There are very few experiences that can compare to visiting a slum. Shantytowns built up from mud and rocks with people living in little rooms packed full of all their belongings with so many eyes peering out. Dark school rooms with caring teachers doing their best to fill the tiny, fragile minds with information so that hopefully they can leave these places one day. These places overflowing with garbage and sewage and yet still joy. Still laughter and bright fruit to be sold. Men joking as they construct shoes out of old car tires and kids who race up to you and snatch your hand in their filthy little hands and want to show you their home, their mother, their one toy.
There are countless slums that surround Nairobi, Kenya and I think people often wonder why I “like” to visit places like these. I don’t necessarily like it but I am constantly curious about the human spirit and all the ways people survive in this world. It is extremely sad and humbling yet somehow inspiring to me. When I leave and get back to my clean hotel room of course the first thing I want to do is shower and wash away all the filth but then I realize that the running water has been shut off, something that happens way too often in Africa, and I get annoyed, but just for a second, because then I realize this is their reality day in and day out and suddenly the small stuff in life seems just that, small.
