This paper is the simple transposition of the sensations felt during a short period of 3 days in the slums of Nairobi: Korogocho. Does not pretend to explain the life of that place let alone to describe the work that people with very place of love and play today. The room
The room takes up only a few square meters. What separates it from the African sky is just a surface of metal panels, interrupted by a small space occupied by a transparent material that allows light to filter and dim lighting. Behind the walls and raw information, there are a table that hides a small stool, a network that creates the space for an old mattress and a dresser. Nothin 'else. The rustic monotony of gray concrete walls, is broken by some old faded posters, I stop watching them. They talk about peace and justice to people, events and meetings. Then, just above the bed, which I gave back, I see it an 'other, I approach and I read the slogan: "I do not care who God is! I just know where you are. " Then I sit down and start to think, I remember where I am, I remember the stretch of road walking path just before and I remember that, on that stretch of road, I saw, "... I just know which side he is." And I can not help wondering: "but which side are you?". I know that in the room, because of compromises time, we could spend only three days and I know that in that room, up to a year ago, there lived a person who has used it for fifteen years as a refuge, fifteen years. That person was called Gino Filippini.
... a few hours before
's six in the morning and another half stoned, I go down the stairs of the bus wearing the torpor of a night journey of 14 hours and begin to trample Nairobi. I just left the Kenyan coast, the ocean and the unbearable heat in those parts is to be clothed. I do not think I'll have a great nostalgia for that place, I even remember a discrepant in the vision of a beautiful landscape dominated by ignorance construction and arrogant of avid cement, bastards of land predators of others (mostly Italians percent), but this was perhaps another story. It's early and I decided to wait to get in touch with Father Paul, he is probably still asleep.
Father Paul is a Comboni missionary who works in one of the most desperate places on earth: the slums of Korogocho, which for three days, will become a place that I host.
I let a 'slip behind me now while I sit on the steps of a store still closed, then dial the phone number. The voice of Paul, arriving tired but determined, saying that I must reach the parish of Kariobangi where I'll find someone who will accompany me the slum. I take a taxi and I start. Even at 7:30 the traffic is a bad companion, but the 'driver he jumps like he was walking along the corridor of his house and soon we reach the parish. Meeting Paul, but the Father. Paul is a young doctor who works at Korogocho, a Comboni brother that I had already known in Karamoja, where he worked before coming to Nairobi. He will accompany me to the slums.
After greetings and pleasantries with other Fathers of the place, we have to make walking the stretch of road about 2-3 km that separates us from the mission of Korogocho. From that first step begins my silence. I decide not to talk for me to think, decide not to ask questions because I realize that there is an answer to what I see. The first section of the street, still retains an urban facade, though in the suburbs. Both right and left almost derelict buildings stand with their feet small and medium to large businesses, people walking, lots of people walking. Some van and a few cars, compete in daring maneuvers between people and small shops, while some "motorcycle taxi" juggles snaking through the crowd without thinking too much about those who are ahead, including me. Hop! Dodged!
continue for about 1 km and the buildings begin to fall until we get to set foot on a line that tells me that 'asphalt is over and is starting Korogocho.
Paul says that on that line, then along the inside of the slums, are building a new road. For now, the sides of the skeleton of what will be the new road, begin the plates. There are close to a crowded barracks' other, there are lots of people, how many people! They say there are more than 100,000 who live in an area of \u200b\u200b3 square kilometers. The huts are arranged in clusters among the narrow lanes which run in passing that also have the task of draining the
'water during the rains. Of course it's all dirt and do not dare imagine what could happen during and after a heavy downpour. The garbage is everywhere, plastic, glass, paper, everything is mixed to the ground, to plates and humans. The voice of Paul arrives to break my
distraction - we arrived!
I look back on and do not know anything that seems like a mission. Looking better, I realize that I find myself at a small gate, I had not noticed. Let's go. It is not a shack, it's true, but it is certainly not a house. The walls are exterior are painted colorful murals, as if to chase away the drabness and monotony of those 3 square miles, the interior is kept to a bare minimum, no kitchen just a couple of kerosene stove, no refrigerator and of course no appliances. As a latrine and bathroom, in the side of the house, a corner with a couple of taps to the shower where the water comes from the sky. The electricity is, comes and goes, but it's enough. Father Paul is out for the activities, greet and thank Paul, the brother, who must also move to their own. I sit and wait.
Shortly after I hear the gate open, accompanied by the voice heard by telephone a few hours before. I get up and see Father Paul. We introduce ourselves and we sit down for coffee. I tell him to be just back from a few days of vacation on the coast, leaving no time to continue, he began to rant against Post reports that the thoughts I mentioned a little earlier. Although full agreement with him, I decide not to answer, as if I deserved to receive the outburst that was certainly not directed at me. After the coffee, Paul shows me the room where I stay and without another word, I said, this was the room
-Gino-
... three days after
do not think I have made a good impression Paul in those days. The contrast between the experience that I had been in the enchanting landscapes scarred and projecting from one day to the 'other, in an environment as can be to Korogocho, had created an inner struggle between my being and my being Western volunteer. I had isolated prevented from living a full trade in those days. I was at the mercy of conflicting ideas, compromises against radical choices, I had to accept that reality against the thought that it was possible that those same realities might truly exist. All this led to a state of helplessness and my melancholy silence that already, I had accepted as a companion.
Despite everything, I lost the ability to listen. I listened to the anger in the footsteps of Paul, I listened to his words as I described the activities of the mission, as I talked about the school, the project dedicated to street children, groups of men and women and the continuing fight against the landfill Dandora. Ed said. I watched the desperate pride of tens of thousands of people fleeing from villages and rural areas, that the rural world, if only the governments use properly, would solve most problems of these people, I watched the banks of rivers which flow through Korogocho, I heard the 'odor, the smell of the slums and I realized how much love there was a need to work and live there.
Now I'm on a bus stop somewhere in Nairobi, Kampala and I will be in tomorrow then I'll go back to Karamoja. I do not know if I have done well to take this journey, I might have done better to stay between the green and yellow of the savanna, in the mountains of Iriiri and among the people who is hosting me, a people who are hungry, but at least he lives and dies on a land that until now, may be considered own.
's nice that I may have stopped me to ask certain questions.
I stopped asking how it could be possible that in our era of human beings still live in these conditions, I stopped asking how it could be possible that there is still a part of the world ignored and humiliated, I stopped asking how it could be possible that human reason can not yet understand the love for herself. Unfortunately, it is possible, and every day under the shifty eyes of us all, eyes that look but do not see, eyes that look but immediately change direction. This is the smell of the slums, this is annoying, indifference, hatred. Yet I keep on telling me that it is impossible to change, exist and have existed men who were able to transform the 'smell of perfume in slam' love, Gino was one of those paid and broke it on their skin, but after him came others and more to come. This does not mean that everyone should make a radical choice, it's all in the simplicity of living. Anywhere in the world you are, any work is taking place and in every action that we are making, we can decide what to feel, if the smell of perfume or slum 's love.
for information on Korogocho visit http://www.korogocho.org/
Korogocho told by Alex Zanotelli
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