In The Kibera Slum

A frantic day for me, while Mandy presented her third day. It was Numeracy today, so 70 very serious Kenyan teachers and pastors were playing bingo, magic 11, higher/lower and a raft of other games. Meanwhile I had to race down to the supermarket to buy the morning tea, get the extra certificates printed, and look for the classroom materials and sporting equipment for the Gatwikira Primary School located in the middle of the Kibera slum that Syndal South had done the fund raising for. I wasn't very successful the first time, so I hurried back to the school so that they could break for morning tea.

After writing out the rest of the certificates, William drove me to another shopping centre where we were more successful. We bought sporting equipment (they currently have none) with the money raised by the Syndal South students, and materials for the classroom with the rest of the funds raised by the staff (who had generously provided funds for their lunches as well).

Got back late for lunch to find Mandy exhausting her list of time fillers. Everybody was sweating on getting their certificates, and magically we had a full hall for the presentations. We only missed two people and mis-spelt one, which was a minor miracle.

Bidding our farewells to the teachers, William drove us to the edge of the Kibera slum where the pastor of the church in the middle of all the chaos was waiting for us. Over one million people live in a square kilometre, mostly in one room homes, 3 metres by 3 metres, and it's the second largest slum in Africa after Soweto.

We trooped through the slum with the pastor leading and William bringing up the rear, and our gifts disguised, until we reached the church which doubles as a school during the week. There were about 50 kids in the school, and they were waiting to serve lunch, at which time they lock the door to stop youths from the slum coming in and taking the plates of food!

After the kids finished their lunch, we had a tour of the school (room), and even the adjoining room which is the pastors house at night, the school kitchen in the morning, and the creche for smaller brothers and sisters during the day (used by the lucky mothers who have some work). Presented the materials to the teachers, and the sporting equipment to the children who happily posed for photos with their new toys.

Finally, we visited the homes of two of the students, one of which belonged to one of the teachers who had been on the course. Trekked back out of the slum, and William drove us back to the lodge where we said our goodbyes.

Shortly after, we jumped in our taxi and headed across town to our meeting with the new tour group, which took forever, then came back to the lodge for tea, some sorting out, and a repack for the next stage of our adventure. Moving out of our lovely en-suite room with a comfortable bed to a two man tent and mat is going to be a bit of a wrench.