"Eljoy”

While Michelle, Cathy and I were visiting the WEEP women in Mathare Slum, the rest of our team went to a different area of the slum. Some day I promise to tell you all about the rest of the team members!

Their first stop was Eljoy School. Eljoy School is a small cement block building deep within Mathare. There are only three classrooms, each as bare as the next. Taped on the walls were hand-drawn pictures of shapes, cars, buildings, and fruit and other foods, along with the alphabet. Their desks were long wooden benches attached to thin tables. There were no books.

The kids didn’t seem to notice though. Each of the classes had songs, skits and poems that they shared with our team. They were so full of life and love, not having a clue of all that they were missing out on.

Someone taped them singing “Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes”. Their angelic voices, with what sounds like a British accent, were so precious. Our team shared Biblical stories with them and joined them in some of their songs.

After leaving the school, the team visited the Eljoy Peanut Butter production. As everywhere in the slum, they were crowded into cramped rooms, this group of women shelling and sorting peanuts, and then running them through a grinder. Out comes tasty, healthy peanut butter. Unfortunately, as we later found out, because it is straight peanuts, it doesn’t spread on bread very easily.