Sobering Experience

Kibera

Today we got taken round Kibera Slum by one of the guards from the school who lives in Kibera, he was taking me to meet the man who is helping me with my dissertation :) This slum is the largest in the world! I was taken aback by how horrific and horrendous it was. I can honestly say I was not expecting it to be such a brutal harsh environment! It absolutely STANK! And there was a train that goes right through the slum and twice we had to move out of the way to let it past. The train had to stop and the workers had to get out and dig around the tracks because there was far too much rubbish and shit for it to move! It is so crazy to see how these people live, no wonder there is so much disease around, they fling their shit out the side of their house or let it run into the running river that flows down Kibera, but this is not a pretty sight! The place has no proper paths, my boots are literally covered in what I hope is mud! :| The most ridiculous thing is that Kibera is just across the road from my complex, and the people on this side live nowhere near as hard a life as the people in Kibera. Thomas took us to his house and I was not expecting what we went to. It was one small, dark room with a tiny light bulb that flickered on and off! I was really quite shocked because I thought he would be on a good enough salary to get him something better, I met his daughter who is 20, the same age as me, and 2 of his sons, and they all sleep in this same one room! I can’t imagine they get much sleep ever. He pays 3000KSH a month for this tiny "house". When we went to the school where I was meeting the man, there were so many children. He says that in Kibera there are 35 schools for 18000 children. They have about 40-45 in a class, and the only way the teachers get paid is from the school fees that the people struggle to afford. The only help the government give are the occasional donation of books but they are limited to one donation per school every 2 years! They follow the curriculum that the government has set up, yet they help in no way whatsoever. Many of the children have to be sent home if they are not paying the fees, in one day at the Jonathan Gloag Academy I saw 3 children being sent home because they had not paid. In one class they can have about a 3 year age range because some children are too poor to be able to eat, therefore cant focus properly on their school work. The place is literally a huge sewer and a dumping ground for their shit and rubbish! It is absolutely disgusting, I almost slipped and fell in it at one point because the ground is so uneven! Phew so glad it is over to be honest! Something I can safely say I did not enjoy and would never want to experience again.