Stephen Nzyoki SJ teaching in St. Aloysius School in Kibera />
Views of Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya… area = about 1.5 square miles. At over 1 million people, the population density is 30 times that of New York City.
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Sharing of Personal Experience
By Gregory Chisholm, S.J.(American Jesuit,Visiting-Professor at Hekima College, Nairobi))
[I happened to be walking through Kibera, Saturday, January 17, and Obama’s smiling face was prominently displayed on the doors of a few stores. In Kibera Obama’s picture would be the freshest and brightest image of any kind throughout the area. Kibera may be largest settlement of urban poor people on the African continent. Soweto in South Africa may be the only rival. There are one million people living in an expanse of corrugated aluminum and wooden shacks which stretch for miles in Western Nairobi. There is no infra-structure in this settlement, no sewage system, no paved roads, and no public services. On a rainy day like this one the refuse and the mud and the water become a slurry in the alley ways and justify the common description of Kibera as a slum. One-third of the entire population of Nairobi live in this slum. There are about 5 other defined slum areas in Nairobi. In general they are all no-go zones for other residents of Nairobi and tourists. Robbery and car-jacking are common occurrences. The only non-residents of Kibera come in to provide the much needed services in areas like medicine, education, food, and child support. Some of those offering such services choose to live in Kibera. Several communities of nuns and religious men live in or very near Kibera. They spend their days in the midst of one of the saddest instances of ongoing human tragedy which I’ve encountered. Kibera is an epicenter for the destruction visited upon Africa by HIV infection and AIDS. In Kibera men, women and children are living and dying with AIDS.
Today’s trip was my second one into Kibera. Stephen Nzyoki, SJ, of Kenya and Beatus Mauki, SJ, of Tanzania, two Jesuit seminarians, accompanied me and guided me for both experiences. Our goal was to observe the services rendered by Jesuits and others in parts of Kibera. One entrance to the district is a fifteen minute walk from Hekima College. On the first visit we walked to Lea Toto, a community home-based care program for HIV positive children founded by Jesuit Fr. Angelo D’Agostino of Detroit. A young Jesuit Kenyan physician works there with a staff of nurses, nutritionists and social workers, who are lay persons and religious women. The Jesuit physician is Alex. He is an exuberant man, who speaks rapidly in both English and Kiswahili. He puts one quickly in mind of an absent-minded academic, yet one with a genuine sense of commitment to those he serves. His case load is 50 families per day. We met him at the end of his day, yet he would have gone on talking for hours, if we let him. One naturally admires the efforts of the men and women of Lea Toto.
Today we visited St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School in Kibera, a development inspired by Fr. Terry Charlton, SJ. On Saturday in the pouring rain students were gathered in classes dutifully listening to teachers or doing review work for national exams. I was really quite amazed at their demeanor and attentiveness, as well as the respect they seem to have for the school staff. These are all First Form to Fourth Form students, roughly 14 to 18 years old. Each wore a school uniform including grey slacks or skirts and a green knitted sweater. On Saturday morning, as I visited each of their classrooms, I could see that they were studying Physics, English, Religious Studies and Biology. This was their sixth school day of the week. On other days they study Mathematics, French, Kiswahili, History and Business. In almost every classroom I visited I could see some newspaper or poster or graffiti celebrating the presidency of Barack Obama. Stephen Nzyoki, SJ, one of my guides, teaches religious education in this school on Saturdays. As we visited the students in their classrooms, it became clear that Stephen has that natural but rare gift of reaching secondary school students and getting them talking and even laughing. He is very well respected and loved at the school, as well as in the sections of Kibera nearest the seminary. What surprised me even more about St. Aloysius was the environment in which all this teaching and learning took place. The buildings were very much of Kibera. There were corrugated aluminum walls and ceilings leaked water into the classrooms. Electric lighting was scarce or absent. Students were cold and layered their sweaters. My sense is that an American high school would be in a continuous state of pandemonium under conditions like these.
It was Stephen who explained why the academic enterprise holds together for students at St. Aloysius Gonzaga. These young Kenyan men and women are all orphans. Specifically they are all children of men and women, most importantly, who have died from AIDS. St. Aloysius is their only chance to achieve and to possibly escape Kibera. The school provides them with a placement, with uniforms and with food during the day. There are some students who do not have any family who are given rooms, rented by the school, to live in. Stephen explained to me that almost all the students of the school live in the cramped and overcrowded conditions natural to Kibera, so the school is more spacious and more protected than any of their homes. Sister Luciana, a Kenyan Franciscan nun who has taught at St. Aloysius for many years, explained to me that students are in the school building from 6 AM until 9 PM at night, even though the school day begins at 8 AM and ends in the mid-Afternoon. She said that discipline is not much of problem, since the students themselves want to reap as much benefit as possible from school. On the other hand retaining teachers is difficult. The physical conditions in the Kibera neighborhood and at the school are difficult for most and the turnover in personnel is frequent. I left St. Aloysius today desperately wanting to get someplace warm and dry and comfortable, but that was not at all a feeling shared by the students at St. Aloysius. They were just fine.
There is always a certain irony seeing manicured faces of prosperous looking people in the midst of uncomfortable and unrelenting poverty. I always found it strange at home seeing a politician’s image with tailored of Kenya. Yet that sense of irony is entirely my own issue because, for the people of Kibera, Barack Obama is a son and he is the sun. His image is everywhere. The majority of the residents of Kibera are of the Luo tribe of Kenya. This is the same tribe, the same people, from which Barack Obama’s father came. So there is growing anticipation of the inauguration on Tuesday, January 20. Some of the Jesuits at Hekima College believe that there might be a public holiday that day, although I am sure that classes will still be in session. However, if there is a holiday, the center of much celebration in Nairobi will be in Kibera. If not for the poverty and insularity of the district, it might actually be the place to be on Inauguration Day. If not for the squalor and the potential for violence, Kibera would be a desirable place from which to observe the rise, from the actual and virtual ashes, of the first person of African descent to the Presidency of the United States.]
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Thank you very much indeed for visiting this blog.
Comments to: vmalpan@gmail.com
Stephen Nzyoki SJ teaching in St. Aloysius School in Kibera />
Views of Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya… area = about 1.5 square miles. At over 1 million people, the population density is 30 times that of New York City.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sharing of Personal Experience
By Gregory Chisholm, S.J.(American Jesuit,Visiting-Professor at Hekima College, Nairobi))
[I happened to be walking through Kibera, Saturday, January 17, and Obama’s smiling face was prominently displayed on the doors of a few stores. In Kibera Obama’s picture would be the freshest and brightest image of any kind throughout the area. Kibera may be largest settlement of urban poor people on the African continent. Soweto in South Africa may be the only rival. There are one million people living in an expanse of corrugated aluminum and wooden shacks which stretch for miles in Western Nairobi. There is no infra-structure in this settlement, no sewage system, no paved roads, and no public services. On a rainy day like this one the refuse and the mud and the water become a slurry in the alley ways and justify the common description of Kibera as a slum. One-third of the entire population of Nairobi live in this slum. There are about 5 other defined slum areas in Nairobi. In general they are all no-go zones for other residents of Nairobi and tourists. Robbery and car-jacking are common occurrences. The only non-residents of Kibera come in to provide the much needed services in areas like medicine, education, food, and child support. Some of those offering such services choose to live in Kibera. Several communities of nuns and religious men live in or very near Kibera. They spend their days in the midst of one of the saddest instances of ongoing human tragedy which I’ve encountered. Kibera is an epicenter for the destruction visited upon Africa by HIV infection and AIDS. In Kibera men, women and children are living and dying with AIDS.
Today’s trip was my second one into Kibera. Stephen Nzyoki, SJ, of Kenya and Beatus Mauki, SJ, of Tanzania, two Jesuit seminarians, accompanied me and guided me for both experiences. Our goal was to observe the services rendered by Jesuits and others in parts of Kibera. One entrance to the district is a fifteen minute walk from Hekima College. On the first visit we walked to Lea Toto, a community home-based care program for HIV positive children founded by Jesuit Fr. Angelo D’Agostino of Detroit. A young Jesuit Kenyan physician works there with a staff of nurses, nutritionists and social workers, who are lay persons and religious women. The Jesuit physician is Alex. He is an exuberant man, who speaks rapidly in both English and Kiswahili. He puts one quickly in mind of an absent-minded academic, yet one with a genuine sense of commitment to those he serves. His case load is 50 families per day. We met him at the end of his day, yet he would have gone on talking for hours, if we let him. One naturally admires the efforts of the men and women of Lea Toto.
Today we visited St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School in Kibera, a development inspired by Fr. Terry Charlton, SJ. On Saturday in the pouring rain students were gathered in classes dutifully listening to teachers or doing review work for national exams. I was really quite amazed at their demeanor and attentiveness, as well as the respect they seem to have for the school staff. These are all First Form to Fourth Form students, roughly 14 to 18 years old. Each wore a school uniform including grey slacks or skirts and a green knitted sweater. On Saturday morning, as I visited each of their classrooms, I could see that they were studying Physics, English, Religious Studies and Biology. This was their sixth school day of the week. On other days they study Mathematics, French, Kiswahili, History and Business. In almost every classroom I visited I could see some newspaper or poster or graffiti celebrating the presidency of Barack Obama. Stephen Nzyoki, SJ, one of my guides, teaches religious education in this school on Saturdays. As we visited the students in their classrooms, it became clear that Stephen has that natural but rare gift of reaching secondary school students and getting them talking and even laughing. He is very well respected and loved at the school, as well as in the sections of Kibera nearest the seminary. What surprised me even more about St. Aloysius was the environment in which all this teaching and learning took place. The buildings were very much of Kibera. There were corrugated aluminum walls and ceilings leaked water into the classrooms. Electric lighting was scarce or absent. Students were cold and layered their sweaters. My sense is that an American high school would be in a continuous state of pandemonium under conditions like these.
It was Stephen who explained why the academic enterprise holds together for students at St. Aloysius Gonzaga. These young Kenyan men and women are all orphans. Specifically they are all children of men and women, most importantly, who have died from AIDS. St. Aloysius is their only chance to achieve and to possibly escape Kibera. The school provides them with a placement, with uniforms and with food during the day. There are some students who do not have any family who are given rooms, rented by the school, to live in. Stephen explained to me that almost all the students of the school live in the cramped and overcrowded conditions natural to Kibera, so the school is more spacious and more protected than any of their homes. Sister Luciana, a Kenyan Franciscan nun who has taught at St. Aloysius for many years, explained to me that students are in the school building from 6 AM until 9 PM at night, even though the school day begins at 8 AM and ends in the mid-Afternoon. She said that discipline is not much of problem, since the students themselves want to reap as much benefit as possible from school. On the other hand retaining teachers is difficult. The physical conditions in the Kibera neighborhood and at the school are difficult for most and the turnover in personnel is frequent. I left St. Aloysius today desperately wanting to get someplace warm and dry and comfortable, but that was not at all a feeling shared by the students at St. Aloysius. They were just fine.
There is always a certain irony seeing manicured faces of prosperous looking people in the midst of uncomfortable and unrelenting poverty. I always found it strange at home seeing a politician’s image with tailored of Kenya. Yet that sense of irony is entirely my own issue because, for the people of Kibera, Barack Obama is a son and he is the sun. His image is everywhere. The majority of the residents of Kibera are of the Luo tribe of Kenya. This is the same tribe, the same people, from which Barack Obama’s father came. So there is growing anticipation of the inauguration on Tuesday, January 20. Some of the Jesuits at Hekima College believe that there might be a public holiday that day, although I am sure that classes will still be in session. However, if there is a holiday, the center of much celebration in Nairobi will be in Kibera. If not for the poverty and insularity of the district, it might actually be the place to be on Inauguration Day. If not for the squalor and the potential for violence, Kibera would be a desirable place from which to observe the rise, from the actual and virtual ashes, of the first person of African descent to the Presidency of the United States.]
--------------------------
Thank you very much indeed for visiting this blog.
Comments to: vmalpan@gmail.com
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