slums

I cried the first 30 minutes of Slumdog Millionaire. I did not cry during any part of the movie that was more intense and hence would've been more appropriate to cry...no, I cried at the beginning.

I was practically sobbing in the theater, hoping that the 4 other people, who were there in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, wouldn't notice.

The scene I watched was of a group of boys playing where they're not supposed to...some police guards catch them and the camera closes in on 2 little boys trying to outrun these guards...sprinting into their slum community and trying to lose them.

The director did a beautiful job catching the slum they were in, and portraying the living conditions to the audience. It was the perfect introductory scene to show what conditions the protagonist came from.

I spent three weeks working in a slum in Nairobi called Kibera. Coming home from Kenya, I never really liked to talk about. I'd write about it sometimes. But I got very weird about talking about my missions experience. Nothing totally life scarring happened there. I did not witness some outrageously cruel events. But I did see cruelty: it was my own.

I asked God over and over again when I was in Kibera to pierce my heart for the slum. Why? When I walked through it, I did not feel any feeling I would have expected. I was absolutely numb. I wanted to feel love, but that numbness turned to almost apathy.

I had a few short interactions with people in the slums that didn't pierce my heart, but absolutely broke it. One situation can be portrayed by a scene in a short story I wrote a while back:

The girls nearly ran down the dirt roads to get to the Otiende compound where the sisters were waiting. They started down the trail, through a garland of flowers where men without jobs were hired to tend. The sisters greeted the men with a cheerful “habari zenu,” to which they replied, “mzuri sana!” The girls emulated the sisters in sing song vocals. Sr. Marie Rose engaged the men in dialogue neither of the girls’ Kiswahili was proficient enough to understand. However, one man was friendly enough to soon break out in English:

“Why are you Americans here?” His stern eyes looked Hannah in the face. “You so rich, you just touring through! This is where we live.” With a fearful zealousness, Hannah reached in her bag for a track, but Tamera interrupted before she could grab one.

“We’re here because we do care.” Tamera quipped. He turned towards the plainer girl.
“Ah, but you don’t care,” his chalky teeth spat. “You pass through and go on home.” The activist cast her eyes down to the dirt with nothing to say. Hannah looked at the man and noticed that his face was nothing but honest. “Jina nani?” she inquired, with the best smile she could force.
“My name is Peter!” the man exclaimed, surprised at Hannah’s attempt. “Na wewe?”
“Jina langu ni Hannah and this is Tamera.” The girls smiled angelically.
“We are not like all Americans,” the activist started again, enunciating her words articulately, so he could understand. “We want to help Kenyans like you and that is why we are here!”
“You want to help? Me?” His mustache curled up with his yellow teeth.
“Sure we do! That’s why we’re here!” Tamera said, starting to sound enthusiastic as Hannah, who nudged her, silently trying to communicate.
“I better get your contact info!” Before the girls had time to say anything, Peter dropped his tools and ran quickly to his tin house, searching for a scrap of paper. His house was swamped by sewage. He wondered what it’d be like if he ever made it to America.

Hannah looked at Tamera as if to say “Look what you did.” They were told many times not to give their contacts random Kenyans they met. Tamera looked back as the sisters and the girls started moving down the path. Peter sprinted to catch up. His hands flung excitedly in the breeze, gripping a dirty piece of paper. “Do you have a pen? Do you have a pen?” he cried. America was no longer so far away.

Tamera looked at him anxiously, not knowing how to respond. “No, I do not have a pen on me,” she lied. She carried one in her small journal and pen in her dress pocket.

There's very little question that Tamera, the "activist", was me. I walked into these situations like I was an American Hero, when really, there's very little I could ever do to actually help.

I guess, when you're overseas, your sins become a little bit more apparent. It's because of this that I almost have completely blocked my experiences in the slums out of my mind.

I can't watch movies like Slumdog Millionaire without feeling this pain that's associated with my guilt. 'Cause really this guilt never really left. People kept telling me that I should not feel guilt, so instead of dealing with it, I became apathetic to it. I left it all behind in Kenya. One movie I never finished watching was The Constant Gardener which was literally set in Kibera. I could never make it beyond the scene where the kids swarm the wife, chanting "how are YOU! how are YOU!"

I really need to embrace this pain, but it's still hard for me to reflect back on Kenya. But through much needed prayer, I know this guilt will be overcome with God's loving grace.

Above are just a few pictures I collected of Kibera.