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KOROGOCHO – September 25th 2011

ALL THE REST (italian version)

di Benedetta Musumeci

“Before leaving for a long journey try to think that you are not the only one!” says a song of some years ago. How difficult it is! At least for what concerns myself, leaving has always meant to do something of extremely “mine”. But what truth in these words! Especially if the end of the long journey is a slum in Nairobi outskirts, especially if the destination is Korogocho. Why? Because we might run the risk of yielding to the temptation, a terrible but enormous temptation, to put ourselves quite in the centre, in a foreground position, to judge with our feeling, with our common sense, with the point of view of our culture. Nothing is more mistaken. We might understand nothing at all, miss wonderful opportunities, hurt people, close doors and eyes. How can we imagine that it would be possible to understand so different a world just in one month (that is the time of my stay in Kenya)?  We can  watch attentively, grasp the sense of something, hope that what we see will be transformed into a treasure in our hearts, which will help us to understand the world and life, to demand that it will rouse ourselves so that we can approach the others in a better way,….but  to judge would really be a mistake.

I have arrived at Korogocho after reading and listening to a lot about it, and I realized immediately that something was not keeping with what I had thought. Not because what I had read was false, but because it was just my looking which was getting the upper hand, while the reality was much more complex. What can I say? We must wait before judging. At Korogocho, but maybe everywhere in the world, we should always wait before judging. Especially when one is so lucky as to have extraordinary guides and teachers as I had. I have lived, together with Chiara and Daniela, my travelling companions, in a small house in the district of Lucky Summer, as guests of  David Nderitu’s family that had welcomed us with great willingness. I was accompanied by Wilkister, a young woman of the district who became a true friend in the passing of the weeks. What could I have seen without the gift of her way of looking at life, without the warm welcome of her family and her friends? Perhaps now I should remember only the steaming dumping site, the muddy streets, the pigs, the huts, the smell.

And the rest? And all the rest?

My Journey with Father Paolo

By Japheth Oluoch Ogola

“I am very emotional about this,

I have never been prepared to receive,

am always the one giving”

Father Paolo

italian version

It was a Monday evening, the 29^th day of August 2011. At my small rented house in Lucky Summer, about two kilometers from St. John Catholic Church, a group of about fifteen young   adults gathered.  Always a jovial and entertaining group to associate with, this particular gathering invited a mixture of sombre and celebratory moods. The group consisted of young Christians from St John Catholic church who were members of the youth group six years ago when father Paolo Latorre first came to Korogocho to continue his missionary journey. I was then secretary of the youths and worked as a secretary for St. John School, one of the projects run by St. John Catholic Church. He had just concluded his ministry in the war torn Democratic Republic of Congo and took the uncharted path to live and experience life in one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums. Now they had gathered to say good bye to a man they had known as fatherly figure to whom they looked up to for direction in many personal and faith-related issues.

The youth was a core constituency in welcoming Father Paolo to Korogocho. He was immediately put in charge of youths both at St. John Catholic Church and the parish in Kariobangi. Being in charge of youths in an urban slum is perhaps the most challenging responsibility that any leader can be faced with. The situation of youths at St. John then was not different. Many of us at the youth group then were either in high school or had just completed high school and were struggling to either proceed with higher education or tarmacking for any job to ‘start’ living.