Our first day in Kenya

Greetings from the land of Kenya!
All went well traveling over here. We arrived safely and on schedule in Nairobi early Friday morning along with all of our luggage. The lady that checked us in in D.C, was easy on us and our over-weight bags. Immigrations went better than expected, and customs were nonexistent. Blessings heaped upon blessings!

(In Washington D.C. full of excitement and ready to check in!)

My cousins, Marcellus and Markus Beachy, along with my Brother, Austin, were waiting for us just outside the airport. We wasted no time loading all of our luggage and heading for the beds at a nearby guesthouse to finish out the night. I personally didn't get much sleep at all, which really wasn't new for me. So as you can imagine, by this point I was feeling nearly drunk from the lack of sleep. 

Groggy, but so happy to be in Kenya. Ready to see Kibera!

The guesthouse served us breakfast before we headed for the Kibera slum in Nairobi for a bit of a tour. An employee offered to be our guide. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa and is known to be the friendliest slum in the world. It is hard to estimate just how many people actually live there. Some say 500,000 others say it could be as many 1,000,000.

It is hard for me to imagine how anyone can find there way home in this maze of mud shacks. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to the set up of this community. 

Here clean water is not easily accessible and proper hygiene is nonexistent causing many diseases. HIV and AIDS are common. In the above picture you will notice the polluted stream running between homes. This is common. They have open sewage systems causing the place to possess a horrible odor. They don't have restrooms, instead they have "flying toilets". The name pretty much says it all.

A girl having a small bag filled with clean water. This was one of the only places I

 recall seeing where clean water could be purchased.

We spend a couple hours in Kibera, passing out candy and balloons to the children, as well as blowing bubbles with them. The delight on their faces was rewarding. 

 Our group (l-r): Austin Lapp, another native guide, Sos, Marcellus Beachy,

                                     Lora Stoltzfus, Beth Smuker, myself, and Markus Beachy

We arrived in Kisumu around 7pm Friday night. 

Stay tuned to here more about our weekend!

(written by Deb Lapp)