The first day...

This is an attempt to describe my first day in Nairobi...
The first thing that happened when i arrived was tea time. I left the Mayfeild Guesthouse (which is more like a quaint hotel than a house per se; it has a dining room, a lounge, a tv room, gardens, etc etc) to go to the Kenyabranch office for AIM to join their staff for chai (swahili for tea) and prayer. The tea is made with tea leaves and milk all boiled together, then served over sugar, which is raw sugar so it is brown and grainy. It is so good! But this morning i opted for good kenyan coffee. We sang a hymn in swahili and that just warmed my heart right up. After that I had orientation with the short term missionary coordinator, whose name is Murray, and his wife Diana and two other short termers who are going to a different location than i am. We talked about Matthew 10 and read it in a Lectio Divina style (which is a specific way of reading scripture) That was good to stir up some thoughts. Then, after a delicious Indian lunch which included mango chutney (yum!) at Mayfeild, Murrey and Diana took us to Kibera. This is a slum suburb of Nairobi with over 1 million people living there. It is the largest slum in Kenya, and one of the largest in all of Africa. I have never seen anything like it. We met Sammi there, who grew up in this slum and became a Christian at age 16 and two years later started a ministry to reach his own people. It is called Youngsters for Christ Team and is evangelistic, with the goals of bringing people to know Christ and doing school ministries and building relationships, among other things. He took us on a walk around the slum and then just talked to us passionately about God in our lives and what the gospel really is calling us to do. THis slum was unreal, it was like those commercials you see on TV for sponsoring children, only much more people in it. All i saw saw aluminum roof tops in a valley of garbage packed roads. There were goats milling through the trash, chickens running around, slow moving stray dogs that were all skin and bone under their dusty yellow fur, and people and children everywhere. All the little children under who were under 4 would say "how are you" in an excited sort of way run up to touch my hand. The kids older than that just stared, as did the adults who weren't running a makeshift store. When i say store, i mean soem aluminum leaning up against a mud wall with shirts hanging in or, or shoes, or corn, or charcoal for example. It was so crowded and children were playing with a ball or just whatever they could find, like ashes from burning trash. Mucky brown water rushed down the valley winding around rank garbage that wouldn't seem to move. I wish i could describe it, but i can't. Whenever i tried to hold my breath to not smell my body naturally just coughed at the stench. The children were happy looking, but the older ones faces drained of hope, and the real older ones had years of a poverty stricken life written on their faces. As we were leaving Kibera, everyone was coming home for work and not very many have cars, so it would compare to trying to drive through the state fair. People everywhere. It was very interesting. Back at Mayfeild, i just finished dinner where apparently mayonnaise is used as salad dressing. needless to say the only thing that touched my lettuce was salt and pepper. For dessert we had a fresh pineapple slice. No wonder america is fat-have you ever seen that on a menu? (haha just joking. but actually it is true.) And now, i am going to sleep because i have felt pretty dizzy all day and only have slept about 7 or 8 hours since wednesday. yikes.