The land of contrasts

June 19, 2007

I spent the morning at school hanging out with and teaching the kids. I came home, and another volunteer came to share my room with me. I was a bit tired (still not used to the time change) and emotional. It's funny that I look back on Kenya as being such a happy time, when most of the time I wanted to cry. Being in Kenya is hard on an introvert because you are never really alone and constantly drawn attention to, so I held a lot of emotion in most of the time. But on this day, I lay on my bed and just cried. From being at school and seeing the lack of resources- "nubs of pencils and crayons, tattered notebooks, tiny balls of clay" to the kids with "cuts on their face/body, holes in their clothes, welts and scars." From finally being able to call home and feeling more homesick afterward to not being able to take a real shower. "It's not that I don’t like it here, I am just such a tangle of emotions...It was good to love on the kids today but they need so much..."

June 19, 2009

I also spent the morning at school hanging out with and teaching the kids. I taught them some songs and gave them some stickers. Then after school, I was able to visit my wonderful host family who I stayed with the first time I was in Kenya. It was wonderful to see them again and comforting that so much there was the same. They made my Dad and me a HUGE dinner! Then we watched TV, haha and I got to hang out with Cody and Dylan. I stayed with Grace that night for the first time.

“…In 2 years so much and so little has changed. I did not forget Kenya but slipped back into wastefulness and consumerism (it is so easy to in the US!). Here they literally do not waste a single drop of water or scrap of food. How do I go home and live a normal life? …Where do I go from here? …my heart is here. They are desperate for teachers. The needs are so great, I just can’t go home and wallow in my “stuff” and not return.”

PS Thank you James for getting me a cell phone in 2007 and taking me to Eugene’s in 2009.