Discovering Kibera for the first time
Our first encounter with Isaac and the children in the St. Catherine orphanage.
Kibera, Nairobi
This is the neighbourhood where we will spend lots of our time.
With an estimated 500.000 to 1 million inhabitants (this is quite a large range but it seems impossible to know the exact number), Kibera is the largest urban slum in Africa and one of the biggest informal settlements in the world.
Most people who live here find themselves in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $2 per day. Clean water is scarce, HIV rates reach about 12%, and malnourishment and crime are common.
Getting to know Isaac
The night before entering Kibera for the first time, we had dinner with Isaac, a former resident of Kibera and good friend of Laura’s brother (who is also called Felix 😉). He has been supporting the children of the St. Catherine orphanage for many years and was going to introduce us to the neighborhood in which it is located.
After having been in close contact with him before our departure in order to structure our fundraising campaign according to the most pressing needs of the children on the ground, we were really happy to finally get to know Isaac and determine together the programme for the coming week:
👋 23/12 : first encounter with the children of the St. Catherine orphanage in Kibera
🎁 24/12 : Christmas shopping marathon to buy gifts and groceries for the 30 kids
🎄25/12 : Christmas celebration at the Kenya Scouts Association, a few kilometers outside of Kibera
👂26/12 : exchange with the children to listen to their stories and share ours
♻️ 27/12 : walk in Kibera with the kids to collect some trash for the art project
🎨 28 and 29/12 : arts and crafts workshops.
Entering Kibera
We were strongly advised not to enter Kibera by ourselves. It would be too dangerous, as mentioned multiple times by Isaac.
He thus picked us up at home to drive with us into Kibera, parked right in front of the orphanage, and told us that inside we could now expose our valuables such as phones and cameras.
Outside of the home, he suggested against taking out phones, wearing earrings, watches or anything else that would attract even more attention than our skin colour already did.
It felt absurd. And a bit sad as the streets of Kibera were buzzing with life. Street merchants one after the other, motorcycle riders everywhere, loud African music coming from different directions, children playing on the streets… It makes you want to go out and be a part of the vibe.
Inside St. Catherine
Thankfully, this vibe we also found inside of St. Catherine: children laughing of joy to get to know new visitors and learning that we would spend many days of fun activities with them over the course of this month.
This vibe, however, took some time to develop.
The first couple of minutes with the children were quiet. They were extremely shy and clearly did not really feel at ease.
“Who are these mzungu (white foreigners) from foreign lands and what are they doing here?”
“What are their intentions?”
These are surely some of the questions they asked themselves.
Lots of eyes starring at us with visible question marks on their faces in the small dark library that Laura’s brother had built for them years ago.
Then came the icebreaker
A little tour through the orphanage where the children could show us their rooms and kitchen. With pride, they made their way through the narrow corridors.
"This is where I sleep, I share the top bunk with my friend” said Sharon*, 16, pointing to a cramped room with several bunk beds made of scrap metal.
Entering the girls’ dormitory, the first questions you ask yourself is: “how on earth is it possible to sleep in here?”, given the sound of the motorbikes backfiring and the huge speakers blasting music at full volume on the other side of the thin sheet metal walls.
"It's much quieter at night," one of the girls reassured us.
Walking back towards the kitchen, we noticed a sheet of paper on one corridor walls detailing the distribution of roles for all children to take part in the cooking and cleaning tasks.
Bumping on a broken road
As we walked out of the orphanage, night was falling on Kibera.
We drove back through the slum with our eyes and ears wide open, trying to take in every movement and sound, fascinated by the workings of a mysterious new world that was opening up before us.
Between the horns of cars and motorbikes, we were called out in Swahili by some passers-by, who had seen us through the opened windows of the vehicle:
"Hey mzungu!"
We were reflecting on our first encounter with the children of St Catherine and felt extremely privileged to have met them.
What we didn't know yet was that, although their living conditions in the orphanage are extremely basic, they are actually much better than what they have experienced in their previous lives.
Something we would get to know in the coming days…
