The Slum

The cars and mopeds rush close by us as we try to manuever across the busy streets of City J. We weave back and forth, hestitantly, looking frantically left and right as we cross the street from our apartment. There are no traffic lights. Pedestrians must cross the treacherous street filled with busy cars, taxis, buses, and mopeds unprotected. The key to not being hit by a random scooter or car is by moving slowly. Slow movements give the drivers time to slow down for you and let you cross safely. But the streets are so crowded and there are no sidewalks here that even when you walk down the street, vehicles will come uncomfortably close to you. But that's all part of life here. Dodging traffic and jumping across huge puddles of water, caused by the daily rains, has become part of our everyday experience. Seldom, do we see the blue sky.

Our week has been filled with meetings with local church leaders and ministry workers. Mega-Cities has provided us with several contacts including several churches in our side of the city and a local slum ministry. We spent Friday morning at a local slum close to where we live. We were led by Max and his team. Max is a young Asian man, with a prominent acne problem. He looks almost comical, like an Asian hobbit. He stands a little more than five feet tall with a little poney-tail hodling his black hair at the very top of his head. His feet, which I noticed while we were resting at the end of the day, are thin, talon like nobs which look more like fingers than toes. Regardless of his funny appearance, Max leads well. He tells us what we are to do once we get into the slum and has confidence in what he does.

The day in the slum began with us making our way through some very narrow and dark passages in the East part of the city. The neighborhood itself is tucked in from City J's main streets. The homes here are very small and the walkways through this little residential area are cramped and filled with pieces of garbage and refuse that the neighbors leave. I have seen poorer communities like those families who live on the trash mounds of Tijuana Mexico but they are still obviously poor.

A local woman invited us into her house, the first thing we arrived. She took us into her tiny little room of a house where she tried to make all fourteen of us comfortable. We all sat closely to one another, legs folded, as we went over the agenda for the day. The people of the neighborhood, brought donuts or rather a pastry-type food that they called donuts and clean water for us to drink. Max tells us we're here to do three things. One, is to work with some of the children of the neighborhood, the second is to help with a Christian doctor who makes visits here to reguarly check up on the children in the area, and the third is to clean all the trash and refuse lying in the corridors between the houses.

I help clean the trash while simultaneously video-recording all of our progress as we follow Max's volunteers who show us where we should clean. I get in there right away, I take the trash with one barehand and throw it into my clear plastic bag, feeling the wet and sometimes slimy trash on my fingers. We did this for an hour or so, greeting the curious on-lookers and neighbors with Salamat Pagi! (Good morning!) They're very interested in us. They surround us to see who are these white people in the neighborhood. Everyone's friendly. The children play with us or shyly look at us from a distance. Everyone laughs as I come out from one of the houses and bump my head on a low ceiling, just above the door.