Welcome To Our Home

On our second day in Kenya, we went back to Furaha – our home base – from which we set out on a walking tour of the slum, with several stops along the way. The purpose of the day was to help us understand the environmental context which is home to somewhere between 350,000 to 800,000 people. Our first stop was the home of a couple who are doing their best to raise their children (and then some) as they struggled simply to survive. The father is HIV+, and is fighting TB. We later learned a remarkable thing about the man – he was still there. Most men leave their wives and children if they become infected with HIV. This one stayed, and was highly praised by the social worker who accompanied us. We would also later appreciate how nice this first home was. Even though it was a very simple 8x10 room, the dozen or so other homes shared a water spigot for cooking, a toilet that could flush (not quite like a Western toilet, however), and a bathing room with a spigot.

We visited the last home late in the day – the tenth or so such home visit. Like most of the others, the woman we got to know was HIV+. She was raising her two children (plus others) alone – her husband left years ago. Her particular dwelling was especially challenging. To get to her home, you simply followed an open trench sewage ditch flowing through Huruma. When it turned a corner, so did you. This sewage ditch runs along the outside wall of this woman’s home. It literally sits slightly above her home, as her place is built on an incline. Not only does she not have electricity, no running water, and no toilet, but when the rainy season comes, the sewage ditch overflows – you guessed it – right through her living room (which is basically her entire home). Try raising kids in that.

In the middle of the day we got to sit in on Furaha’s clinic for HIV+ women. After introductions were made, the women sang a few songs – partly for us, and partly for their mutual encouragement. The songs were songs of faith, courage, and battlecry – to educate more and more women about the dangers of HIV and the steps they can take to protect themselves. The leader of this session was a dynamic woman who is living with HIV herself. She told her story: “How was it that I became infected with HIV? I am a smart woman! I married a Christian man! I was sure he was faithful! I am a Christian! People like me don’t get HIV. But even though I am HIV+, I am not ashamed. I am proud. I am still alive. I stiff have life to live. And I want to help other HIV+ women live theirs, too.”

Once a woman is diagnosed as HIV+, their husbands leave them to fend for themselves because they do not want the stigma of being associated with the disease. Note: in the overwhelming majority of cases, they women are infected by their husbands who contract the disease from engaging unprotected sex with local prostitutes. These men leave their wives and children. They are often never seen or heard from ever again.

One difficult challenge Furaha is trying to meet deals with anti-retroviral drugs used to combat AIDS. For most, these drugs are free – provided by non-government organizations (NGO’s). We saw their delivery trucks during our walking tour. The drugs don’t work well, however, on an empty stomach. Most of these women barely cover rent and water. They might get a 6 oz. serving of what we would call a very dense, white, bland cornbread for the day. That’s it. And it’s not enough to allow the drugs to do their job. Furaha, therefore, provides milk and bread at their clinic, so that the women can take their drugs along with food.

Before we headed back to our hotel, we met again with the leaders of Furaha. We learned that the women diagnosed with HIV+ were often rejected by local churches because of their disease. Since I knew I would be leading a cluster meeting of local pastors in a couple of days, it became clear that this was certainly an area we needed to address.

How can you put into words such an experience such as we found walking around? You cannot see the endless rooftops of shanties. You cannot remember watching your every step as you navigate through garbage-laden streets and alleyways. You can’t smell the smell. You can’t see the faces of those who saw us and wondered what we were doing there. I never felt that we were in danger, especially since we were accompanied by Furaha volunteers wearing “Security” t-shirts. We certainly saw despair, but that’s not all we saw. We also saw much joy in the faces of children. We saw dedication in the eyes of the Furaha leadership. We heard hope in the voices of women living well who are also HIV+. These people are living in extreme poverty, but their spirits are not impoverished.

As a Westerner, I began to realize that I was going to be helped as much or more by them as I would help them in return.