Kibera School

Monday and Tuesday we went to the school the Free Methodist church has in the Kibera Slum. We would arrive at 9am. It is about a 15 minute walk into the slum to get to the school. To be honest the slum smells awful, and thats the thing i have to get used to. There are between 500,000 and 700,000 people living in this slum. When we were at the school there are about 240 kids. All ranging from 3yrs. to 16yrs old. We all taught in a classroom. Katelyn and I taught the class 6 students..which is around sixth grade in the states also. There were about 25 kids in my class. We taught math and english for two days. It was awesome! We had a lot of fun with it. Don't think i could do that all day all year...but that short time it was fun. The first english class they were learning animals and the sound the animal makes, so it was pretty funny. We made one student at a time come to the front and do the animal noises, ha. So, all of a sudden you could here a bunch of monkey sounds or lion sounds coming from our class room, ha. We did a bible school at the end of the day when school got out. Monday we did bible school for the upper primary students, class 4 - class 8. We taught them some songs, played some games, did a craft, and a lesson. Tuesday we did the same thing except the bible school was with the lower primary kids this time. Class 1 - class 3. Oh, ha, monday after bible school was over it started pouring down rain outside! If you know anyting about africa and this slum...its very dry and lots of dirt...so when it rains it gets very muddy!! So, we left real fast. Also, between 5pm-6pm it is called the Human Jam. Everyone is coming home from work, and so there are TONS of people walking through the slum. We wanted to get out too before the Human Jam happened. So we marched out of the slum in the pouring rain. We were soaked to the bone! and muddy! I thought it was awesome though! ha. Over all our time at the Kibera school was so fun. Oh, yesterday as we were about to leave my class asked Katelyn and I how old we were. I told them I was 21 and she was 22. Well, they were very suprised because they thought that kate was my mom or something...and that i looked 12. Ok, random and weird. Oh well..ha. Im not to disapointed about it, ha...ive just never been told I look 12.
Today we went with Wendy and Peter again to Carton City (another small slum) to there small feeding program. Betsye and I went with Peter to a school. We took about a 30 minute walk through this slum to a primary school. We had a little girl with us named, Mamshi. She was about 4 years old. We were going to the school to talk to the principle and find out why she hadn't been in school for about a week. Mamshi is an orphan. Her parents died and she lives with her aunt. Her aunt was giving different stories to peter why she wasn't in school...so he just wanted to get it straight. The school was very organized and nice. I was impressed, especially for this area. The head teacher at the school gave us a tour. We visited all the class rooms. We went into the Nursery class for slow learners. Nursery class is like preschool. I didn't think they looked or acted like they were slow learners. We walked into the room and all the kids just got really really excited! This one kid in the back of the room waved at us for like 10 minutes. They all wanted to show us the work they had been doing. They were betsye and I's favorite class of all time! they were so fun. Everytime we passed by the classroom after that they were all standing at the window waving at us! ha..it was so cute. Then we walked back to Carton City. I carried Mamshi the whole way. Mamshi kept asking her aunt if she could come home with me! ah :( I would LOVE to take her home with me! We went back and played with the kids, and then they ate their lunch.
There was this kid Dennis, who is 8, who comes to the feeding program. His mom died last night of HIV/Aids. He was gonna hang out with peter and wendy all day. He was crying this morning when he first came...it was very sad and heart breaking to watch. It got us thinking. We could have been born anywhere to any family in any situation...but we were born into our families for a reason. It just goes to show how big God's grace and love is. It also makes you wonder, why was I born into a great family, home, and situation...but Dennis wasn't? Why did God choose to give us this great life and Dennis such a hard one? We don't deserve it anymore than he does...anyways...thoughts...from Fink and Betsye.
We went to the movie theater last night and saw Transformes..that was cool! it was a taste of home.

Tomorrow we go on a real SAFARI!!!