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.