I belong

OK… a day of rest (kind of) and both my camera & I are recharged!

Yesterday was my last full day at Dandora – although I’m not really done yet. I’ll go back on Saturday for a half day, have a relatively full day on Monday (with my family with me! ), and will make a good-by visit after we return from Kisumu. The day was somewhat routine – visited three families in the morning, two of whom had special needs children, another family had multiple vulnerable children, but without support…a quick lunch (after a month of eating an avocado a day for lunch, how could I forget my knife and spoon? had to peel it and made a mess)… then went back out for more visits.

What was different about today was that I felt like I belonged here! I was walking down one narrow pathway and here came Siata (aka, Elizabeth)… she was on her way to see me to say she had found another special needs child and was urgent that I “document” this child as part of our project before I left (thus the Monday visit)…. Down another road, a woman walked up to me and gave me a big hug… I had met her Sunday at church! Who could have ever imagined that I would have found someone I “knew” in this massive slum of Dandora? I saw Farida, a care team member, near the pineapple stand and she stopped me to introduce me to her son. Then the man with the withered legs that I see each day on his hand-pedaled bike passed by with a wave. Next a quick stop at Velma’s to say hello to her husband & see what they were cooking for the day (Velma now shakes my hand each day with the same handshake she uses for her friends… I feel honored!). I passed the same little “pub” six times on Wednesday as we walked back & forth… and the same men call out “muzungu” (white man) each time. They no longer bother me. I know which shop has the best grains, who carries the sweetest bananas and where you can get the larger black avocados instead of the small green ones. I can walk by the Plexiglas boxes filled with cow entrails now without a second glance (& without gagging). I know which street sells dry goods (clothes, blankets, shoes) and which streets sell food and I know the side alleys where the furniture makers cut their wood, assemble the furniture, and paint or upholster it. I know the bad corner where the buses and matatu’s clash, fighting for riders and space… and I know they would just as soon run you over as steer around you – that’s an area that you pay attention as you walk! And I know how to avoid the dump and the pigs and I have found the Nairobi River. I also know that anytime I pass a schoolyard I will be surrounded by laughinging children wanting to shake my hand & I’ve learned that if I give “high fives” instead, they can’t grab onto me quite as easily. They think it is a “lucky thing” to touch a white man – if a simple hand-shake makes a child feel special or important, I will shake a thousand little hands! For all its filth and trash and hidden horror, Dandora Phase 4 is truly a community and is home for so many good people.

So in the continued contrast of world’s that I am trying to reconcile, tonight Anyima and Edward took me to dinner at a hotel that rivals any posh place in NYC… stunningly beautiful inside- marble and polished wood mixed with massive arrangements of bird of paradise flowers and African art, tables with white tablecloths and fresh flowers, and the food was beyond wonderful... mounds of shrimp, melons, avocados, mango chutney, delicious meats. Complete luxury… and I learned that it was at this hotel that Kofi Annin negotiated the settlement to the post-election violence in Kenya a year and a half ago. I honestly didn’t think there was anywhere in Kenya that was comparable to western standards… this place was certainly that and more. It felt odd coming back to my “hotel” where I will take a cold shower again tonight….but for now I am content in my little place with my roosters each morning and my little village below.