Volunteering in Kenya: Part 3
Day 4: Memories That Will Last a Lifetime
I awoke once again from a broken sleep, highly unlike me who usually sleeps through anything, but my top floor flat had the storm bouncing off the roof and window panes, keeping my body from rest. My mind is also very much occupied, I can’t stop worrying about each of the children and what situations they encounter at home when they leave the safe space that is school. However, today ended up being a great day at Peggy Lucas.
There is no way you can feel any negative emotions when you push the door open and are at once greeted by so many little ones, arms open wide, clinging to your legs, huge smiles spread from ear to ear.
I know I will miss this part of my day the most.
I started the morning with Form 6, the eldest class at school aged 10-11. They are such a tender age where they are still so young, innocent and playful, not yet hit the stage of feeling shy or embarrassed to speak up in class or show their emotions. We started with some yoga which caused all sorts of hilarity, fun, and camaraderie. They loved testing their balance and helping each other into inversions.
If only we didn’t lose the time of “play” that children revel in as we grow older, it seems to me this playful attitude towards life is what brings most happiness.
They then asked if we could learn some Spanish, and I was impressed with their speed in picking up the phrases. The best age to learn, their brains soaking up sentences like a sponge with water.
Sing: A Magical Moment
Before lunch time, they asked if I could play a song on my phone for them to sing along, singing and dancing being something all the children absolutely love. They chose a song Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd-Webber wrote and released to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in 2012 called “Sing”. It is a beautiful song in which the music video is filmed across the commonwealth nations, much of it is filmed in Africa with different groups of children singing the chorus. My class belted it at the top of their lungs, with voices of angels. They LOVE watching the video, and their beaming smiles and delicate voices brought tears to my eyes, once again.
These children love nothing more than to sing and dance, and so next they requested Shakira’s “Waka Waka”, to which they assembled the classroom into an epic dance floor, performing a perfectly choreographed routine. Leaping around the classroom, you could feel the joy radiating from every single one of them.
Some More Yoga…
Yoga with the form 2 class at New Horizon today was interesting. The ripe age of 15, where everything is happening. Hormones running wild making you feel less at home in your own skin, suddenly more aware of other peoples gaze. Form 2 were a clunky kind of awkward around each other, nervous to stand near the front, shy to look me in the eye, embarrassed to move their bodies for fear of judgement. It transported me back to feeling the exact same discomfort in my own school days.
This reflector is something that has frequently happened this week, pondering the human condition through similarities between children born worlds apart.
We seek to understand new situations by comparing them to our lived experience, which in my case this week has flooded my being with an understanding of truly how lucky I am. Lucky to be born into a fortunate world, with a loving family, into a system that has the capacity to look after people. Whilst I try to come back to this gratitude and understanding often, it is not until this experience in Kibera that I have felt the full weight of my fortune.
Play Time
After school today, I take myself to the mall to buy some gifts for the children before my departure. The mall itself is a stark contrast to my experience of Nairobi so far, with its flash shops and excessive security. It’s the first time since my arrival in Kenya that I’ve seen another white person (other than the other 3 volunteers at UCESCO.) I leave the mall loaded with games for each class, balloons and bubbles for some colour and joy, and a selection of Twister, Jenga, YoYo’s, Connect 4, and stationary items.
I am already bursting at the seams with excitement to play with each class tomorrow.
An Impossible Reconciliation
I had a peculiar experience on this night. I met an old friend who has recently moved to Nairobi for dinner, at a restaurant she suggested. The restaurant was stunning, a quaint candlelit garden with a stylish menu of cocktails, wine and food. Usually evenings like these are among my favourites, and I was so looking forward to eating some delicious food and seeing a familiar face. It was such a joy to share a conversation with someone from home, I immediately felt at ease and comforted after my time so far in Kenya. Sharing the experience with her felt like taking a deep exhale, I hadn’t realised how much shock I was carrying in my nervous system, holding it all in my bones. I appreciated recount the experience with someone who would also understand the lived experience from the perspective of someone from the same country as me.
However, I couldn’t kick the feeling of a deep guilt in my stomach throughout the whole meal. As we enjoyed working our way through this modern fine dining Kenyan influence food, all I could think about was Kibera, and all the people who would be going hungry that same evening. It’s a difficult thing, to reconcile and comprehend how these 2 sides can coexist in one small city. I wanted to stand up and shout “Does anyone here know what’s happening in Kibera?” The meal itself was expensive, and I knew that for the price of my dinner, I could have bought 298 bananas (the total number of students at Peggy Lucas) for breakfast for the kids every morning for 7 days. I felt sick to my stomach.
So; there is a wealthy, elite side of the city, it sunk in, and they keep themselves frequenting a small corner of it. Like a dirty secret, kept in its own underworld, away from the real side of struggle happening a few blocks away. Admittedly, this experience was probably not the right choice given my week volunteering in Kibera… it was only going to elicit this feeling of guilt, in the face of the total helplessness I can’t shake from feeling every morning I head into the slum.
