Email: Henry Coates

Dear Friends

One of the joys of my time living in Kenya has been volunteering on Saturdays at an orphanage in Dandora, a suburb in the eastern part of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Anywhere from 80 to 150 children are present any given Saturday. I hang out, serve food, play games, get my hair petted (African children are not used to European style hair, and take great joy in stroking it), and all around have an awesome time with some incredible kids. “But where,” I ask my fellow African volunteers, “do these children come from?” “The Dandora dumpsite.”

Dandora is a section of Nairobi which has some of the highest crime and unemployment rates in all of Kenya. Established in 1977, with partial financing by the World Bank, in order to offer higher standard of housing, Dandora soon became a sprawling slum. At the center lies the Dandora dumpsite, the final resting place for all of Nairobi’s garbage and waste. The Blacksmith Institute, an international environmental NGO, has listed the dumpsite (and the Dandora slum) as one of the world’s most polluted areas. This is where these children grew up? I had to see it with my own eyes.

Protection was arranged with the local toughs (a white man walking into Dandora without protection is a dumb white man) and I was soon off with my new friend, the friendly Kenyan gangster, and Liz, the beautiful and intelligent founder of the orphanage. The entrance to the dumpsite was not too far from the orphanage, so we walked. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I saw.

The sheer size and scale of the Dandora dumpsite is beyond imagining. Mountains upon mountains of waste stretch out for what seems like miles, some towering to heights of over 30 feet. A quick glance at the horizon reveals dozens of men, women, and children scurrying about trying to find things to either eat or sell. Not just people, but cattle, goats, pigs, and crows were scattered around, burrowing deep into the waste for food. Shelters made of wood and plastic dot the landscape, though I see no one at home.

I see one woman find a quarter peeled but uneaten orange in a fresh pile of waste, brush it off on her dusty frock, and devour it like it was the manna from heaven. The people didn't pay me much notice, except for a tall, powerfully built man who I think was either drunk or high. He came right over to me, gripped my hand with his (covered in a yellowish wet substance), shook vigorously, and in broken English told me “I eat your garbage. What do you think of that?” There was nothing I could say in response. I nodded, said meekly that I was glad to meet him, and he responded with cold eyes and a smile.

The question that strikes me is, “Where is God in Dandora?” Is he in the mountains of trash that sprawl beyond all sense of comprehension? Is he in the desperate and starving people drudging through waste, searching for something, anything, to eat or sell? Is he in me, the foreigner come to observe? Or is Dandora one of those Godless and desolate places, where angels fear to tread?

And with that, I end this letter. I don’t think any answer that I can give would be satisfactory. Pray for the people of Dandora.

To see some of my photos of my trip to the Dandora dumpsite, check out this public facebook album.

You can also check out my blog.

Henry