Dear Neil Mason,
It’s been over a week since I have arrived in my new home and it feels like I have been here for ages! The volunteer house is quite quiet but we are still all hanging out and having bonfires and games. The culture shock really hit me during the first few days and I struggled.
I am the youngest volunteer here and also here for the longest amount of time. I missed the noise of home and being busy! So I tried to make sure that I would be as busy as I can during the week.
Last Thursday I went on an outreach day and myself and two Belgians girls. Each Thursday I am not on my placement because all the volunteers go and do some different service within the community. We did a house visit for a women who is HIV positive, living in a small room for her whole family. We washed all her clothes and made her a meal. We had to collect the water from the tap in the town and also from a well.
All the clothes took ages to wash, especially the white ones! It was so sad to see and she couldn’t believe we were doing that for her, she was so grateful. The whole town is so simple and basic with all the shop signs hand painted. This Thursday we went to a school to clear out a field full of weeds. All the children have their own huge knifes to cut the plants and they were all so good at it!
A few of you may have already heard but I spotted a girl who was wearing a Walford Primary School jumper! It was unbelievable, she was one of the few people to wear a green killer with another schools logo on and out of all the primary schools in the world, this girl called Naomi had my school logo on!
On Friday I went to the nicer part of town to get Kenyan Shillings, I feel so rich because there are 130 shillings for every £1! I bought some food and water because I can’t drink any of the tap water. I also have to cook for myself on Sunday because we have someone cook us breakfast and dinner everyday of the week.
On Saturday I got up at 5 to leave for a one-day Safari to go for a game drive around Lake Navasa. It was incredible! I had the whole tour car with just the two other Belgian girls and our driver. We were there at 7 to see so many zebras, buffaloes, antelopes, warthogs. We saw black and white rhinos, monkeys, birds- so many things! It was surreal, I have never done anything like it before! We just lifted the roof of the van and we just drove all around the lake for hours just spotting different animals.
Sunday I went to the Kibera slum, where over 2 million people live. It is one of the biggest slums in Africa. It truly was devastating and it was the biggest eye opener of my life. It didn’t seem real, it was like the film slums dog millionaire, only just right in front of me. It really smelt and rubbish was everywhere. People there have to pay for the toilets and showers. We visited a woman who has lived there for 7 years, the room she lived in which was her whole house was smaller than my bathroom, it was tiny. She has to cook with coal and her whole family of 5 all sleep in this tiny room. It was so interesting to hear her story but at the same time it just made me sad because although we gave her lots of food, we were all so limited into what we could do.
The government of Kenya has built cheap housing that is $5 a month to rent and these were built for the people living in the slums so they could afford it. However it is so corrupt here that everyone that lives there has a car and clearly none of them originally lived in the slum. Also ‘Madfish’ the name of one of my leaders had to stay in front of the group of us to pay the gangs to not come up to us or steal from us! I was almost stolen from the other day, when lots of Kenyans all were pushing into me as I tried to get onto the Matatu. The Matatu is the form of transport that they take, it is crazy! Proper rap music is blaring and there is no safety at all, we have to sit on other peoples laps and squash in. People just keep shouting at me ‘Musungu’ which is Swahili for white person, everywhere you go you just stand out like a sore thumb and everyone tries to talk to you!
This week I started at the Dada’s Orphanage which is a 20min walk from the volunteer house. I am currently with another volunteer but she leaves next week. They are in their last week of term so we are just revising with them. We literally walked in on Monday said hi and 5 minutes later they snapped a piece of chalk in half and handed us each text book! The children are so nice and really excited. I have taught lots of subjects to years 4,5,6 and 7.
After their exams they have 2 months off for Christmas. The school has 200 pupils and 63 are orphans. So after they finish I will be with a much smaller bunch of kids. It is so humbling being here though, their school is just tin walls and there is no playground, they have no space to play and they sit in the classroom whilst they eat their lunch which is rice and beans every single day. They only have funding from volunteers and sponsors so it is very poor. Luckily, this Christmas they are building the school again so there will be proper walls and some electricity. However the actual orphanage is definitely something that I hope to make a difference on. They have just plain metal framed beds and some kids are sleep 3 on a single. There is no colour on the walls and to be honest it looks like a prison. It really made me upset because these children are so happy. They really have no idea and are stuck inside this tiny space day in and day out. They have a small field which they go to on weekends sometimes but there is no football posts and it has quite a lot of rubbish on. Even in the holidays they can’t afford to take all the children out on days out. They also don’t have P.E at all, no games kit or anything.
This is why after this week, I have so much to think about and coming here I have seen how limited I am into what I can offer. However I have also realised that I need to try my best and do anything that I can to just make at least one child’s life a little bit better.
I went to church today, one leader showed me where it was. It is only 20 mins on a Matatu. It was so nice to be there, it is English speaking but I am the only Musungu there! It was hard to think that people all over the world have the exact same service and lessons as I do in the Forest until now. There are lots of YSA and a few people have been very welcoming and it was just such a nice feeling. I really enjoyed it and I am so grateful to be able to attend church especially since this week was quite hard at times.
I am thinking of ideas for what I can do to help the children and I have also got involved in Swahili lessons 5 days a week so I am getting busier! I am missing home but I am definitely settling in more and I am learning more and more about the culture.
Kwaheri!
Tilly Lawson
