Nairobi's Best...and Worst

Two nights ago I arrived home from a medical missions trip to Kenya.

I feel like my mind is full to overflowing with all I saw and experienced.  I have a lot to process through.  Yesterday, during one of my layovers, I called my parents.  My dad asked me what the highlight of my trip was.  After thinking for a minute, I answered.  I definitely would not call it a highlight, but it was the experience that affected me more than anything else.

We visited one of Nairobi's slums.

Our host, Ishmael, took us to see the home office of Shelter of Hope, a ministry providing education, physical care, and spiritual hope to, as Ishmael would put it, "the widows and orphans and those who have nothing."

I didn't realize that Shelter of Hope was in the middle of Nairobi's second-largest slums.  I'll never forget what I saw.

"Homes" were little shacks made of corrugated metal siding and roofing, or mud-and-stick walls with metal roofing.  These were pasted together, one after another after another, to create row upon row upon row of these shacks.  A complicated maze of alleyways between the rows branched off again and again, growing more and more narrow as we went.  Had we not been following our host, I would have quickly gotten lost.

Trash was piled everywhere...an unimaginable amount...plastic bags and old shoes and broken glass.  The ground was a combination of mud and hard-packed earth with trash layered into the dirt.

There were no bathrooms.  Open sewage cut jagged, foot-deep ravines into the alleyways.  At times the smell was nearly overpowering.

Navigating was tricky--we jumped over foaming sewage trickling through, trying not to brush up against the sharp edges of low metal roofs crowding together over the alleyways.

Mini open markets lined some of the wider thoroughfares, displaying food of varying freshness and covered with flies.  One stall featured dozens of small birds, skinned, cooking, but still raw...and crawling with flies.

People were everywhere, mostly children and women, overflowing from the little homes and crowding the alleyways.  Most wore dirty, ripped, faded clothing, and were barefoot or wearing only flip flops.  But they were smiling.

They crowded us, especially the kids, shouting "Mzungu!! Mzungu!!" ("white foreigner") and reaching up warm, dark hands, longing for us to shake their hands so they could run off and tell everyone that they had touched a Mzungu.  They also parroted "How are you? How are you?" with unforgettable accent and cadence, a common phrase that nearly every little boy and girl seemed to know, even if they knew no other English word.

Walking into the slums was...overwhelming.

We trekked to Shelter of Hope's little compound, right in the middle of it all.  Hope Bible Chapel stood alongside it.  By the time we got there, I leaned over to one of the other girls on the trip and whispered, "I see why they call it Hope Bible Chapel."

As Ishmael showed us around the tiny compound, little offices and schoolrooms and a primitive kitchen, buildings made of the same materials as every other building in the slums, children spilled through the doorway into the courtyard of the church.  "Mzungu! Mzungu! How are you??"  They stretched out their hands, longing to be touched...smiling shyly but longing for their pictures to be taken...singing for us, "Jesus Loves Me" and other songs.

One little boy pushed through the other kids and came up to me.  He was maybe four or five.  Faded, ripped green shirt, hanging lopsided off one shoulder.  Runny nose.  Shy smile.

He reached up, holding a small, dirty, plastic ball, about the size of a ping pong ball.  He placed this ball into my hand and closed my fingers around it.

He wanted me to have his ball.

I whispered, "Thank you," but my throat was so tight hardly any sound squeezed through.  I spent the next fifteen minutes blinking back tears and trying to breathe around the lump in my throat.  He, who had nothing, had given me, who had everything, a special treasure...maybe his only treasure.

I can hardly thinking about it without tears springing back to my eyes.

Fast forward a few hours.

We were at the airport, waiting for the announcement to board our flight home.  I was so ready to get home, to hug my husband and cuddle my boys.  But instead of hearing, "Now boarding..." we heard "Due to mechanical failure, the flight has been cancelled..."

Chaos ensued.  Passengers flocked the counters.  Finally the answer was given--there simply was no other flight until the next morning...nearly twelve hours later.

The crowd moved on to another counter where we waited for vouchers for hotel rooms for the night.  After nearly half an hour, the crowd still had not grown any smaller.  Over the hubbub of grumbling travelers, a gentleman started shouting, declaring the inefficiency of the Kenyan airway workers and his frustration with them.  He even got behind the counter and rummaged around as he shouted, while the workers just stared with wide eyes.  Several in crowd clapped.

Finally we got our vouchers and were bused to one of the nicest hotels in Nairobi.  Each of us enjoyed a room to ourselves--suites, actually.  Free dinner.  Free breakfast.  Hot showers and clean sheets.

In one day, we went from witnessing the worst of Nairobi to enjoying the best of Nairobi.

In one place, we saw filth, poverty, disease...smiling, singing children..singing, dancing women.  Joy.  Hope.  Giving.

In the other, we saw finery, cleanliness, comfort...and grumbling, shouting, unhappy travelers.  Rights demanded.  Injustices decried.  Indignation flaunted.

Contentment is all about perspective.

The humble realize they have more than they deserve.  They know gratitude.  Know joy.

The proud are demanding...and miserable.

Perspective is everything.

"Buy truth (right perspective!), and do not sell it, get wisdom and instruction and understanding."
--Proverbs 23:23

The giver

 The gift

Straddling one "ravine" we had to jump over.  It's a good foot deep.

 One narrow alley

Some of the happy kids