Nzuri Weekendi

Yesterday (Saturday) was my favorite day so far.  We’ve gone on several site visits to interesting organizations (Carolina for Kibera, AMREF, and WOFAK [women fighting AIDS in Kenya]), but yesterday was the most amazing organization that I’ve seen in a long time.  The organization is called MYSA, for Mathare Youth Sports Association.  It began in the 1980s as a way to combine soccer and social change in the Mathare slum, and has expanded to include the arts and a library as creative outlet sources for the community.  Additionally, they perform HIV/AIDS education, slum clean ups, and give leadership opportunities to the youths of the area.  The organization’s elite league of soccer is also the champion of last year’s Street Football World Cup and will be defending their title during the World Cup in 2010.  We spent the entire day with the organization.  The morning started off slowly, we visited their main office, their community library, and walked through Mathare slums with some of the members of the org.  In the afternoon, however, after we ate lunch with the members, we visited Haba na Haba (step by step), the performing arts portion of the organization.  There, we spent the afternoon dancing, playing drums/guitar (the annoying African Drumming class actually came in really handy), and watching performances by some amazing break dancers and an Afro-fusion pop band.  The organization is one that has truly reached the goals of being a grassroots CBO that has access points for almost any individual from the community.  The organization truly nurtures whatever talent an individual has, and gives children that could otherwise become lost a place to express their abilities in a constructive manner.

Today (Sunday), I went to Eastleigh market in Nairobi with my host mama.  I expected the market to be the average street market that I’ve seen before; however it was actually an entire section of the city that was the Muslim equivalent of Chinatown in New York.  Every woman was wearing at least a hijab, the majority was wearing the full bui bui, and many were wearing burka. It was nothing that I would expect to see in Nairobi.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, so I don’t have pictures, but I hope to go back at some point. 

Pictures will go up soon, I promise.  I’m still trying to figure out the best way to get long-term internet to upload them.