The children of Boma Rescue Centre

Because of the amazing hospitality of our friends and the incredible resilience of the Kenyan people, it can be easy to forget that there is profound suffering in Dandora. On Monday at the Boma Rescue Center, we received a clear reminder in the simple words and actions of a child.

Felicia, a young girl in the program at the Centre this year wanted to a share with her visitors the story of so many found living on the dump and now coming to Boma. She began so strong with a few props to reenact the search for recyclables or other items of some value in the raw garbage dumped each day. With alternating verses in English and Swahili, she presented a story of a single parent, unable or unwilling to work sending out the child to pick through the dump to find enough to earn enough for some food. She spoke of the hunger, the call first to try anything to push down that hunger--usually sniffing glue, and then the addiction that quickly follows. She spoke of the risks and violence and then as suddenly as she had started, she collapsed into tears--her props dropped, shoulders heaving, and her strong voice suddenly quiet.

Felicia with Monsignor

This is not a bit of fiction--just some sad story--to her, but instead the story from someone who has lived immense pain.

While now in a better situation because of Boma, the children there have help in breaking their addictions, regular meals, and help in working on a pathway into proper foster homes and back into school, but the experiences these children have already had to bear in their young lives is almost impossible to contemplate.

Boma itself is a hardscrabble place--a small plot right on the edge of the active dump site. It provides a place  of safety and community for children who are usually found living full time on the dump. Over the course of a year, they are aided, coaxed, and cajoled to spend their days at Boma. They are fed, they learn a few basic skills, and whenever possible, they are placed with supportive family or a foster family, and they are lead back to school.

Our brief visits to Boma are usually greeted with a lot of joy because the kids embrace the new clothing and toys that we bring along with the opportunity to simply be with an adult who is focused, if only for a moment, on one person, but Felicia helped us remember what's important.

                                                               - Christopher Bell

Dandora built on a landfill

As a return traveler, my intent was never to take poor living conditions of the people of Dandora any less seriously than would a new visitor. Of course I knew the garbage dump – probably the most notorious of any city landmarks – was a blight on the inhabitants of this city of 300,000 plus. But it was only while browsing an outdoor crafts market nearby the site when an overpowering whiff of its putrid smell assaulted all my senses that, once again, I fully realized the curse of this display of greed, indifference, stupidity, fraud, and crime. The effects are not only immediate – truly it pervades every aspect of the lives of the population – but they are also long-term for newborns and adults alike: potential disease, higher infant mortality, and a living sign of neglect.
                                                                                    - Peter Heller