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Ms. Wonson Goes to Kenya!

Thoughts on and photos from one teacher's adventures with Earthwatch.

February 12, 2007

"Slum tourism" in Kenya

My boss just handed me an article that he found on Yahoo! News on Friday. He thought I might be interested in knowing about a recent cause of controversy in Kenya, travel-agency led tours of Kenya's Kibera slum.

Kibera, located in Nairobi, in one of the largest slums in Africa. It was the setting for much of the movie The Constant Gardner, and it is an area that visiting foreign politicians and other dignitaries often visit. As the article I just read put it, Kibera is a place where you can see all of Africa's biggest problems in one place: extreme poverty, poor housing, poor sanitation, AIDS.

Now at least one travel agency is offering tourists the chance to spend a day in the slum. The travel agency claims that these walking tours raise awareness and give back to the people living in Kibera. Many of the residents and the organizations that are working to improve life in Kibera and other poverty-stricken areas see these tours differently, however. Obviously, there is potential for help to come to the area through any form of attention given to the living conditions there. At the same time, it is rather insulting to have people tramping through your neighborhood just to see how poor you are, how badly you live, how sick you and your neighbors may be. The article quotes one resident as saying, "They see us like puppets, they want to come and take pictures, have a little walk, tell their friends they've been to the worst slum in Africa."

If you're interested in learning more about Kibera, you can read the following:

"Slum tourism" stirs controversy in Kenya by Andrew Cawthorne

Living amidst the rubbish of Kenya's slum from BBC News

Kibera from Wikipedia

February 07, 2007

My friend Pete's article

My friend Pete, who was on my Kenya trip with me, sent me an email earlier this week. He let me know that he recently had an article published about the trip in a magazine called Teaching K-8. It sounds like he's been doing some terrific things with his students based on the work we did in Kenya, so I wanted to share the article with everyone.

The article is called "A Summer in Kenya." Read it when you get a chance, especially since it includes 2 of Pete's truly awesome photographs.