... place of welcome and spirituality
Immersions: January 2010
Immersion Participants Arrive in Nairobi, Kenya
The 2010 Immersion group have arrived in Kenya a little tired from their long journey but full of spirit and high expectation. The first 2 weeks of the program will be based in Nairobi. The participants will be engaged in the Edmund Rice Ministries at Embulbul, Rubin and Kibera. From there they will journey by bus to Arusha in Tanzania. The photos include the participants prior to their departure at Tullamarine on the 2nd of January. Among the parents and friends that bade them farewell was Br Frank Hennessey. We ask that all may keep them in our prayers and thoughts during this significant time.
Sunday 3rd January, 2010
After much anticipation and preparation, we find ourselves in Nairobi, Kenya. Africa. The journey officially began for many of us on January the 2nd at Melbourne Airport, where we said our goodbyes to our family, friends, partners, as well as our country. Once we were in the International terminal, we said our farewell to Damien, who took an earlier flight. Finally, we embarked on the first leg of our long journey to East Africa. This first flight to Bangkok proved to be challenging as it was the longest and we were not seated together in order to share our feelings of anticipation. After a nine hour flight, we arrived in Bangkok slightly cranky due to the lack of sleep and uncomfortable environment. We spent our four hour stop at an Airport café, finally utilising the time to share our thoughts and feelings. The community building had begun. Next we boarded our flight to Dubai and much to our relief, we were allocated seats next to at least one other group member. Asante Emirates! The trip was much more entertaining than the previous, and thanks to a special discovery made by Aaron, we were able to phone one another from our seats. We then arrived in Dubai. Breaking news: our final flight to Nairobi had been delayed. Four hours to dawdle in Dubai. Burger King and Starbucks were officially our last taste of Western food. The time had arrived for our final flight to Nairobi. It was an exciting flight, we were all seated very much together once again and made very good use of the phone facilities for the last time. Our trip became very much real once we arrived at Nairobi and were greeted by Damien, Paul and Caterina. We were very surprised to discover that we would be staying at a wonderful place, with enough rooms for each of us to have our very own room. We went to bed relatively early that night as we were indeed very tired from our 30 hour plus journey. Very Strange that we managed to do this 30 hour task in less than 24 hours. It’s still Sunday!
Monday 4th January, 2010
Today was a day of recuperation of jet-lagged individuals and a day of community building. This was a chance for everyone to come together and get to know one another and create a sense of community amongst us all. We did this through numerous activities and journal writing. In the afternoon we were given the opportunity to go for a walk and experience our first look at the life of the locals at the suburb of Karen. It was nice to get out, meet some locals and Donna finally got to show off and utilise the Swahili she had been memorising like a native Kenyan elephant. Tembo!
Tuesday 5th January, 2010
This was the day that we finally met with the Karibu group whom we would spend most of our time with whilst in Kenya. The experience on the Matatu (12 seater bus, playing loud R.Kelly songs, painted with Playboy Bunnies on the sides) was truly something that will never be forgotten. There were 20 of us crammed into this Matatu and we made our way through the outskirts of Kibera, to the Edmund Rice Centre, home to the humble Karibu group. We spent our afternoon exchanging songs and games which filled the air with smiles and a contagious sense of happiness. Our community was growing bigger and stronger. We ended our afternoon by planning our next three days. Wednesday will prove to be exciting as we will have our first look at the city sights of Nairobi from a local’s perspective. The welcoming Karibu group will act as our guides, taking us to parks, markets, historical sites and government buildings. On Thursday and Friday we will be breaking off into small groups in order to begin our immersion. Places include schools, centres for young single mothers and a venue for grandmothers and orphaned children. We look forward to spending more time with the Karibu group who truly live up to their name. (Karibu means welcome in Swahili)
Donna and Jessica.
Kibera
On Thursday 7th and Friday 8th January the Tutembee Pamoja Immersion group volunteered at placements in Kibera slum in Nairobi. We were accompanied by some members of the Edmund Rice Karibu group who also volunteered their time to be with us at our various placements. The placements and groups were:
» St Juliet’s Primary School
Godfrey, Tate, Emma Kelly and Brendan
» Baraka za Ibrahim Primary School
Michael, Daisy, Beck, Sam, Aaron
» Grandmothers Support Group and Kindergarten.
Pato, Karanja, Caterina, Dan and Siobhan
» St Christine’s Primary School
Naomi, Miriam, Peter and Jess
» St Christine’s Secondary School
Francisca, Damien, Mathew and Clare
» Young Single Mothers Group
Duncan, Emma Radin, Donna and Paul
The experience was unique for all of us as we experienced Kibera and its people in very different ways. The following are a few reflections from different participants about their time in Kibera.
Kibera 2010
On Thursday and Friday of the first week of the immersion, the group divided up and spent time at different placements in Kibera, one of the biggest slums in the world. Brendan Webb, Tate Bourke and I had the opportunity to spend some time teaching and working at St Juliet’s, a primary school located right in the heart of Kibera. We were taken through Kibera with one of the Karibu group volunteers, Godfrey. Travelling through Kibera is an experience that is hard to describe unless you have been there yourself. For one the walk itself is not only mentally challenging, but physically challenging, bumps, ditches and cracks in the road which all becomes incredibly slippery when wet or even just a tad damp. It is amazing to think that the people living in Kibera walk to work or school. The walk is also mentally and emotionally challenging. Open sewerage, rubbish piled up high like a tip and most of the houses not much bigger than a single room, made from tin or mud. We had the honour of visting our guide, Godfrey’s house which was amazing, he was so welcoming and open to answering our question. The incredible thing about Kibera is, regardless of the state they are living in, the people are so friendly and welcoming. After about a 30 minute walk we reached St Juliet’s and were introduced to the headmaster. We were told the school had around 500 pupils, which was hard to believe because it was so small. We were given a tour of the school and introduced to the students. The entire school was made out of tin with dirt floors. There were classes with about 50 students squeezed into desks, with one blackboard and minimal light. The children had very little resources, many having one pencil and one book and the teachers were given one textbook and two pieces of chalk. It was so different to anything I have ever seen in Australia, it felt very surreal in a way. Tate, Brendan and I were each assigned to a class, given a textbook and chalk like any other teacher and were asked to teach. On the Thursday I found this quite challenging and overwhelming, but on Friday I really began to enjoy myself and found it exciting to share my knowledge with the children. They were all so eager to learn, intelligent and genuinely happy to have us there teaching. It was such an incredible, unforgettable and really unexplainable experience and has really sparked a passion in me to research more about the schooling system in Kenya and work towards improving it in any way I can.
By Emma Kelly
Kibera Placement
Thursday 7th January, 2010
By the Thursday of our first week in Kenya, the Tutmebee Pamoja Immersion had already spent a significant period of time at the Edmund Rice Centre situated on the outskirts of Kibera. Thursday saw our group divide into smaller numbers and finally go beyond the edge and enter into the second largest urban slum in the world. Each smaller group of three were assigned a specific placement for the following two days. We were teamed up with two members of the Karibu Youth Group who acted as guides in leading us through the maze that is Kibera.
Caterina, Dan and myself were placed at an informal school or day care, with children ages ranging from around 2 to 6. This day care centre was founded by a group of grandmothers who created the centre out of a desire to educate, and feed their orphaned grandchildren.
We spent at the very least an hour navigating our way through Kibera on the first morning of our placement, getting a sense of where we were and what we were experiencing. Our Karibu leaders Pato and Karanja took us through the streets of Kibera which without them would have been an unsafe and dangerous mission. They also gave us a greater insight into some of the social issues affecting the millions living there.
My first impressions of Kibera largely revolved around aesthetics. It is incredibly hard not to notice the pungent stench of raw sewerage in the air. The mud mixed with who knows what. There were of course some public toilets, which Australian standards would most likely deem unacceptably unsanitary. Their use came at a cost, which many living in one of the poorest slums of the world simply could not afford. Rubbish was literally strewn everywhere. Whilst navigating uphill through narrow gaps between tin shacks, it often felt as though there was no earth beneath my feet, only rubbish. It was also impossible not to notice the conditions of the houses. Rusted Corrugated Iron shacks, which could only be described as impossibly small, had bits of cardboard lining the walls instead of plaster and miscellaneous objects holding down rooves. Dogs roamed through piles of rubbish, and at one point I’m quite sure I saw a goat doing the same thing. I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and despair that so many were living in what seemed to be almost unbearable conditions.
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