It may interest some of you to know that Foreign Affairs Canada has removed the travel warning for Kenya. Travel status has been downgraded from "avoid non-essential travel" (where it's been for the past couple of months) to "exercise high degree of caution" (which is standard for developing countries). There has been an incremental rise in tourism in the past few weeks, mostly on the coast, but that hasn't given much comfort to thousands of hotel employees and tour operators and tourist market vendors who have been without income for the past few months. I don't know much about tourism, but I suspect that it will be one of the slowest industries to recover.

But whether or not the tourists return, the sense of relief is palpable. This weekend, I even felt that it was safe enough to go to Kibera, which would have been inadvisable, to say the least, about a month ago. One of the Mathare Roots members is from Kibera, so he organized a friendly match between the Roots team and a Kibera youth team. Kibera is much like Mathare, only bigger -- it is the largest slum in East Africa, and I believe the second-largest in Africa (second to Soweto in South Africa). Since we were going to the member's home for lunch and then heading straight for the soccer pitch, I only saw a tiny patch of the slum, and that was the "good" area. Our host's family was extremely gracious, cramming forty-odd people into their living room and courtyard, and feeding us all rice with a bit of meat and cabbage. They also had a cat and some kittens wandering about, which made me happy -- I miss my kitties! I got teased a bit for fawning over the kittens while the others were amusing themselves by shoving the wriggling creatures the face of the son of one of the members to make him shriek. Man, our pets in Canada have it easy.

As we walked down the main road to the pitch, I noticed a few people wearing ODM t-shirts, which I had never seen before. Kibera is Raila's constituency, so that area seems to have been a stronghold for him, which I've never understood. If he's such a great MP, why hasn't he advocated on behalf of slum residents? Anyway, it was interesting to see that, as well as the infamous 'No Raila, No Peace' slogan painted on walls and houses, alongside more hopeful messages urging for peace and security.

Like most others in Kenya, the soccer pitch is a huge expanse of dust and rocks. Most of the players wear cleats, but no one has shinguards, which results in some pretty interesting scars in that area. While the team played, the rest of us watched and cheered and were covered by a thick layer of dust. The members' kids wandered around and visited with everyone -- it really is like they're being raised by a community. Roots won, as usual.

There's a reason why so many of those who come from the slums are amazing soccer players. Firstly, soccer is a game that doesn't require a whole lot of equipment. The only thing that you really need is a ball, and a bunch of plastic bags tied together will do in a pinch. As hundreds of slum kids have demonstrated, you don't even need shoes. So soccer is an easy way to keep yourself busy when there's not a lot else going on. It's also seen by many as their ticket out of the desperation of the slums. When these kids see African soccer stars on tv, making millions by playing this game that they play everyday, they think, "why not me?" Those players aren't just athletes -- they're heroes and role models to young kids all over Kenya, and I would imagine in other parts of Africa and the world as well. When Lucky, our little friend from Mathare who visits sometimes on weekends, came to stay recently, he was drawing furiously away all evening. When he was finished, he proudly brought the book over to show me. I thought there might be some cars, some people, maybe some dogs -- whatever it is that ten-year old boys draw. But they were all soccer players. A goalie blocking the ball with his chest, a player running with motion lines all around. One of them was labelled Ronaldhino. Beyond that, there is the simple love of a game that one has grown up with. Many youth groups use football as a means of community-building, keeping fit and keeping its members motivated and giving them goals to work towards.

I know that it's trite, but spending time in the slums really reminds you of how much we take for granted. Water, food, education, a sanitary environment -- these are all meant to be rights that everyone should have access to, but to many, they are luxuries. And of course, it's not as if poverty is endemic to Nairobi, or to Africa. There are still communities in Canada without access to safe drinking water. And homeless people and "bad neighbourhoods" can be found in any major city. But seeing so many people all living crammed together, all in poverty is still very affecting.

Despite the knowledge that I am living in luxury, I still somehow manage to be annoyed by little inconveniences. This month has been disastrous in terms of our water supply. It's been off for five days, on for four, back off again for four, on and off like this all month. We do have jerry cans of water in case it goes off, but we try to be careful in ration it to essentials (mostly face, foot and handwashing) in case the "drought" lasts awhile. The frustrating part is that, unlike in South C, my last neighbourhood, this isn't a problem that affects the whole area, so it's not a city supply problem. It's that the building itself is badly maintained. There is water on the main floor, but at times the pressure is too weak to pump it up to us on the third floor. The worst part isn't the lack of showers -- that just motivates me to go to the gym! It's that everything gets filthy so quickly. The dishes pile up, the floor gets dirty from all the dust we bring in at the end of the day, and clothes remain in a smelly heap in the corner. I think our cockroaches have gotten worse because of it, though they still don't rival the huge mamas we had last time. It's all rather unpleasant, but when the water comes back on, it's like a miracle. You feel like dancing and praising the universe, and attack the cleaning with gusto. It actually becomes a pleasure to wash your laundry by hand.

Activity is reaching a fever pitch at work as the Conference of Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity approaches. On Sunday, representatives of indigenous groups from Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, and probably a few other countries that I'm forgetting, will be arriving. For three days we are hosting a preparatory workshop to brief participants on the CBD and all the relevant articles and provisions. The big important article for indigenous peoples is 8(j), in which parties agree to recognize, support and maintain traditional knowledge, practices and innovations of indigenous and local communities, insofar as they are relevant to biological conservation. The major challenge for indigenous advocates is to be recognized as major stakeholders in conservation and sustainable development, rather than some kind of special interest group. But more on that later. It's going to be a crazy week, and then next week it's Burundi and Northern Kenya, and hopefully I will be back in time for Mathare Roots' second anniversary celebration. It's good to keep busy!