It has been an interesting first half of the week. Adjusting back to American culture is going to take a little bit more time than I originally anticipated.
As for this blog, I am going to attempt to backtrack in time by posting in the order that I would have during my summer in Kenya. I may have kept a list somewhere... that does not mean I am a dork.
Regardless, I think back to my first week in Nairobi. I think back to my first walk through the Mathare valley slums. The poverty was absolutely hallowing to me; the homes, the trash, the smells, the noises, and the sights. It was overwhelming in every sense of the word.
Yet I also remember that in one week of working in Mathare, I adjusted to the things around me. The houses did not appear to be so small anymore. The trash did not heap that high. The smells faded after a few minutes. The sounds did not ring in my ears. And the magnitude of the slums decreased in size.
I think of the story in Mark 8 when Jesus spits in a man's eyes. Christ asks him, "Do you see anything?" He [the man] looked up and said, "I see men. They look like walking trees." The story continues until the man sees everything clearly.
My initial immersion in the slums only allowed me to see the physical conditions. The people, they were just blurry objects passing by me. However, after one week I stopped seeing so much of the environment and I started seeing more of the Kenyans.
Even now that I am home, I know there are some people that I am merely seeing as walking trees. But the goal is to see them clearly. Isn't that always the goal?
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