Off Topic

In other news, I stumbled across an amazing publication today called "Shootback." It's a coffee-table sized book composed entirely of full page photographs taken by children in Nairobi's Mathare slum.
Having worked in Mathare for a short time, and now considering I'm currently reading "Shantaram" (which I'll get to at another time*), this book struck a chord with me. It was funny, emotional, horrific, and beautiful all at the same time.
You, as the spectator, journey through the slum, experiencing floods, mountains of trash, drunk neighbours, beautiful smiles, the burning tyres of Kenyan mob justice, resilience, determination, despair, tragedy, and hope. I didn't get to finish looking at the book, but I instantly decided it was one of the greatest things I had seen in a long long time.

A quote from one of the photographers, Collins Omondi, a 17 year old boy, read: "But whatever you have, thank God. If you don't have shoes, thank God, because there are some people without legs."

That statement didn't come as a suprise to me. I think I know the attitude required for a life in the slums. It just hit me that it was so profound and so well put. The first part of it could have come straight out of the Bible.

*Shantaram is a most excellent book by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian man who escaped from jail in his home country, travelled to Mumbai, lived in a Maharashtrian village for several months, lived in a Mumbai slum for more than a year, set up a free health clinic and schools, worked for the mob, fought with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and then wrote the book three times when prison guards destroyed it. It gives the reader vivid insights into life in a slum.
If you haven't already read it, you pretty much need to.