I'M IN KENYA! I arrived thursday night at the airport in Nairobi. I could see the differences inmediatley. Wow, I couldn't really believe that I was already in Kenya. Mostly because it was very dark when we arrived and of course I was very tired from the flight. which took us about 9 hours. From the airport we were going to the Guest house with a mini van. A lot of guys were helping us with putting the luggage in the van, which was really nice of them of course.
When we arrived at the Hibiscus Guest home, the group and I were devided over 2 rooms. each room has two bunk beds, a closet and even a washroom. When we had all our stuff in the rooms we actually went to sleep very quickly. I think because we were all very tired haha.
The next morning we got breakfast and we were going to meet Abdul (our guide in the slum and the founder of the girlschool that we are going to visit). He was very nice and seemed like he knows a lot of the situation in Kibera and Nairobi. After that we were setting up a program for the two weeks that we're staying. Right after that we were able to visit Kibera already. So we went there in our mini van and I could already see the differences between the city and out of the city. The van stopped right in front of Kibera. When I got out the first thing that I noticed was the smell. Which is actually logic because Kibera doesn't have a sewer. We then walked around Kibera. In Kibera I saw very different people and coloures and cultures, which I love very much. But Kibera isn't actually all fun. There is a lot of poverty going on. I could see the struggles that the people have to go through.. That was a bit difficult to see and to handle for me personally. Especially with the kids. I felt a little helpless walking through Kibera. At some moments I didn't even wanted to take pictures because it felt a little strange to do that. But on the other hand Kibera was like a really happy place. The people were enjoying there time and were playing music and sometimes they were even dancing. They were really making the best of it. Some kids were really adorable and walked any distance with you. They wanted to hold your hands and they were smiling the entire time. They kept asking 'Hi, how are you?' And they really wanted to chat and to show you things. I really enjoyed the small things like that.
The next day (today :)). I was a little bit more nervous, because we were going to visit the girls that we are going to do the workshops with. So after we got breakfast we went to Kibera again. When we got there we went to the school were the girls were. First we talked with Abdul and the principal. Then we got the change to meet all the students. There were even some boys. They were inmediatley very very excited. And we were to! We started with a workshop that a girl of the group (Evi) had prepared. We started with a game about the language. We wanted them to learn a little bit Dutch and we wanted to learn a little bit Kiswahili. That was really fun and the students were really interested. They wanted to know a lot of sentences and wanted to teach us as well :). So that was nice. After that we went outside and did like a lot of games to learn each others names. After we felt comfortable with each other the silly games began. For example somebody had to imitate an animal and the others had to guess it, and then they had to imitate an animal. It was really fun and we laughed a lot with each other. When it was lunchtime, we said goodbye to the students and walked further in to Kibera. We went in one of the little restaurants there. It was actually quite comfortable and relaxing. We had a great lunch there. It was really delicious. I had Chapati, it looks like a roti actually haha.
After we got lunch we went back to the guest house. There we discussed our program again and we did a little game :).
Right now I am really excited about tomorrow, because we're going on safari!! :)
The past two days were emotionally quite heavy but at the same time they were joyful. I am still glad that I made the decision to visit Kibera :)
xx Nalini
