athi river slum.

after having an american fourth of july party that consisted of hamburgers thickened with ugali, sweet potato fries and a fair amount of beer, i went to bed ready to face my first day of work the next morning. we have been placed at the ray center, which offers voluntary testing and counseling for hiv/aids, and does outreaches with mobile test centers to surrounding communities. most of the people who work there are youth and are under twenty-five. after meeting everyone and learning a little bit about what the center does, we were thrown into our first outreach with absolutely no idea what to expect. our first assignment? one of the athi river slums.

slum. noun; a heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor.

well. all i can really say about that definition is that it does a really poor job of categorizing just how shocking a slum really is. upon walking in, it wasn't too incredibly shocking. just things that come to mind when you picture a slum. barren land. little tin houses. lots and lots of dust. random patches of grass. so really, it's not that bad. until you get a little deeper into it. and you realize, that there is sewage in the middle or lining (or both) the paths between the houses. that the tin houses look like one big gust of wind will knock all of them down. that there are hoards and hoards of people, and children, who are basically covered in dirt. as we walk through the slum, our big group holds a banner so everyone there will know that we are not intruders. we walk through the slum singing songs and clapping and start to draw a crowd, mostly of children. and these children? they will immediately break your heart. you wave at them, they wave back. you hold out your hand, they take it. or they give you a high five. and eventually, they all warm up to you and you can't help but love each and every one of them. the adults, however, are a different story. some of them, you can tell, love that you are there. some of them just give you condescending looks. some of them are infinitely perplexed by the color of your skin and seem to be wondering what the hell you are doing there. as we start the aids demonstration, a crowd draws. and everyone seems to be enjoying the skit put on by the center, and its amazing to see them all watch with such attentiveness. the skit ends, and the whole team assembles to hand out condoms, and then things get tricky. well, maybe just for me. a drunk man who introduces himself as steven comes up to me, puts his arm around me, and proceeds to tell me that "steven wants you". and in my head i think, yeah... well.. actually.. how the hell do i handle this?? after a few minutes of an unrelenting steven, the team ushers me in between two of the male members and steven lets go, and we all start to walk away from the slum. thats when we all realize, that once the demonstration is over, the slum is most definitely not the safest place to be.

while walking away from the slum, i noticed that once we reached the very last little tin house on the outskirts, all the people stopped following us. the stood there, as if there was some kind of invisible fence, and watched us walk away and cross the street. as i looked back on all the children who were waving at us, i felt fortunate for my life in a way that i had never felt before. i also knew that after witnessing that small slum, i would never view a lot of things the same way again. everyone who comes across this should count their blessings tonight. because despite what you think might be wrong with your life, you've got it good.