We toured the Kibera slum with bodyguards, so we felt incredibly safe. However, many people are offended by having their photo taken, so I had my camera on the strap around my neck and shot from the hip, literally.
The Kibera slum is in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the second largest slum in the world, ten square miles of land housing one million people.
One million people.
The vast majority of the residents have no services at all. No electricity, no running water, no sewer system. Nothing. There are a few stores with electricity, providing cell phone charging stations and batteries.
Most of the residents live on less than a dollar a day. Their homes are about ten feet by twelve feet, or the size of a standard bedroom. The living conditions that these people have to endure are not even fit for animals.
Kibera is considered an illegal settlement, so it thrives despite Kenya's housing laws. Slumlords rent out spaces for rent much lower than can be found in legal housing, so many of the residents have no choice in the poverty that fills the area.
The streets are covered in trash. Garbage piled up everywhere, with nowhere for it to go.

Seriously.
No one in our group got hit with a flying toilet on our visit, but I heard it has happened before.





This is the first school we passed. The children were amazing, we laughed with them with tears in our eyes, the joy that emanated from them was incredible.
Sweet, innocent voices chanting, almost a song, "Howa YOU? Howa YOU? Howa YOU? Howa YOU?"
Such joy in a place of such sorrow.

Not all succeed.

Some family's front porch.
And everywhere you look, sweet children coming from everywhere to get a look at the mzungus (white people).

There are storefronts, with every necessary ware available. The residents of Kibera who do not work outside the slum have no need to leave the slum, ever. Many of the children have never set foot outside the sum before, and have never seen that the world is not limited to what you see here.
Shoes, 80 Kenyan shillings each. About $0.86 in US dollars. And yet, many of the children go barefoot, as their families cannot afford shoes.
Vegetable stand/grocery store.

The difference between Kibera and America is astounding. These pictures are hard, but the reality of it is harder. This isn't just some National Geographic spread where you can look at the photos and close the magazine. This is real. Yes, you can hit the little red X in the upper corner of your screen, but that will only take the image from your mind, it will not erase the reality. As I sit here and attempt to tell these stories from my comfy office chair, glass of clean, pure water beside me, with my belly full of food; this is still there. These children are still in the slum, right this second.
Next week I will tell you of a bright spot in the midst of the darkness of the slum. There is hope in the desolation. And it lies here.

1 comment:
This is powerful stuff, Tiff. You have to be changed on some fundamental level by your travels. Thank you for sharing your pictures, and I look forward to seeing a bright spot. This is very hard to read about.
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