Mathare North

Very busy day today.  I visited the Mathare North school and spent the morning with  Amos, the school’s social worker.  We walked all morning long…from Mathare North to Mathare 4A and back again.  I went with him on a few home visits (it is his job to check up on children when they are absent from school and to just check up on families).  During the visits he would talk in Swahili to the parents since most of them don’t speak English, so I was left to my own mind.  At one house (by house I mean aluminum shanty) in particular they were talking and I was watching a little kitten giving himself a bath in the corner of the room when all of a sudden everyone started laughing and Amos pointed up at the rafters then at the cat.  I was very confused, so he explained to me that there was a rat up there and they were all laughing because the cat was ignoring it.  Needless to say the joke was not so funny to me.  I was very busy for the remainder of our visit surveying the room for anything that could possibly come at me. Eeeek!  Amos also took me to see a new project the school is funding.  They are building a washhouse in the Mathare 4A area.  The washhouse will have toilets, places to wash clothes, and a community center.  Doesn’t seem like much to us, but having a public toilet is a big deal in this area…it is a huge improvement over the “flying toilet”.  (In the slums many people use a plastic bag as a toilet, tie it up, and throw it out wherever….always be careful to watch out for flying bags!) 

In the afternoon I taught some dances to the children.  They were a blast!  Some of the preschoolers came out and watched…such sad little faces that wanted to join in.  There were even quite a few people that stopped while walking by to watch.  Seems like a little thing, but any outreach that these schools can get into the community may bring these people to church on Sunday.  I pray that the people of the community can see the Hope Schools as a place of hope, refuge, and a place to find God.

I have not been able to take pictures in the communities as I have been walking because it is too dangerous, but these are some shots from a window of areas I have been walking and visiting…