1) Last week, the UBC team took our Strathmore University team ice skating, to show them something Canadian. (Or at least that’s what they said. I figured it was so that the UBC team could be better at something sport-wise, since they can’t even attempt to compete with Kenyans at soccer.) We arrived at the rink to find bureaucracy in action. Skating costs $5 an hour, and you can only enter the rink on the hour. So despite the fact that it was 2:15, and no one was on the ice, we had to wait around until 3 (or pay $5 and skate for the remaining time until 3). So we opted to wait, while trying to convince those in charge to let us in early. The best we could do was get them to rent the skates out early so that everyone would be ready to hit the ice right at 3. The ice skates were more like ski boots with dull edges than ice skates as you might know them, but, after some brief trepidation, the Canadian team easily rose to the equipment challenge. After they got confident on the skates, they started working with the Kenyan students to teach them how to skate (a first for all of them). Lots of nervousness, but I will give it to the Kenyans. They all stuck with it, and some within a half hour were doing a decent job of navigating the rink. I watched from the sidelines, by the way. Never could master ice skates, and decided that I didn’t need to do so in Nairobi.
2) On Sunday I was passing through Uhuru Park, which is down the street from where we're staying. The park was full of people out enjoying the day (one of the few warm, sunny days we’ve had since we arrived.) I had never noticed before that the park contained a ferris wheel and swings, but the daughter of a friend of mine (both in town to do their own volunteer work with Agano with Kenya) noticed them right away. She wanted to try them out. These were like no amusement ride you’ve ever seen in North American (pictures attached). Both the ferris wheel and the flying swings are operated through manual labour, not motors. You can see in the ferris wheel shot the guy pushing it to go round. It actually could go quite fast once they got going. Rides lasted a long time too, about 15 minutes.
The flying swings were also operated by someone spinning a crank—this is not so visible in the picture, but you can see someone at the center of the structure working. Again, the swings got pretty far out, and were going pretty fast.
3) Today I visited our Mathare site, and there were a number of children playing in the courtyard. They were making clay figures by digging up clay from the ground, adding water, and then pounding and kneading it to make it pliable before forming their creations. In the picture, you can see some clay people, and some other “toys” if you look carefully at the wall. I have a better picture of the creations, but these kids were so cute that I thought you’d enjoy the picture of them more. There were four slightly older boys, not in the picture, who were also working with the clay—they were making vehicles with it, and adding wheels. All of the children were having a great time, there were no parents hovering around telling them how to do it better, and it was really fun to see them use the raw materials at hand to create things. It reminded me of a scene in Kibera the other day: a little boy pulling a “car” made out of a juicebox, with bottle caps for wheels, all attached to a string.
Watching these different play activities made me think that we sometimes lose sight of simple pleasures: skates don’t need to be perfect, we don’t need the newest technology to run a ferris wheel, and we don’t need to go to Toys "R" Us to buy clay. It’s part of the ground we walk on. And everyone can still have fun.
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