On Saturday, we visited the displaced peoples' camp. The one that we visited was right on the border of Mathare, in a police station. We arrived at the Roots office in the early afternoon and waited for a few hours as members slowly trickled in. They brought clothing and blankets that they had collected from their own homes and from friends and family. With the donations received by well-wishers, they also bought soap and food supplies like bags of maize meal for making ugali. Ugali is the ubiquitous starchy white stuff that reminds me of cream of wheat that has been left on the stove for too long. When you're eating ugali, there's no need for cutlery; you just break off a piece from the stiff block with your fingers, squish it around in your hand to make it more pliable, and use it to scoop up the meat, sukuma (a green leafy vegetable like kale), cabbage, stew, or whatever it is you're eating. It doesn't really taste like much, but the texture is surprisingly nice. Ugali is extremely popular because it's cheap, filling and high in calories, which is great if you don't have a lot of food (but not so great if you're living the life of plenty).

Originally the plan was to drive the supplies from the office to the camp. George's brother Elijah is studying to be a journalist, and with his connections he arranged for a truck to help us out. Two British gentlemen showed up with their army green SUV and were all smiles, but disappeared moments later when they were called off to cover a story somewhere around Thika road. The amazing thing was that no one complained about this at all. We were just going to have to carry it ourselves, so that's what we did.

Though technically I had been in Mathare last week for the Roots meeting, the school where the meetings are held is right on the main road, so this was the first time this year that I'd really been in the slum. It's always a bit of a shock at first -- the sheer amount of garbage everywhere is overwhelming. Though there are no official population statistics for the slums, George estimates that there could be a million people living in Mathare. Imagine a million people living with no access to city services. There is no garbage collection and minimal plumbing. Some people have toilets in their homes, but others are forced to use communal toilets that you must pay to access. Those who cannot afford to pay either go on the street or in the river, or take part in the 'flying toilet' phenomenon, wherein one relieves oneself in a plastic bag and tosses it away in the street. Very risky business. The homes range from shanties built of corregated iron, cardboard and plastic bags, to large cement apartment buildings. There are a few water collection points, so people line up with their laundry basins and jerry cans. Those who don't have time to wait or who are too far from the collection points get their water from the river that runs through the slum, a place where garbage is dumped and people and animals defecate. Plastic bags threaten to overwhelm alleyways, and goats and chickens run freely. Here and there, men are sleeping on the street. "You see how good life is in Mathare?" my friend joked, pointing at a man who was lying with his feet dangling in the ditch, "There are beds everywhere."

Although it sad in a way, Mathare is also an inspiring place to visit because of the sense of community. Families who hardly have anything at all will invite you into their homes and prepare you food without expecting anything in return. People have always been very friendly and welcoming to me, and take care of each other as best they can. On this occassion we didn't have time to visit. We walked straight through carrying our bags of supplies. I passed my camera along to the youth group members and they also had a small video camera that had recently been donated by a documentary filmmaker from the States to record their activities. The greatest challenge of the journey was crossing the river with the supplies. In that section of Mathare, there is only one footbridge and it is quite far East. Another bridge was supposed to be constructed further up the river, but the project was abandoned halfway through, leaving useless rusted poles jutting out of the murky water. It's not worth it to walk all the way down to the bridge if your destination is directly across, so what residents do is hop over using strategically placed stones and piles of garbage. I'm always petrified that I'll slip and tumble in, and imagine that my body would be completely overtaken by bacteria, but I've managed to cross over without incident so far. Apparently when it rains heavily and the river floods, kids from the area go swimming there. The idea makes my skin crawl -- it would be like swimming in sewer water, though at least it's somewhat diluted at that point.

The camp we visited was not one of those where diplaced people are staying in tents. This one was in a police station, which the officers had cleared out completely in order to make space for those with nowhere to go. When we arrived, it was around lunch time. Members of local community groups and some of those staying at the camp were organizing the meal. They first rounded up the children, called out all their names, had them wash their hands and gave them a plate of ugali with vegetable stew. Then the adults lined up for their share. This camp was probably better organized than others -- with community members taking an active role in the running of the camp, we were assured that the supplies would be well distributed. But despite the small measure of comfort brought by community aid and police presence, life in this camp must be rough. Forget about privacy -- everyone is jammed into the one hall, and there are so many people that I don't know how they all fit in at night. There were some mattresses stacked against the wall, but many must have to sleep on the concrete floor. There were only a few toilets, plus a couple of makeshift outhouses to share amongst the masses. It was such a chaotic place, and the people staying there would have little to do all day. The kids had not yet returned to school (if they had been fortunate enough to attend in the first place). They were ecstatic to receive visitors, and were clinging to my hands and arms, dragging me off to play with them moments after our arrival.

I don't know what will happen to all these people. Many of them have no homes to go back to, and no money to build or rent new homes. There are still reports of high levels of sexual assault, violence and rape in camps, as well as stories of girls being recruited for early marriages (as their parents, desperate for money, would then receive a dowry), or to be used as house girls. This has led to the posting of signs in some of the camps that read "This camp is not a source for cheap labour!!!" I know that addressing the issue of internally displaced persons is one of the agenda items for the mediation talks, so hopefully more funding and planning will come of that. Perhaps the most difficult part will be the question of where all these people will be resettled. Would you rather move back home after your neighbour burned down and looted your house, or move away from the place where you've always lived? How do you overcome that trauma?

The following day was the Roots meeting. This time, we split up into groups to discuss topics suggested by members. Each group wrote a set of questions related to the topic, and these questions were passed on for the next group to answer. At the end, a representative read out the group answers and we all discussed together. The topics were drug abuse, early pregnancy, tribalism and unemployment. Inevitably, education came up as an important factor in influencing the choices one makes and where one stands in regards to these issues. Many children in Mathare are unable to attend school because they cannot afford to pay for school uniforms, books and other supplies, or because they are needed to work to raise money for the family. As it is still early in the year, these discussion groups were a great way of brainstorming which issues to tackle in upcoming programs. What works so well about the group is that it's so organic -- all of the members are from Mathare, so they've all grown up knowing people who deal with these issues and knowing what needs to be improved in the community. They don't need anyone to explain to them how the problems of Mathare should be approached; they are the experts. With more funding and resources I know that they would be able to do so much for the community, and they've already accomplished quite a lot in the short time they've been operating. The fact that this group was formed at all shows the connection that its founding members feel to Mathare, and their desire to help the community even if they don't live there anymore. They didn't just want to get out of the ghetto, they also wanted to make it a better place for those who remained. Somehow, that gives me a lot of hope.

The political situation doesn't seem to have changed much. Recently, South African lawyer and businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, who was part of the negocations team at the end of the apartheid era, came to join the mediation team. Though there was great hope that he could help the proceedings, he was promptly tured away by PNU (Kibaki's party), accused of having business dealings with Raila Odinga. The mediation team has now entered the phase in which they discuss what steps to take to resolve the contested election results -- whether that be a recount, a re-election, the formation of an interim government of some kind or a power-sharing agreement for ODM and PNU. Annan seems to be rather optimistic, and I hope that his good faith is not misplaced. These next couple of weeks will be crucial for securing a peaceful future for Kenya. In the meantime, people in the Western towns are still being killed, though it's true that the violence has diminished somewhat. Somehow even though the newspapers report all these deaths, when they speak of the total number of Kenyans killed, they seem to be stuck at 800 or 850. I notice that press from elsewhere reports over 1,000 deaths fairly consistently.

Finally, in the office, Lucy has been around this week and I now have a clearer idea of what I will be doing for the next little while. A Conference on Biological Diversity is coming up in the next couple of months, so we'll be preparing for that, and I'll also be doing some editing, writing and translating work. After the conference, I'll concentrate more on gender issues, do more fundraising work and hopefully travel to Tanzania, South Africa and possibly Burundi. Uganda had also been on the agenda, but because we would normally drive through Western Kenya to reach that neighbouring country, our activities there will likely be pushed back to the end of this year or to next year, which is really too bad. I'm already feeling eager for this travel, but that will be months away and I must be patient and remind myself that there is still important work to be done here. I also have a title now. I feel like a bit of a fraud saying it since I don't feel as if I've done much of anything yet (aside from working on website content, coming soon), but I'm officially IIN's program officer on women's issues. For now, that's a title to work up to.

I've managed to put some photos up on flickr and there are more to come, so go take a look. Hardly any of them were taken by me, they're mostly by Lucky or by Mathare Roots members. It's slow going trying to load them, so do bear with me as I try to get more up.