from us. The reds told me that the library boys kept saying "your mother is very tired"...maybe I was moving too slowly? Once the pile was near the road, they just lit it on fire. 

This fire was left to burn itself out

The people across the river are planting trees.

From there we went and sat in the gazebo which felt nice and cool. Although after sitting there for awhile, Malachi said "my butt keeps falling through the holes." The benches were made of wood slats that had one inch gaps between them.

Eventually the gazebo filled up with all the people that were working to clean up the area. It was very crowded. Some brave children gathered around Elizabeth and were touching her hair and stroking her braid. Some reached across her back to pet Malachi too. My hair was up so they mostly left me alone. We had a brief meeting all in Swahili where a bunch of different leaders were introduced. Lastly, I was asked to say a few words...what? So I just introduced myself. Then the food came out. Everybody was handed a loaf of bread and a bag of milk. We brought our own sandwiches so we were walked back to the office for lunch.

Then we went to watch the football match. It was way on the other end of Mathare. While we were walking, a young boy starting talking to Elizabeth. I thought he was about 9 or 10 years old. As it turned out, 'he' was a 16 year old she--that was on the team. To be fair, I only saw her from behind. The soccer game was played on a red dirt field. It was so hot. Our team lost, but at least they scored a goal--that's always exciting. 

Today was stake conference. The building was so full. My highlight was the choir. Usually  on Sundays it feels like Lizzie and I are doing a duet. We can't hear anyone else. This choir sounded like what I expected the singing to be like in Africa. I loved it. It was a good Sunday.

Click here to listen to a snippet of the Nairobi East Stake choir recording

(It is after the conference is over, so it is a bit noisy)

Malachi gets licked again (okay, so do I)

This week we took an uber out to the giraffe centre with another UFV student. On our way we stopped at the mission home. Last year the mission home was in the building where we go to church, but now it moved far away and we needed to drop off a package for a missionary from Chilliwack that we brought. Luckily, it was on the way to the giraffe centre. The missionaries in the office seemed excited to see us and called the elder for us to talk to him...thing is, I don't actually know him. This call was the first time that I had ever spoken to him. There were some senior missionaries there that were talking to the reds about things to do in Nairobi. The big takeaway for us was that there is a place near Nairobi where you can go to ride ostriches. Really. So stay tuned for future entries because we definitely  have to try this out.

The giraffe centre was fun. A tour bus arrived the same time as us, so it was a little crowded at first, but eventually the group dispersed and we got plenty of access to the giraffes. The giraffes have very long tongues that they stick out for you to place food on. If you are not careful, you will get slimed.

We tended to be too careful and dropped plenty of the food off their tongues. Some of the other tourists were unphased and stuck their fingers right into their mouths. One giraffe refused to take any food from us--I think it is because we missed too many. 

How many giraffes can you spot?

When we were done there, we went to lunch at a cafe that seems to only feed older wazungu women. I never saw any Africans or men there. Afterwards we took the long drive back to Mathare. On our way, we got stuck at a light for a long time. A huge group of motorcycles rode up on the other side of the road honking their horns, blowing whistles and revving their engines. I was a little worried that we had come upon a protest--there had been one the day before--but it turned out to be pretty tame other than blocking traffic.

At Mathare I conducted a focus group discussion for the project I am working on. This was my first time doing something like this. I thought my professor would conduct this discussion, but she left Kenya without getting it done, so it fell on me. We only had 4 participants and mostly only one girl spoke, but I learned so much from it. One thing that you might find interesting is that Mathare has its own kind of street food that you wouldn't find anywhere else. I asked for an example and she told me about moshiogi which is a stuffed chicken head. They stretch the neck out and fill it with potatoes and then boil it. Apparently it is quite good. I'll take their word for it.

After the focus group they took us to see the school that we will be helping out at. The reds were not impressed. They wanted to go home. But I thought seeing the programs they do at the school was really cool. They have a cooker there that they call taka taka zero. Taka is Swahili for garbage. This cooker operates on non-recyclable waste. They cook bread in it which they sell to raise funds for school programs. They also have a little farm there that they showed me. Right now it is only growing managu--some kind of leafy nightshade that they eat a lot of here. Apparently I will be working with them and helping to scale this program for other schools. It seems like the list of things I will be doing is getting longer.

This week I have been working on an application for a competition for innovative ideas that strengthen flood resilience. The applicant is supposed to be a youth and the project is supposed to be locally led...I don't fit either of those categories. I expected to at least be given the ideas they wanted to use, but no. I wasn't. My professor pointed out that this is one of the problems of development. I was asked to do the application because they are all too busy. It is competitive and difficult to get funding--especially for small grassroots organizations like the one I am working with. (In my focus group discussion I discovered they all work 13ish hour days 6 days a week!)

So how am I, a student of development, supposed to know what to do to improve a river corridor to make it less likely to harm the people that live near it in the event of a flood?! I had to do a lot of research, and talk with other UFV students that have been involved in river projects and also get some geo-tech ideas from Brent. I sent 4 possibilities to my supervisor from the organization and he said to do 3 of the ideas. I spent a couple days figuring out how to flesh those ideas out and what would be appropriate for this location and be representative of this organization. There has been some back and forth with my supervisor and professor trying to get it right and the way they want it. It has been tiring--I don't want to think about the Mathare river at all for a few weeks. I put all this effort into one application, and although they suit the requirements and focus very well, it is global and only 2 winners. Here's to hoping we are one of them. 🤞

Birthday in Kenya: Week 2

 This week I went to Mathare where I participated in the farewell lunch for the UFV students that were all going home. Besides me, there were 7 here this summer. In another week it will be just me. The lunch was held at their new community hub that they are building.

Currently Mathare Roots or Mto Wangu, (the organization that I am working with) rents the rooms they use and when they don't have funding, the leader has to pay for it out of his own pocket. I know it has to be a hardship for him. So the UFV students that were already here started a go fund me to raise $10, 000 to buy and build a new building for them. Those few students have managed to raise almost half the money already.

They proudly took me to the place where they are building. They already have the basement dug out (which they did by hand) and the walls erected. We had lunch on the floor above which is still partially open. They had recently poured the concrete beams and were waiting for it to cure. There is a lot of excitement about this building and how they will be able to have all their different operations under one roof.

The part of the story I didn't yet tell was that they were supposed to meet with me before the lunch, but showed up too late for that. Kind of classic. So our meeting got changed to a zoom meeting later in the week.

In that meeting, they told me all the things that I could be involved with to support them during my time here. If everything goes according to plan, I will be:

•  submitting their innovative flood resilience plan for a contest
• supporting their girls soccer team in PR and to get sponsorship
• doing a campaign to help community members prepare for flooding which is supposed to be particularly bad this next spring
• doing some kind of community dialogue thing with the British Institute of East Africa that involves something around the history of flooding of the Mathare river

On top of all this, I am supposed to be writing an academic paper on an evaluation we did with them. I have been analysing the data this week on it. Most of our findings aren't surprising, but it still feels sad to have it confirmed that this is the way life is form most of the people there.

Anyways, I was asked to make up a work plan and present to them in person in a meeting on Friday. Problem was, nobody showed up. I waited there for  a long time, the boys that run the children's program and the library took me all around the community to show me around. I met both their moms and sisters. They were very nice and took care of me. 

I was pretty discouraged when I left though. I know it is a culture thing and that I was experiencing culture shock, but that didn't make it any easier. It felt like such a waste of my time when I am really under the gun to get things done. A talk with my professor helped me to get perspective and to not take anything personally.

Yesterday, I took a break for most of the day and we went to village market--a mall near the UN buildings that is quite high end with lots of wazungu (white people) there. It was my birthday, but I had been so busy working this last week, that I didn't have time to prepare a bigger activity to do. 

But the reds were happy. They like going to this mall because we always get shawarmas when we are there. In their nostalgic minds, they are one of their favourite foods we ate here. For my birthday Elizabeth treated us to gelato. I got passion fruit. It was delish! 

Elizabeth was very sweet and had secretly ordered me a bunch of sweets and snacks which she actually started giving to me the day before because I had had such frustrating day. It was a pretty low key birthday, but I got to spend it with some of my favourite people, so it was pretty good.

Back in Kenya

These make long flights endurable!

We have been here for four days so far and are just starting to emerge from the mind numbing brain fog of jet lag. I don't know why, but coming here I get really bad jet lag. I had a couple nights where I just lay in my bed awake until the sun came up at which point I would give up and get up. But then by 10 am (midnight back home), I can't keep my eyes open. The struggle to function with such overpowering drowsiness was real. 

Saturday felt like a true victory because I managed to get through a whole day without needing a nap. So far we have been just getting organized for our life here--buying groceries, getting sim cards and setting up meetings for my internship. We are back to the same 3 or 4 meals with Elizabeth making grilled cheese sandwiches late at night because she is still hungry. I have a hard time knowing what to make for dinner here, so if you have any suggestions of things I can make with simple ingredients, please give me some suggestions in the comments. For now we eat pasta, Thai curry, tacos, and stir fry. 

 The reds have been very nostalgic about everything we see here. They were happy to see Margaret, the street vendor that we buy vegies from. When we walk to the store Malachi points out so many little things asking if we remembered them ie: "remember this is where we saw the monkeys!" Things that bugged them before are charming and nostalgic like the elevator that plays Fur Elise. I'm glad they like it. The traffic is jarring all over again. I thought I had gotten used to it, but I guess not. Yesterday we went to Karura Forest and got smoothies, took silly panoramic photos, watched the monkeys and went for a long walk.

In case you didn't notice, there are monkeys on the picnic table

Today we went to church. Our uber driver couldn't seem to find it. I could clearly hear his navigation telling him to turn left and then he would turn right, but eventually we made it. 

 The highlight was a third hour meeting of "musical experience." After sacrament meeting the bishop asked Elizabeth if she would perform something, so she reluctantly performed her recital piece (Nuvoli Bianchi), which was beautiful even though she had to play it on a keyboard that she wasn't accustomed to. Nobody in the ward plays the piano, so most of the performances were a cappella. One guy gripped the top of the mike as he walked back and forth on the stand and sang. Some songs were sung multiple times. The best part for me was when that same young man started singing "There is a Green Hill Far Away" and it suddenly switched to a rap. The bishop cut that one short. Lol. When all the performances were done, it was opened up to anyone else that felt moved upon to do so. Surprisingly, there were 3 or 4 more performances. I just can't even imagine that happening back home. It was a good day.

Week 10: The Coast!

 Like I indicated in my last blog, the train ride to Mombasa was brutal. It was hot and crowded. We had 3 seats together but we faced 3 seats that had 3 men sitting at them. The lights never turned off the whole trip it wasn't easy to sleep.

It was especially hard because Malachi kept wanting to lean against me. He sleeps hot. I was so ready to get off the train when we arrived in Mombasa.

My professor had counselled me to prearrange a ride. She didn't like the idea of us being in Mombasa at 4 in the morning with no place to go, so I booked a stay at a resort right on the beach even though we wouldn't be getting there until after 4 am and they hooked me up with a driver. I was glad I had made all those arrangements because it was absolute chaos when we got off. There were so many drivers aggressively seeking  a fare. The problem was, that my driver had sent me a message saying he would send the details in a few back when we had first left Nairobi, but then I didn't receive any further details. It didn't take long for me to realize that my phone plan had ended at midnight which was probably why I didn't receive any info and now I couldn't contact him. I looked for a driver holding a sign with my name, but no luck. One of the drivers that approached me said she knew our driver and called him. So he found us--that was pretty lucky. I felt much safer once we were on our way.

It was an hour's drive from the train station to Milele beach resort, where we were staying. I didn't realize it until Lizzie pointed it out, but Milele is the name of the place that Mufasa learns about from his mother--a sort of mythical abundant land that he is tries to find in the movie Mufasa. When we arrived around 5:30, the guy at reception told me I was supposed to check in yesterday. I explained that we just needed a place to sleep for a few hours until we could continue on to our final destination, but later when I checked out, they asked me why I wasn't staying for a full night.

Milele the beach resort did not live up to the connotations of its name. It was old and grungy, but the beds were comfortable and it had AC and it was right on the beach, so it served its purpose. There were monkeys right near our room--it was a little scary to walk by so close to them. Malachi enjoyed the pool.

We ventured out on the beach briefly. We were approached rather quickly by "beach boys" but we used the excuse that we were leaving in a few minutes to keep them at bay. Beach boys are guys that work the beach trying to sell you coconut, boat trips, Maasai jewelry, aloe, clothes, and camel rides.

We used the same driver to take us to Diani beach. I booked an Airbnb that had mixed reviews but I took it because it was right on the beach. The building was under renovations. It looked like it had been closed down for awhile--maybe since Covid. The kids reported that the pool was gross, but I've never understood why anyone uses a pool when they are at a beautiful beach. This was the view from our balcony.

The kids couldn't wait to get down to the beach. They were all sunscreened up and changed before the security guard was done telling me about all the available tours--he was similar to the beach boys.

Diani beach had been voted the most beautiful beach in Africa 5 years in a row. It was spectacular.

The palm trees actually form a straight line but the panorama warps it. Once we crossed through the palm trees, we were on public beach. And that's when we would get swarmed by beach boys. 

It was not easy to deal with the beach boys. Most of them were pushy and relentless. I didn't want to just ignore them because that felt rude. Also, I understand that they are desperate. And there is rivalry amongst them to secure the new tourists. Everybody wanted to know our names, but I was told not to give them our names. One time I just openly said I didn't want to tell them my name so to just call me Njeri. That is a Kenyan name specific to one of the more powerful tribes and once when I was walking through Mathare, people started calling me that. So some of them started calling me Njeri. The kids and I made up a game where we tried going through the alphabet for names, but we often froze and used the same one multiple times. We were Draper, Frankie, Ellie, Elliott, Camilla and so on, but it got harder when they would call out to us with those other names to remember to respond. The kids started getting quite impatient with them talking to me all the time when they wanted me to play with them, but we still had a lot of fun. 

On our second day we decided to walk down to the reef when the tide was way out. The beach boys would not leave us alone. Finally one guy told all the others to leave us--because he was going to take us. I did not like dealing with him because he way was to provide something and then ask an exorbitant price for it afterwards. It kind of ruined our time on the reef because he wouldn't leave us alone. He did show us a stone fish--which is super poisonous and very camouflaged. For his unwanted guidance, (which he called a sea safari) he wanted me to pay 7000 ksh. We talked him down from that, but the kids were very resentful. He also kept everyone else away from us as we walked back along the beach. 

The next day we went on snokeling/dolphin tour. One of the best things about the tour was we didn't have to worry about beach boys for the whole day. We got picked up at 7:30 and were dropped off just after 6. It starts getting dark at around 6, so the beach was mostly deserted by then. The tour was so fun. We were taken out on a dhow (a boat with sails that was traditionally used for trading).

The water was pretty choppy so I was worried I would get seasick like I did in Okinawa, but luckily I didn't. The boat was much smaller than the Okinawa tour and more laissez faire too. They took us out to see dolphins which we did see briefly and they were only a couple meters from our boat at one point. Then we went to a marine park for snorkeling. The area was a large sand bar with a reef around it. 

Before we got in the water, another girl got in and said it was as cold as heck...it was not, but it was not as warm as Okinawa and there was a strong breeze, so when we got out we were cold. In Okinawa we had to wear a wetsuit or a life jacket. It was hard to dive down and I assumed that the wetsuits were buoyant somehow, but after snorkeling in the Indian Ocean without a wetsuit, and experiencing the same buoyancy, I think it was the salt water. We didn't have to do anything to float--we just did. We saw lots of cool tropical fish. It was very fun. Although we applied sunscreen before going out, both Lizzie and I got burnt from our snorkeling. After snorkeling, we were taken to Wasini Island. Wasini Island is an island without motorized vehicles or even bicycles. We had a traditional Swahili lunch there. I had fish while the kids had broiled chicken. My fish was Tilapia and just given to me in whole fish style--similar to Japan. It was yummy. There were chicken and cats walking around at our feet while we ate.

After lunch we were taken back, but on the way back the tour operators performed for us. This was actually one of my favourite parts of the whole tour. They used water jugs for their drums. 

When we got back, we went straight to the beach to play in the waves and find a beach boy selling aloe leaves. There was hardly anyone on the beach at that point, but we found one. The previous day, we all got burned in small patches where we missed sunscreen, but we didn't get aloe. Those burns turned out way worse than the ones from the day where we applied aloe almost right away. Unlike every other  ocean beach I have been to, the sun doesn't set over the water there since we were on the east. So we didn't get great sunset pictures, but we did get these. 

I was worried about the train ride back because it during the day--I was worried that it would be unbearably hot. But the train ride back was much better. It wasn't as full, so we had room to spread out and the AC was stronger. Another plus was we could see outside. The train goes through 3 national parks. We saw some elephants, giraffes and zebra on our ride home.

We were all much happier.

We had one day left after we got back from the coast. We had a lunch with my professor, a UFV alum that is from Nairobi, and my classmate and her husband. It was a distance out from where we were, but as typical of the places my professor recommends, it had a cool vibe, with lots of garden-ish outdoor vibes. 

We have loved all the places she recommended. 

Then yesterday we flew home. I have learned so much from this internship. I wish I could have stayed longer. I feel like I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. But it was an amazing experience that I'm so thankful I got to have. Who knew when I was deciding about school last year that I would end up here.  I really hope to be able to go back one day.

Week 9: Am I actually finished the report?

I am sitting here trying to think of what happened this week, and I am having a hard time remembering. I know I submitted a grant application for Mathare, and I think I have finally finished my report. We'll see. It isn't the first time I thought I was done. It took me a ridiculously long time to put it all into Canva. Canva is a software where I input all my writing with visuals. I thought I was done after that, but then my professor had more edits, so I had to make some modifications that pushed all the text down and required a whole bunch more time to get everything right again. Now it has been sent to a professor from the

University of Nairobi to review. So fingers crossed he will not have any edits. This is one of the pages of the report. I not only did the writing but also created the chart and infographic. Unfortunately, I am not fast at making things like that.

My professor arrived from Canada this week. She met me and the kids at the mall for lunch and then showed me where the UN offices in Kenya are. We couldn't see much because of security. This week international youth day is being hosted by the UN in Kenya and we were invited to go, but we won't be able to go because we are taking a little trip to the coast. I am missing quite a few things because of this trip. My professor will be meeting with her South Sudanese contact and the professor from the university of Nairobi. Their names are on the report as authors. I have learned a lot about the process when there are multiple authors listed for reports. Some names just seem to be there to give the report credence. I am also missing a meeting with the testers for a training that I have been tasked with improving. I will just have to rely on the the notes my classmate takes and my professor. I did attend a meeting where we presented our proposition to Mathare. 

As I said, I'm missing these meetings because we are off to the coast. It was our last chance to go and I wasn't sure the UN thing was happening since the organizer went home for a visit and was unresponsive to us. As it was, the only train I could get was the night train. I am writing this from the train. We depart at 10 pm and arrive in Mombasa at 3:35 am. It is going to be a long night. It is stuffy and the seats are as upright as possible. That is the price you pay for 1500 shilling tickets. I'm a little nervous about this trip, but also looking forward to the beautiful beaches. I've done my research, so I think we'll be good.

Other things we did this week is go to the temple. The Nairobi temple was dedicated just before we came here. It is beautiful. I am so thankful that there has been one close to us while we have been here. I visited the distribution centre and I'm sorry to all you that were hopeful of getting the new sleeveless garments--they are sold out. The only ones they had were 2XL. 

Malachi took this one

We went out this luxury hotel for the day. Malachi was happy because there was a heated pool. It was pricey, and since I knew we were going to the coast, Lizzie and I just watched from pool side chairs. The hotel is kind of colonial, but cool to see nonetheless.

Week 8 Environmental upgrades for Mathare

 This was a pretty slow week for us. One thing about being here is that I often feel like I don't really know what is going on. It reminds me of my early days in Japan. Although most people can speak English, they all speak Swahili. Basically the only time anyone speaks English is if they are speaking directly to me--except at church. Church is 100% in English. But other than that, I am often in the dark. For example this last Monday I went to Mathare to work with expecting to work with the leader. I confirmed with him the night before that he would be there. But when I arrived, I was met by one of the volunteers there and we walked to the far side of the neighbourhood for big event.

There were a bunch of government officials there who talked about cleaning the river. And some singers--one guy wore a costume of plastic water bottles stuck all over him.

After about 2 hours of speaking, we went and planted trees along the road. The tree planting was really a photo op. The holes were pre-dug and then several people crowded around a hole, worked water into the soil around the tree, and slowly lowered it into the hole. I was pushed into  one of those phot ops.

As we walked, the girl that took us there told me all about the work she is involved in. She helps rescue girls that were forced into marriages they didn't want, and women that are being beaten by their husbands. It is dangerous work and sometimes she has had to leave home for a few weeks at at time while men search for her. She also helps rape victims. Their stories are horrific. This girl does this all voluntarily. She got to her 3rd year in social work and then had to stop to get more money. She says she helps them because there is no one else.

On Thursday I went back to Mathare, but this time I took the kids because I knew that Thursday was a big cleanup day. I bought us all some gloves and off we went. The city was providing big trucks to haul away garbage so the volunteers were going around raking the garbage into piles to be picked up. At one of the locations, we were all handed rakes, so we went to work. I have never done anything like this before. Often when I thought I'd gotten everything from an area, my rake would snag on something below the surface and I would discover a whole new layer of garbage.

I don't know how much we actually helped because we were using tools that other people would have been using. When we finished, we gave them our gloves, which I think was the bigger help. Note all the children standing near Lizzie and Malachi. Kids flock around us so much more when I bring them with us. We really heard the word "mzungu" (white person) a lot that day. Even after we were done and walked back to the Mathare Roots office, many kids walked right along with us.

Malachi especially gets so much attention. Adults are often endeared by him--they often put their arms around him. And the girls...this week schools closed for their winter break. We were driving somewhere and were stuck in bad traffic beside a school bus of girls around his age. Once they noticed us they kept begging us to "push down the window" (where Malachi was sitting). The driver eventually conceded and rolled down his window. There were cheers--girls asking for his number and a shy Malachi smile. They all begged us not to go when the road opened up. The driver was quite amused by it all.

Elizabeth also gets attention. She says it is something she doesn't like about being here and that she feels uncomfortable in her own skin. In her case it is people calling to her from across the street. Today at church there was about 6 or 7 missionaries there that were going home, so the bishop invited them all to bear their testimonies. The first missionary that spoke (I believe) was trained by Packer. He is in Packer's Facebook profile picture. The bishop said he was a favourite. The missionaries took up all of sacrament meeting and then some. I think we ended 15 minutes late. Afterwards, one of the missionaries talked to me.  He was from Burundi and knows Packer too. He said there is a cat named Packer Gorner in Mombasa. When he found out I was from Canada, he wanted to talk to me in French. I told him to talk to Elizabeth which he did after church. He told me her French is very good and she doesn't have a Quebecois accent. He also asked for her number because he is going home in 2 days. haha

On Saturday we visited Karura forest. It is a beautiful protected forest right in the middle of Nairobi. I've written about it before. 

In the park area, there is a play thing made of logs that Malachi got Elizabeth to play tag on. But since there were only 2 of them, it fizzled pretty fast. But then I got them to see how fast they could touch all the upright posts. That kept both of them going for quite awhile. 

I only have 2 weeks left in Kenya. The time is going by so fast. I feel like I still have so much to do! I know these next 2 weeks are going to fly by. We will do our best to live it to our fullest.