Africa-Monday

We left Milwaukee forty four hours ago, all went well. I was sure I’d be writing about the trip over, stories of cramped planes, screaming babies, and bad food. We arrived at our hotel exactly 24 hours and one minute after leaving Milwaukee. It was night time here, Nairobi is nine hours ahead of Waukesha, I am actually writing this tomorrow as you read it today. My thoughts of the discomfort we went thru have been replaced by the reality of life in the slums of Marthe Valley (Mar-the, the rhymes with way). Our trip over cannot even be described as an inconvenience in comparison.

Marthe Valley is home to 800,000 people all living in conditions that would be described as criminal in the United States. The valley is divided into ten villages, the valley runs approximately ten kilometers in length, or 6.2 miles. In that small stretch of land there is misery, disease, despair, alcoholism, drug abuse, hunger, fear, death, prostitution, this is where the forgotten people live, this is where people survive, live isn’t the right word.

In Nairobi unemployment runs at 60%, adult HIV rates are over 40%, the social services, the safety nets we have in the U.S., don’t exist in Kenya, people don’t fall through the cracks, the plunge into the abyss. This is their reality, this is the story we never knew.

Thoughts from the slum tour today:
Drug use is rampant, the drug of choice is glue, the epoxy that holds our shoes together, we saw and talked at a thirteen year old boy who will never remember we were there, his mind is gone, for him it seems so is hope. We went into the home of Frieda; rather we went into the shack of Frieda. Frieda is not sure of her age; it’s fifty something, a 12 x 10 shack, made out of corrugated steel is her home. Frieda used to abuse alcohol; she drank so she could do her job, as a prostitute. Today she is a sister in Christ, 22 people live with her in her tiny shack, no plumbing, water, floor, nothing. For the first time today I have seen nothing, until now I always thought there was something I now have seen nothing, yet in that nothing I saw God. Frieda prays to keep her faith strong, that her family would grow in the hope that is Christ and for God to provide for her and hers for one more day. I thought I relied on God and trusted in him; today I met people who just do it, no thinking, just prayers. Raw sewage everywhere, we walked around the corner and saw a young child squatting in front of their house like a dog would, I’d like to say that was odd, it’s the norm. Home distilleries, making alcohol in rivers of filth, drunken men and women, in the midst of all of this there is hope, the church is alive in Marthe Valley.