Mathare Valley

Covering Wednesday June 11th, 2008

Philippians 2:14-16
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

I was looking for a video on Mathare Valley; this caught my attention instead. It is extremely rough.

This, however, is a video from Mathare.

Tuesday night after we had pizza and mingled with the Journey, we went to the YMCA. We had a preparation meeting for tomorrow in regards for our lesson at Mathare Valley. We would be teaching over 500 students-- children from the slums. Many were HIV+ victims and orphans. It was more humbling and astounding than anything else.

As we walked into the school we were introduced to the head master. She guided us through the school grounds, and outside each classroom we stopped at the door and crowded together; each class sang a song to welcome us to their school.

As we walked to each room we became more attached and more in love with these children and their song. By the time we had reached the pre-K unit they were mostly banging their fists on desks. We then were pulled aside as a group to learn about Mathare and the facilities that were there. The school was church affiliated; our assembly was held in their chapel. I was incredibly excited. As a team, we prayed in the chapel for the upcoming event and hoped that we could use the day well to serve Christ and teach his message clearly. Children were sneaking around to see us. There was a kindergarten room connected to the chapel and my curiosity was too strong so I went inside. I was excited to see so many happy faces, but strangely enough there was no teacher in sight.

I immediately began playing with them and picked up their classwork and complemented several students on their work; they mostly had made hand drawn pictures. At this point,the language barrier was a conflict so most of the kids in this room were fairly confused-- words were not necessary. I asked them how they were doing and no matter what, for every lesson on the whole trip, they would say "We're fine!" I miss that. They also were fascinated by my hair. I was a little shocked by this, but I thought it was sweet too. Unlike most children at home who are fascinated by my hair and they pull it, braid it, and chew on it, these children loved to hold it delicately. I eventually went back to my team, and the students were beginning to appear in all directions. There were children of all ages. Some of them looked like they had just begun to walk; others were in the eighth grade (what we call grades they call standards).

They were just as excited as kids would be at home to have a day-off, except to still be at school and be able to play with their classmates. The younger children danced all over the place, or maybe they bounced all over the place. Before long, the whole auditorium was filled with students along with: the Journey, our team, and the amazing teachers of this school. Instead of sitting by my team I sat in the middle of the crowd with the students and Andrew. I was glad that Andrew was there because he explained to me what they were saying when they used Swahili. I sat by a boy named William. I can't believe I remember his name because I may have sat by him for 10 minutes. He wanted to know what football team I supported; I of course did what any other person would have and said I supported whatever team he did. And he asked me if I liked Manchester, I think. To be honest, I wasn't sure if he said Manchester.

A few children recited poems to us about being street kids. There was one girl who was captivating; she spoke with eloquence and power-- I believe she wrote it too. Wacey and Jordan did a skit about how God can test us but if we have faith God will provide. Then some of the music students sang and danced. At the end, our team came up and danced with them. We then had a few minutes to play with them before tea time.

I think I made a full circle around the room in the ten or fifteen minutes we had. A beautiful little girl who I couldn't help but fall in love with was somehow put into my arms. Someone had my video camera, and I just carried this little girl across the room. A whole crowd of girls were playing with Chrissy's hair, a few people started the chicken dance, kids were laughing everywhere, people played drums, April was teaching them songs, and then a group of girls kept calling my name and pulled me aside. I was surprised that they remembered my name. I was still carrying around the little girl. These girls who knew my name circled around me-- which in any other situation sounds a little scary. They tried to teach me some songs in Swahili and the little girl just looked around awestruck. Then they asked me to sing, and it was like they were little angels that knew me better than myself. They could not have been anymore encouraging, and I was lucky because for several on the team it was hard to balance the younger kids with the older kids because the older ones would push them to the side. They were a good mix.

Somehow the lyrics to "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy popped into my head, and I couldn't remember it well at first but I still made myself sing and I was surprised, incredibly surprised. I had dreamed for a long time to just be around children like these. I had been envisioning them since I knew I would be going to Africa. It was a dream I had, a sublime dream. So, I was a bit startled that when I sang they were completely silent. They all leaned in, and I only had a handful of seconds to be in this sweet little circle with quite possibly the most innocent people in the world.

Within seconds, I was handing the little girl to someone and feeling somewhat torn inside. I had a feeling that I would see her again before we left, but it still bothered me greatly. I was probably the last to leave before heading for tea.

From my seat I could see the children playing outside in the dust. The dust was strong and I found traces of it in my ears the next morning. After tea we would break into pairs to teach the lesson to each class. We taught them about how David defeated Goliath. On this day, I worked with Justin and Alex (who was from the Journey). We first taught the fourth grade.
The room was packed with kids. We looked through their classwork and entertained them before the lesson. There was a group of boys in the front who were intensely studying with their Swahili books; I liked messing with them because it reminded me of days long gone. Eventually, we taught the lesson-- which I basically made Justin do. Well, he did know it better than me because he worked on that particular lesson (Chrissy and I worked on the lesson plan for Mary). It was impressive to see how intently the children listened and how well they were able to fill in the blanks of our lesson. When one student told us the story was about faith, I felt that Justin must have done a good job. Then I attempted to sing the lesson's song, but unfortunately I didn't know the words. So, Justin had to write the words on the washboard; the kids were all singing together and were spinning in circles.

Alex helped us tremendously. He was able to keep the children calm and at the end he asked them questions about the story and he asked them if they could remember our names. Then we were moved to the next classroom, which I believe was the second grade. They did not understand English as well, partly because they were younger. This time, we started the lesson as soon as we walked into the door and we switched: I did the lesson and Justin did the song. During the song, a little boy in the back raised his arms over his head and then everyone copied him. It was spectacular to look at this little boy. He had absolutely no doubt; he stood there proud. I imagine Justin was confused as to why everyone was doing this-- including myself and Alex. Sometimes the most spectacular moments are hidden in humor.

Then the classroom next door began singing a song that was full of shouting. It was like a shouting competition: one group says "praise the Lord" and then the other half shouts "hallelujah" in response. We decided it would be cool if we had their classroom doing this with ours. I went next door to talk with the team members there. And I'm not entirely sure why this happened, but I do think it's important to keep in mind that this was the third grade and that I didn't go to an even younger classroom.

Several children, I think about ten to fifteen, all ran to me. They started hugging my legs and those that could reach were petting my hair. There were so many hands on me. I began to turn away so I could leave the room or at least get behind Lance so that maybe I could talk civilly. Instead, two or three boys pulled off my sunglasses while a few kids were still petting my hair. I told them they had to give my sunglasses back, but it was rather pointless. The boy who had them on looked like Ray Charles. Then there was a girl who just burst into tears, so I left the boys who took my glasses and went over to the girl who was crying. One of the girls who was still mesmerized by my hair went over to the girl and tried to hug her but that just made the girl more upset. Once I got to the girl myself all of the kids who were on me stopped and ran for their seats. And I hugged the little girl who was profusely crying; she instantly stopped. Then somehow Lance got my sunglasses, and he stopped the children from pushing me to the ground. Lance did an amazing job throughout the trip of keeping an eye on everybody, especially me in incidents like these. Then I simply said that the classroom next door wanted to compete with this one in the shouting game.

I went outside and the little girl who I desperately wanted to take home was outside. I have no idea why she wasn't in a classroom, but I didn't care. She ran to me and held my hand. Then she looked at me and laughed. I hugged her. She then ran away laughing. Finally, I was back in my classroom. I have no idea how long I was gone, but I shrugged my shoulders when Justin and Alex gave me confused looks. Then we played the game and as we were leaving a couple of the kids said "thank you" and they hugged my leg, and another one was excited to touch my hair.

I was overwhelmed.

It was lunch time and everyone was talking about all the events that had just happened. Just like almost every meal we had there, we had rice, meat, cabbage, and potatoes. Not to mention, any coke product that you wanted was available.I don't really know how I got there but a few of us taught the oldest classroom together. Sevo and Wacey mainly taught this lesson. I actually sat with some of the students and helped them to be as loud as possible-- there were parts with the story where the children were supposed to yell. Then we played Simon Says and Statue. Statue is where you freeze into whatever position you are currently in until someone says "off." Throughout the trip I would say "statue" to Eric, one of the Journey students. He and I were pretty hilarious together, and for some reason April thought he looked like Dave Chapelle so she started calling him that-- but of course that's what I decided to call April. Anyway, each classroom had completely different dynamics. I liked working with the last group because they kept me on my toes. They tried to get me to say dirty words in Swahili but I told them I was on to them, and they were bewildered as to how I knew. Too bad they didn't realize I had already passed the seventh grade.

I was somewhat torn inside when we had to say good-bye. But this was only the first day that we got to visit these brilliant children and to be able to teach them as much as we could about Christ.

Songbird
For you there'll be no crying
For you the sun will be shining
Cause I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right

And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before

1 John 3:2
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.