Kenya Day 1

Day 1: Reality Bites

We drove in silence through Juja road on the edge of Mathari Valley. The smell had moved from that of the floral fragrance of our guest house garden near the center city to the acrid, charcoal and the pungent waste stench along the edge of Mathare Valley. The architecture deteriorated from modern buildings to temporary wood and mabati (tin) dwellings and shops. Even on a Sunday the streets were lined with hundreds-thousands of people moving in and out of the valley--coming from church, visiting friends, dealing with life. Once inside the valley, it could have been a Sunday afternoon in most any community. Little girls played jacks. They could not even afford a rubber ball and played them with the hard bounces by substituting pebbles. A local church was in the middle of an after service dinner inside a store-front building. Most people walked up and down one of the arteries that descended toward the river out of site and in the distance.

We were greeted with much welcome by ten Kenyan artists Mathare and other parts of the city. We would team up this week to offer arts classes with the theme of hope. We took a tour of the facilities where we would jointly hold classes. We talked of the plight of the children in the area. The local make shift elementary school has 843 children. The average class size was 45 in a room that was not larger than 10-12. There are no books. The major question was how do we select 100 children from the thousands in the area.

We returned to the guest house in silence as well. Our artists grouped in earnest to make further preparations for the morning.