Majengo - now that's a serious slum!

How can we treat one another like this much less theses kids?

I stood with our intrepid little volunteer team (not related to MSF activities) just inside the door of the school surveying the single room that constitutes the entire school. It was jam packed with about 180 kids packed shoulder to shoulder cheering enthusiastically!  The program is a victim of it's own success being created by a very determined woman who felt the need to do something for these kids.
For our part - we would be cleaning for a few hours and then helping feed the kids their lunch. A lovely day cleaning and then sharing lunch and an opportunity to massage my "white guilt" that is hard to ignore when face to face with real poverty. Just like earth day cleanups I had experienced in Canada in years gone by.

Well not exactly the same....

Majengo is arguably the worst of the worst. High levels of violence, ( we witnessed 4 incidents) which is in itself terrible but think of these living conditions. In this slum, one can buy sex for as little as 50 cents.... likely with an underaged youth and without protection. And the following...

No running water
No toilets
No electricity
No sewer
No access to adequate health care
No police service
No......... and the list of "don't have" goes on and on.

I have to share that as we reached the school - the rallying point for our activity - I was overcome with guilt from a number of perspectives. First the very real chance of being exposed to TB in that crowded room... being cut and being exposed to HIV.....  Cholera or being attacked .... . Lastly - that as a global community we should be able to fix this! Oh and the fact that I did not want to do it - period... I was at the outer limit of my gag and run reflex.

Nevertheless we jumped in and for the next hours brought wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of garbage from the slum to the entrance. We were joined by a couple hundred community members, mostly kids from the school who jumped in and helped out.  Of course bags of shit are a large part of the cleanup. Most people crap in a bag in some private area and then throw it when dark enough to hide their shameful yet unavoidable activity. The sewer, and main "area of concern"  is a small steam that runs down the center of the main pathway.

That nasty job complete it was time for lunch. I joined an assembly line and helped prepare the dishes of beans and rice.   So - I thought, when would they kids eat again... it may take a village to raise a child but my gosh - no child should be raised in this village. But are there options?  It's easy to point to  Save the Children or maybe UNICEF and demand explanations. Or the government of Kenya... and expose their shortcomings. However, large organizations have trouble addressing this kind of situation - with huge amounts of donor funding burned up through administration of programs. it's hard to maintain funding streams when the dollar cost benefit is so hard to show. It's hard for governments to address these sorts of problems when there are so many.

However! It reminds me of the story of the guy walking on the beach and comes up to another man  throwing sand dollars into the water. When he asked the guy what he was doing the guys  says he's saving these sand dollars from the sun as they will surely die. The first guy responded by pointing out that there were thousands and he can't possibly make a difference. As the man threw another into the water he smiled and said - "It made a difference to that one".

South Sudan

I was back in South Sudan this week working with the Supply team to ensure that we (Nairobi) are doing all we can to make sure our response is as quick as possible and with the highest possible quality. I was both inspired and impressed with the sheer determination to make supply work well in such an inhospitable environment. In what has become a ubiquitous symbol of reliability - the trusty MSF hardtop land cruiser and no fucking guns sticker conspicuously affixed. South Sudan continues to be a tinderbox with more fighting breaking out in the outer regions. With the opposition no longer in control, the opposition continues to fracture mostly along tribal lines. Though even within tribes there is a further disunity. The rise of hate speech is an eriry reminder of the Huti & Tutsi 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Thank for reading - Layno!