It’s difficult to explain my emotions and what my mind is going through after spending
24 hours in Mlolongo, Kenya, my volunteer placement.
Overwhelmed, confused, a sense of shame and ignorance.
I had a vague idea of what volunteer work would be like, but in all honesty, I embarked on this experience without any expectations or research.
Whatever will be, will be ..
Around 40 min drive from the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, we take a left turn from the main highway, and after about 10 minutes of bumping through what shouldn’t even be defined as roads, I am told “we have arrived”.
I am visibly shocked, as I was anticipating a turn that would take us somewhere more appropriate to "Western standards". Not a luxury, but at least something that's a little bit familiar.
We are standing outside a house that lays amidst trash, so much trash, unlike anything I have ever seen in my almost 15 years of travel.
As I open the car door, children from all directions are running up to me, high-fiving, hugging, welcoming me. This adds to my confusion and overwhelm.
What is happening ?!
I feel like my mind is working twice the speed, trying to “connect some dots”, see if I recognize anything familiar.
Nothing compares to what I arrived to.
I’m taken to my room, it’s on the second floor of this school.
It’s Saturday afternoon, the house is quiet. There are three other girls currently volunteering, but they are out for the day.
I drop my bag, sit on the edge of the bed for a minute as I allow the shock of
“where I am” settle in.
A knock on the door, the lady who oversees this house introduces herself and invites me to follow her, so she can show me around the premises.
She explains the charity “Positive Life Kenya” in more details.
Years ago, they started by working with children, they have opened two schools with the help of international volunteers, and the program has expanded into helping women, often the only caretakers of these children.
I have a sinking feeling in my stomach, as she shares the stories of women, as young as 12, getting pregnant, because they have been raped by their step-fathers, neighbors, some cases even fathers.
I feel helpless, overwhelmed, I feel guilt and shame
for thinking my problems are problems.
I’ve come here to help, but how can I help?
It’s no shock that Africa struggles with poverty, amongst other issues, but I feel like I have been ignorant, not realizing the scope of the problems, before committing to this volunteer program.
After we finish the house-tour, I ask where I can get some drinking water.
Boys that are playing ball outside the house are instructed to take me to the closest shop.
10 min walk makes me feel so overwhelmed.
I’m feeling neither fear nor excitement
(the usual emotions when you embark on a trip somewhere new).
I don’t know what I am feeling,
Kids are running up to me, hugging, holding my hand as we maneuver sewage water streams that are running through the streets.
I’m so shocked.
It’s so far out from anything I’ve ever experienced before.
When we get back home, I meet another volunteer and like an island in a vast sea, she feels like a safe place, even though she is a 19 year old American ..
In this setting, we immediately bond. She shares details about her experience, she tells me that most volunteers come here for at least 3-4 weeks.
I feel bad, for not being enough involved. I’m not enough.
I have come to “dip my toes” “check off “volunteering in Africa” off my bucket-list, but guessing how uncomfortable it might be, I wasn’t ready to be more involved.
I am embarrassed, My ego is speaking up, always the harshest judge.
But I maintain a very calm manner.
"I’m doing something, 1 week is more than nothing."
I have time to help, perhaps even plant new seeds of ideas and make a difference.
The volunteer project “Empowering Women” is versatile in that It offers variety of support to young women, in need of help.
Just before arriving, I was given a PDF print-out with some of the tasks I should be participating in.
Assist social workers in delivering group therapy sessions, provide advice and counseling during house visits, suggest new initiatives, as well as participate in teaching kids in school.
My accommodation is in “Farajha House” – this is where young women come in every morning learning a skill of sewing or beautician.
The goal of this charity is to empower women by giving them skill or helping with opening a business, so they can become self-sustainable.
(Sounds good, but in the coming days, through interacting with the young women, I feel an overwhelming and unsettling feeling that what they need is immediate help of just enough money to cover the 15 usd monthly rent payment and food.)
Apparently, from their years of experience, giving out money has never worked as a sustainable long-term solution.
The next day arrives.
The sleeping conditions are not that bad, sharing room with 3 others girls takes me back to mid-twenties when we backpacked through SE-Asia staying in hostels.
I was told it will be shared accommodation, so I was mentally prepared for that.
I’ll get through the week of discomfort.
I start the morning with my 4-step face-care routine and I feel somewhat ridiculous
for doing it.
The environment makes me reevaluate my values.
And perhaps that is why I love to travel?
Travel forces one outside their comfort & familiar zone and once in a different culture or environment, we naturally reevaluate anything that is deemed as important or highly valued, whichever part of the world that we come from.
.. I re-establish the importance of taking good care and investing in my skin-care routine.
Today we are going to a local school, a special Sunday’s class, they tell me.
What exactly? I don’t know yet.
I learn later, as the days go by, that where they lack in planning and time keeping, they compensate in kindness and smiles.
Pole-pole. Slowly slowly.
10 min quick-paced walk through Mlolongo, to the highway, where from we get on the back of motorbikes that takes us to the school.
The surrounding trash doesn’t shock me that much anymore (I guess we adjust to anything!), but the smell.. The smell is unbearable. Rotten food, old shit, just piles and piles of trash everywhere. How can people live here, I think to myself.
We get to the school and everything I experienced this morning is forgotten.
The noise of so many kids arriving to school is making my head hurt.
Today is a special day, when anyone from the slum (where the school is located) is invited to join in for classes and lunch.
I’m introduced to the teachers and given the subjects that we should cover today.
Sustainable development goals.
I’m confused once again, but there is no time to linger or ask questions.
I need to teach a class about sustainable energy.
I find a quiet place and quickly YouTube ways to explain or present this to kids.
I didn’t expect to be working with kids as part of my volunteer experience,
and before I know it, I am standing in front of 30-40 of them,
showing how we can create energy.
The class takes place in courtyard, the sun high-up as the time approaches 10am.
There is so much confusion while attempting to separate kids into groups.
I’m observing, but I am also immediately involved. Chaos, noise, overwhelm. It’s so busy.
There is a smoke that comes from the open windows of the kitchen/dining room where lunch is being prepared over open fire.
It burns my eyes, makes it difficult for me to breath.
I help other volunteer to do the class on health. I show kids wall-push ups, squats and stretches. We are learning how to wash hands and a minute later I see how a kid picks-up plastic and holds it in his mouth.
This class seems irrelevant.
And sustainable energy? It feels useless, in this poverty and hunger and chaos, to talk about solar-panels.
Everyone is screaming.
I am exhausted, shocked, confused.
What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?
I want to run away, scream but I have to keep teaching.
I ask myself – why did I come here ?
Was it my mum who motivated me, her invisible force of love that guided me into doing something so good... ?!
I am told it’s lunch-break but I am not hungry.
It feels wrong to be eating, taking one meal away from someone. I’ll eat something later.
I want to help with serving lunch. It seems like the most valuable and tangible thing I can do.
These kids, who live in poverty, have so little. They are surviving. They are hungry.
I am responsible for serving pineapple juice from a large bucket.
Around 100 children aged 4-16, I think, coming in with their own plates and cups.
Like everything else up to this point, the lunch break is also chaotic.
The focus they have in their eyes, to make sure they get their meal. The joy, smiles in their face, when they see me with the sweet juice.
I meet everyone with a smile, there a few cheeky ones who come in for a second serving, and I can’t say no.
As the big bucket starts emptying, I realize that we might not have enough for all.
My heart breaks as the last 5 kids in the queue are left with their cups empty.
They look at me, in the bucket, at me again.
Helpless again. There is nothing I can do, except look deeply in their big hopeful eyes and try holding back my tears.
This was just day 1 of my volunteer experience.
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