Wow.... This is my first opportunity for an update in almost 3 weeks. I feel completely overwhelmed with the amount of information necessary to catch you all up. So here goes, please bare with me as I regurgitate as many details as I can remember.
The shortest possible explanation that I can give would be to say that nothing works out the way that you would expect it to when you have chosen to travel the way I have. I should have never even written that I was on my way to Uganda... I never made it, but I did get close. If that is enough to hold you over, then please stop reading here because there is a lot to cover.
I spent another night or two in Nairobi getting a feel for the city and trying to organize my plans with Harry. He wasn't feeling so hot and was a little worried about leaving Western medicine indefinitely. So we decided that I would take the bus to the Kakamega Rainforest close to the border while stuck around to rest. I would wait for him there. I don't blame him for sticking around. Harry has already suffered through a bad case of malaria (he had a 104.5 degree temperature the day I met him). I would have made the same decision if I had been in his position.
So I took the bus into the unknown... It left two hours later than it was supposed to by the way. And by bus, I mean "African style bus." It was medium sized and stuffed like a clown car with people for most of the journey. There was a point where it started raining and the door flew open at about 60mph. I guess it was broken because they tied it shut with twine for the rest of the trip. I had to smile because I was experiencing something that almost no one else gets to... Or maybe I was just laughing to keep from crying. I still don't know. And the roads were terrible... I mean comically terrible. We were bouncing off the ceiling at different points. These buses stop in every major bus station and wait to fill up with more people. Meanwhile, I had my first experience with total anarchy on this trip. All of a sudden, there were over 20 villagers on the bus pushing every vegetable you could imagine in my face. I had no idea what was going on. I was the only tourist (and by that, I mean white person), and there was zero English. I'm not going to lie, I experienced a little bit of traveler's anxiety.
Here's one discussion up for consideration. Where do African people pee? Honestly, I have never seen a public bathroom. That was my reasoning for dehydrating myself. So I spent 9 hours on the bus... dehydrated with a headache... and I still had to pee. But, the view outside the windows was beautiful. The ecology of western Africa is exactly what you would picture in your head. It's the greenest place that I have ever seen. There are scattered farms children playing in the the fields. Sometimes they chase the bus waving their hands. I think the bus provides a great deal of the daily entertainment for most people. So you can imagine there excitement of seeing me.
But I made it in one piece and spent the next three days reaping the benefits of my struggle. Kakamega Rainforest is beautiful and lush. I did day hikes and saw things I never could have imagined. There are trees that actually eat other trees! I have pictures to prove it. There were butterflies of every color on the paths and in the canopies of the trees. I would sit on the porch and enjoy a beer with other travelers every night while I waited for Harry to show up.
He never did... and thats where things turned upside down. Apparently, Harry made the right move by staying in Nairobi. He called me three days later to tell me he had given up. He had pneumonia and would be getting on the next flight home... So now I'm stuck in Kakamega with no traveling partner. Suddenly, Uganda and Rwanda didn't seem like such viable options. I would say that this was probably the psychological low point of my trip so far. The only optimistic thing I could think of was at least I didn't have pneumonia. It's times like those were your only consolation can be the sadistic pleasure of knowing it could be worse.
I immediately called my friend Muthoga and begged him to let me join the trip building the classroom all over again. They were happy to have me, but it meant that I had 13 more hours of busing fun to reach them before they left on safari for 4 days. I left before the sun came up the next day. The security guard from my hostel walked me to the bus stop, gun in hand. He kept telling me "don't worry, You're safe." It's saying like these ones that seem to have an adverse effect. I felt less safe every time he said it. Here was a point in my journey where I realized my naivety. We walked through some serious slums. It smelled terrible, and there were street people who had built fires to stay warm in the middle of the city! I've never seen anything quite like that and I hope I never do again. It was like being in a movie. One where they show you a city that has gone to hell (batman, or the crow come to mind). That being said, however, I did make it to the bus with no real problems. I'll spare you the details of the actual journey over the bumpy roads. Just know that it was just as much fun as my first bus trip... only longer!
I can't emphasize enough how happy I was to see a familiar face in Naro Moru. All I wanted was to know that I was taken care of and that I wouldn't have to do something like that for quite a while. I realized when I got there that I had never even really thought about what I might be doing here at the base of Mt. Kenya. I was surprised and elated to learn that I would be doing a homestay for the next week. It was a small house with three rooms filled with a mother, father, three children and their 16 year old niece. Broken down cardboard boxes provided them with ample wall paper and the floors were made of dirt. They cook over a fire in a shack around the side of the house. I would try and sit with them while they cook, but the smoke would make tears stream down my cheeks. They, kept asking why I was crying. They have two cows, two dogs (one of which wanted to eat me... truly terrifying), and chickens that have free reign inside and out of the house. This may seem like a description of poverty at first glance, but I realized that they were very lucky after a day or two to of soaking it all in. All of the children are in school. Michael (the father) pays for their education (barely) by growing cabbage and running a small carpentry shop. They are surviving. Which is more than I can say for many of the other people I've met along the way.
We were successful with the classroom too. The kids worked hard to get the project done in time. We were surprised to see how grateful everyone was to have it too. I guess that the kids had been learning under a tree before us. Oh, and we had some fun along the way too. Our weekend excursions took us all over Kenya. We camped on safari and watched some baboons run a distraction while others open one students bag. They stole her towel and power bars. I'm still trying to figure out why they need to dry off after a swim, but I'm impressed with their strategic organization overall.
The tale end of our journey took us to Lake Nakuru National Park. Imagine turning a corner and seeing a fresh water lake... Only you don't even know what you're seeing at first because it's bright pink. This is where the flamingos live. Now I can check "seeing 3 million fluorescent pink flamingos in one place" off of my life list. It wasn't just the sight of them that was so incredible, it was the collective sound they make. It was like a loud melodious groan. Kind of like a more subdued biker gang all revving their engines at once. I was blown away. And we topped it all off by staying in the park and watching the sun set over a classic African setting. It was a field filled with gazelles.
All in all, I would say that missing out on Uganda was a blessing in disguise. I have experience more in three weeks than I ever would have thought was possible, And I wouldn't take anything back in retrospect. Not even the bumpy roads or buses. Because that is the trip that I've chosen to take. You have to accept that situations like the one I had to go through in Kakamega are an inevitability. I came to the realization somewhere along the way that this is not a vacation for me. It's a life experience and you take the good with the bad. Muthoga told me over a beer once that there are two ways to travel through Africa. There are volunteers and there are tourists. He was a little critical of tourism saying "a person will fly to Nairobi, fly to Masai Mara, and go on safari to see the animals... but what did you see? That's not Africa." Those words have stuck with me and I believe I have found a third was to travel. It's being willing to be flexible and trying to experience as much as possible. I want to be able to say that I tried to see all that Africa has to offer by the time I'm done. I will climbed the highest peaks, rode the most crowded buses, learned as much of the language as I could, seen the animals, lived on the ground and in villages. I've given back wherever I saw an opportunity. We've built schools, taught students, and sent the brightest ones back into mainstream education. Yes, I think African has made a permanent mark on me.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
One Last Update on Kilimahewa
To all of those who were willing to listen,
I apologize for the lack of communication on my behalf over the last few weeks. The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of hellos, goodbyes, near disasters and redemption. all without any real access to the internet. I am currently back where I started in Nairobi. Opportunities for international communication here are better than anywhere else in Africa, but still not very good. So please bare with me through the occasional typo.
I want to get the message out to everyone that took an opportunity to help me with my project at Kilimahewa school. Our efforts to provide an opportunity for a better life was an astounding success. Together, we were able to raise close to $8000 US. All of the credit should go entirely to all of those who were touched and chose not to ignore my pleas for help. The money is enough to send all eight kids back to school! Each student has signed a contract and will submit their grades to my partner in the community after every term.They know that they will be taken care of for their entire degree if uphold their end of the bargain and continue to excel academically..
I had a tearful goodbye when we said goodbye almost 3 weeks ago. It was a mixture of joy and sorrow that I have never felt before. On one hand, I was seeing some of the sweetest kids I have ever met for probably the last time. On the other hand, we chose the same day to announce that were successful in finding sponsorship for all eligible students. I wrote some more thoughts and posted pictures on my blog. Feel free to check them out at indulgingthewanderlust.blogspot.com if you are interested.
Here is a brief rundown of exactly what will happen next. I had initially expected that my pleas for help would fall on mostly deaf ears. Call me a cynic, but I knew that most of the people I would be reaching out to share a similar socio-economic status as me. Basically, it is hard to part with money that you do not have. Thankfully, I have never been more wrong in my life. Within 24 hours, I already had received more almost $2000! That number kept on growing with each passing day. The other side of this coin is the positive relationship between the amount of money we would be contributing for the students and the responsibilities associated with it's distribution. I was left with all new hurdles to jump over.
Perhaps the most important problem that I was confronted with was how to enroll these kids in school without them knowing that I was the one who was responsible. There is a fragile relationship between the volunteers in Africa and the people we serve. If my students knew that I had raised the money for them, they would expect other volunteers in the future to do the same. I would be hurting the program that I owe so much more than I was helping it. My solution was to create the Moshi Scholarship Fund and have all of the eligible students apply for an academic sponsorship. I still think it was pure genious! We helped them write a little about themselves and also try to articulate why they wanted to go back to school. Here is the a little information about the students that you have all helped to support. As a side note, There is a lot of confusion at my school about students' surnames. I have omitted them in the following summaries:
Tumsifu-
Tumsifu is 17 years old. He is the eldest of the students that are returning to school. We literally had to beg the director of education to allow him back in. Apparently there is a strict age limit for starting secondary school. Tumsifu has lost both of his parents, I did not have the heart or stomach to ask how. He lives with his grandmother and spends every afternoon working on their farm. He was forced to stop attending school after his parents died because there was no longer any money to spare. His dream is to someday become a teacher.
Baltazary-
This boy is one of the most amazing people that I have ever met. We became very close during my stay in Moshi. He was always waiting at the school when we showed up in the mornings. I discovered after a few weeks that he has been writing out his own Swahili-English dictionary. He has over 800 words writin in his notebook. There were times during my six weeks of teaching at Kilimahewa when we were very short handed. Baltazary took over as interpreter, tutor, manager, whatever we needed from him.
Baltazary is lucky enough to still have both of his parents, although he does not live with them. He is actually from a village far outside of Moshi. Kilimahewa is the only informal school within 100km. Baltazary was so desperate for an education that he moved in with another family so he could be closer to us. You may notice that he is in a disproportionate number of my pictures. He is the boy in the green shirt.
Edward-
We almost lost this one and I still have my concerns about Edward. He is smart and quiet. It took me a while to get him to feel comfortable around me. I was able to learn that Edward lives with his mother. She is disabled and I hear that she is very sick. Edward never mentions his father. He is either dead, or a deadbeat. Regardless, he is not a part of Edward's life right now. We had to search all over town for this kid to tell him that we could send him back to school. He was at home taking care of his mother. I worry that he may not make it through all of his education because of his living situation. But, he deserves a chance.
Josephine-
I probably know the least about Josephine. She sat in the back of a large class and did little to distinguish herself from the rest. I looked up all of her previous grades after we learned that she was eligible to return to school. She had quietly scored almost perfectly on everything that we could find. As a side note, I have a newfound empathy for teachers in public schools. I can see how good students can go unnoticed in crowded classes. It was hard for me to probe for more info without giving away my role in her scholarship. It would have been easier to probe for more information if I had already developed an academic relationship with her. So I chose to let her remain in anonymity. I did learn that she has lost at least one of her parents, but I do not know how or why. Although, she was one of the most visibly happy when we made the announcement last Friday.
Christine-
Christine is 14 years old. She lives with both parents in Moshi and is one of nine children. She has one of the most captivating smiles I have ever seen. You can judge for yourself on my blog. She is the one with the clean white shirt and blue skirt. Her clothes are less tattered than the other students because she was in public schooling until very recently. Her parents could not afford to continue. The timing is perfect for her to return to school because she has only missed one semester. It is like she was never gone at all. She will once again be among her peers of similar age and I have no doubts that she will stick it out until the end.
These are just four of the eight kids whose live we have touched. I have already told you about Felista. The others I have actually never met. They were former students at Kilimahewa who had already enrolled in school at the time of my arrival. A previous volunteer had worked hard to get them back into school. Their funding had just run out, however, so our efforts were very fortuitous for them.
I apologize for the length of this email and again for it's tardiness. My life has been consumed in this project. I want to thank everyone of you with all of my heart. Together, we have given 8 street kids a chance for a better life. the rest is up to them. please feel free to contact me with any questions and I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible.
I apologize for the lack of communication on my behalf over the last few weeks. The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of hellos, goodbyes, near disasters and redemption. all without any real access to the internet. I am currently back where I started in Nairobi. Opportunities for international communication here are better than anywhere else in Africa, but still not very good. So please bare with me through the occasional typo.
I want to get the message out to everyone that took an opportunity to help me with my project at Kilimahewa school. Our efforts to provide an opportunity for a better life was an astounding success. Together, we were able to raise close to $8000 US. All of the credit should go entirely to all of those who were touched and chose not to ignore my pleas for help. The money is enough to send all eight kids back to school! Each student has signed a contract and will submit their grades to my partner in the community after every term.They know that they will be taken care of for their entire degree if uphold their end of the bargain and continue to excel academically..
I had a tearful goodbye when we said goodbye almost 3 weeks ago. It was a mixture of joy and sorrow that I have never felt before. On one hand, I was seeing some of the sweetest kids I have ever met for probably the last time. On the other hand, we chose the same day to announce that were successful in finding sponsorship for all eligible students. I wrote some more thoughts and posted pictures on my blog. Feel free to check them out at indulgingthewanderlust.blogspot.com if you are interested.
Here is a brief rundown of exactly what will happen next. I had initially expected that my pleas for help would fall on mostly deaf ears. Call me a cynic, but I knew that most of the people I would be reaching out to share a similar socio-economic status as me. Basically, it is hard to part with money that you do not have. Thankfully, I have never been more wrong in my life. Within 24 hours, I already had received more almost $2000! That number kept on growing with each passing day. The other side of this coin is the positive relationship between the amount of money we would be contributing for the students and the responsibilities associated with it's distribution. I was left with all new hurdles to jump over.
Perhaps the most important problem that I was confronted with was how to enroll these kids in school without them knowing that I was the one who was responsible. There is a fragile relationship between the volunteers in Africa and the people we serve. If my students knew that I had raised the money for them, they would expect other volunteers in the future to do the same. I would be hurting the program that I owe so much more than I was helping it. My solution was to create the Moshi Scholarship Fund and have all of the eligible students apply for an academic sponsorship. I still think it was pure genious! We helped them write a little about themselves and also try to articulate why they wanted to go back to school. Here is the a little information about the students that you have all helped to support. As a side note, There is a lot of confusion at my school about students' surnames. I have omitted them in the following summaries:
Tumsifu-
Tumsifu is 17 years old. He is the eldest of the students that are returning to school. We literally had to beg the director of education to allow him back in. Apparently there is a strict age limit for starting secondary school. Tumsifu has lost both of his parents, I did not have the heart or stomach to ask how. He lives with his grandmother and spends every afternoon working on their farm. He was forced to stop attending school after his parents died because there was no longer any money to spare. His dream is to someday become a teacher.
Baltazary-
This boy is one of the most amazing people that I have ever met. We became very close during my stay in Moshi. He was always waiting at the school when we showed up in the mornings. I discovered after a few weeks that he has been writing out his own Swahili-English dictionary. He has over 800 words writin in his notebook. There were times during my six weeks of teaching at Kilimahewa when we were very short handed. Baltazary took over as interpreter, tutor, manager, whatever we needed from him.
Baltazary is lucky enough to still have both of his parents, although he does not live with them. He is actually from a village far outside of Moshi. Kilimahewa is the only informal school within 100km. Baltazary was so desperate for an education that he moved in with another family so he could be closer to us. You may notice that he is in a disproportionate number of my pictures. He is the boy in the green shirt.
Edward-
We almost lost this one and I still have my concerns about Edward. He is smart and quiet. It took me a while to get him to feel comfortable around me. I was able to learn that Edward lives with his mother. She is disabled and I hear that she is very sick. Edward never mentions his father. He is either dead, or a deadbeat. Regardless, he is not a part of Edward's life right now. We had to search all over town for this kid to tell him that we could send him back to school. He was at home taking care of his mother. I worry that he may not make it through all of his education because of his living situation. But, he deserves a chance.
Josephine-
I probably know the least about Josephine. She sat in the back of a large class and did little to distinguish herself from the rest. I looked up all of her previous grades after we learned that she was eligible to return to school. She had quietly scored almost perfectly on everything that we could find. As a side note, I have a newfound empathy for teachers in public schools. I can see how good students can go unnoticed in crowded classes. It was hard for me to probe for more info without giving away my role in her scholarship. It would have been easier to probe for more information if I had already developed an academic relationship with her. So I chose to let her remain in anonymity. I did learn that she has lost at least one of her parents, but I do not know how or why. Although, she was one of the most visibly happy when we made the announcement last Friday.
Christine-
Christine is 14 years old. She lives with both parents in Moshi and is one of nine children. She has one of the most captivating smiles I have ever seen. You can judge for yourself on my blog. She is the one with the clean white shirt and blue skirt. Her clothes are less tattered than the other students because she was in public schooling until very recently. Her parents could not afford to continue. The timing is perfect for her to return to school because she has only missed one semester. It is like she was never gone at all. She will once again be among her peers of similar age and I have no doubts that she will stick it out until the end.
These are just four of the eight kids whose live we have touched. I have already told you about Felista. The others I have actually never met. They were former students at Kilimahewa who had already enrolled in school at the time of my arrival. A previous volunteer had worked hard to get them back into school. Their funding had just run out, however, so our efforts were very fortuitous for them.
I apologize for the length of this email and again for it's tardiness. My life has been consumed in this project. I want to thank everyone of you with all of my heart. Together, we have given 8 street kids a chance for a better life. the rest is up to them. please feel free to contact me with any questions and I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Saying Goodbye and Starting the Next Leg
I am in Nairobi right now. I arrived last night...No one there to pick me up... No phone number to call... No idea where to go... And in by far the most dangerous town in Africa. So the adventure began the moment I stepped off the plane. Although, I'm lucky enough to have an old friend living here for the summer. Her name is Rebecca, we have worked together at Wilderness Inquiry for the last couple years. She is working for the UN focusing on Southern Sudan. They are in the process of drafting a constitution and moving toward autonomy from the rest of the country. That was about all my tiny little brain could retain from our conversations. But basically, she's living the good life in a gated house with a pool. We met the kids that are building the classroom in Naro Moru (remember the trip that i just decided to skip?). They seem very nice and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what they are doing. I know I wasn't capable of that when I was their age. But, I wanted to do something more crazy.
I have decided to start making my way out to Uganda, then hopefully to Rwanda by bus, or train. It would be pointless to lay my whole plan out, because then I would look like a fool when things turn out completely different. To be honest, I have no idea what will happen over the next 3 weeks, so wish me luck. I'm sure there will be plenty of stories to tell afterwards.
I just bought a cheap bus ticket out to the middle of nowhere and I leave tomorrow morning. There is a rainforest slab called Kakamenga where you can do some pretty cool hikes and see all sorts of animals. It sounds interesting and it's definitely off the beaten path. It's on the way to Uganda too. Harry will be my traveling partner for now. I purposefully omitted his last name because I don't know it. We met volunteering and he goes to the University of Michigan. So I think that would put him somewhere between 19 and 22 years old. That is the extent our our knowledge of eachother. I think it makes for a better story that anyways. His plan is to stick around Nairobi for a couple more days, then meet me wherever I am. So I'm on my own for a while... But I'm actually not that scared. I feel pretty good about traveling.
That being said, however, my last few days in Moshi were really tough. All 75 kids from Kilimahewa came together to send me off. They made me cards, wrote speeches and sang songs. Then we made the announcement that we were able to send all the kids that were eligible back to main stream schooling (8 kids in total). I was not expecting to get so attached to these kids. I spent about an hour fighting back tears.
Then I had to do the exact same thing at the orphanage that been visiting in the afternoons. This goodbye was even more difficult because the kids don't understand what it means to be leaving forever. They kept saying "kesho" (tomorrow). It was terrible. I heard recently that you can never come all the way home from a long trip and now I know that it's true. There will always be part of me that remains in Moshi. But now, It's onto to the next mission. It looks to be interesting, so I'll be in touch...
I have decided to start making my way out to Uganda, then hopefully to Rwanda by bus, or train. It would be pointless to lay my whole plan out, because then I would look like a fool when things turn out completely different. To be honest, I have no idea what will happen over the next 3 weeks, so wish me luck. I'm sure there will be plenty of stories to tell afterwards.
I just bought a cheap bus ticket out to the middle of nowhere and I leave tomorrow morning. There is a rainforest slab called Kakamenga where you can do some pretty cool hikes and see all sorts of animals. It sounds interesting and it's definitely off the beaten path. It's on the way to Uganda too. Harry will be my traveling partner for now. I purposefully omitted his last name because I don't know it. We met volunteering and he goes to the University of Michigan. So I think that would put him somewhere between 19 and 22 years old. That is the extent our our knowledge of eachother. I think it makes for a better story that anyways. His plan is to stick around Nairobi for a couple more days, then meet me wherever I am. So I'm on my own for a while... But I'm actually not that scared. I feel pretty good about traveling.
That being said, however, my last few days in Moshi were really tough. All 75 kids from Kilimahewa came together to send me off. They made me cards, wrote speeches and sang songs. Then we made the announcement that we were able to send all the kids that were eligible back to main stream schooling (8 kids in total). I was not expecting to get so attached to these kids. I spent about an hour fighting back tears.
Then I had to do the exact same thing at the orphanage that been visiting in the afternoons. This goodbye was even more difficult because the kids don't understand what it means to be leaving forever. They kept saying "kesho" (tomorrow). It was terrible. I heard recently that you can never come all the way home from a long trip and now I know that it's true. There will always be part of me that remains in Moshi. But now, It's onto to the next mission. It looks to be interesting, so I'll be in touch...
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