Kings and Queens of Kibera center

This is where they eat

These are some of the kids

I am the person on the top dropping a shuttlecock on people

A couple of weeks ago, we visited a program that my dad started with some friends 20 years ago. The program is called Kings and Queens of Kibera and is located in the slums of Kibera, which is in Nairobi, Kenya. The program houses many kids who need a place to go to school, eat, and sleep. They also participate in art and other activities like coding and sports. The last time I went was 7 years ago in 2019.

When we arrived a couple of weeks ago, the kids were all still in school, except for one little kid. He was about 3 years old and he was cute and fun to play with until he got too comfortable and started trying to spit on me so I locked myself in the boys bedroom while he was distracted by watching cartoons.

When the other kids got back from school, I played soccer with them in the only little space we had. We played a soccer game where you try to make someone flinch by making them think you were passing the ball to them. People from other parts of Kibera heard that we were visiting and many of my dad’s old friends came to visit. 

The next day we headed to Decathlon (which is a sports store) where we got a table ping pong set and a soccer ball for the kids. Afterwards, we went back to Kibera and the cook made us a feast to eat with the kids. We had ugali which is very popular here and they eat it everyday and with everything. We also ate another very popular food called Sukuma Wiki which is like boiled greens and chicken stew. The food was really good.

After we finished we had to clean all the dishes. There was a little kid supervising us and he kept saying we were doing it wrong and he was laughing at us. There were like 25 plates and 25 cups. After my dad finished his meetings with the program employees he went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of food for the program and that took a long time. We were so tired at this point that it was time to leave.  

Walking through the slums the pathway are full off trash water and poop and pee water. I found it easy to navigate because I knew the way out and at the end there are gatekeepers that basically make you pay to enter if you are not associated with the programs, half the time they are drugs.