First Volunteer Trip to Kenya, Summer 2009

What follows is from the daily personal journal I kept during my first trip to Kenya, in the summer of 2009. Some updates have been made.

I would like to enjoy the lovely and sweet fruits of education. I would like to bring light and hope to our family.

— Eunice, scholarship recipient

After months and months of preparation, I was ready (ready or not!) for my first trip to Kenya. I wanted to make sure I wrote down all the things that would be happening in my life during this trip. I felt as though I had been preparing for it my entire life.

Monday, July 27, 2009

At 4:45 p.m., the limo picked me up from my home in Naperville, Illinois. By 5:50 p.m. I was sitting at Gate C20 at O'Hare Airport after having gone through security. I've always been someone who likes to get to the airport extra early, but in this case I kind of went overboard: I still had three hours and twenty-five minutes until takeoff. I had seat 31B on United Airlines f light 938, and at 8:55 p.m., the plane left for London. I was nervous, excited, and filled with adrenaline as we took off. After thinking, dreaming, planning, and hoping for a trip to Africa for so many years, I was now on my way. I wondered what I had ahead of me, knowing that each and every minute of it would be a new and unique experience.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I arrived at Terminal 1 at London Heathrow at 11:15 a.m. I did a lot of walking, took a bus, and then did a lot more walking to Terminal 4. The terminal was under construction, so it was quite a mess. I ate some lunch at a place called Garfunkel's and then waited. In booking my trip, I tried to save as much money as possible, and I learned that in general, the longer the layover, the cheaper the price. I booked this trip with a nine-hour layover in London. The main thing I learned in doing this is to never again have a nine-hour layover. I walked and walked and tried to get some sleep by lying down on some seats. For me, falling asleep is never an easy thing, so I was not able to get any sleep in the airport. Finally I was back on a plane and headed to the capital of Kenya, Nairobi.

As I was sitting on the plane getting closer to Kenya, I was reading President Obama's book Dreams from My Father. A very special moment for me came as the pilot announced we were getting ready to land. I was at the part in the book where Mr. and Mrs. Obama were making their first trip to Kenya after their marriage. Mr. Obama had never been to Kenya before, and he wanted to visit the land of his father and his relatives. (His father had passed away many years earlier.) Just as I was reading about Mr. Obama preparing to land in Nairobi, I was preparing to do the same thing. I felt a certain kinship with Mr. Obama at that moment, and it put into perspective the reality of what I was getting into. I stepped off the plane excited and ready to explore.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I arrived in Nairobi at 6:00 a.m. Getting through customs was much easier than I'd anticipated. I was carrying a yellow immunization card listing all the shots I had taken to make the trip, and I naively thought that customs would check it, but that was not the case. I wondered why they didn't, but moved on. I had carried on two bags and checked two suitcases. After an hour of waiting and finding only one of my two checked suitcases, I decided I needed to file a lost luggage report. I was told it would take twenty-four hours to get me my luggage. It was very frustrating not having one of my bags as I began my first trip to Kenya, but I knew I just needed to go with it and make the best of the situation.

The Nairobi airport (Jomo Kenyatta Airport, named after the first president of Kenya) was incredibly crowded and hot, and it was not the cleanest airport I had ever seen. The luggage area was way too small for the amount of people and luggage it had to serve. I felt like I was at the United Nations, as the airport was filled with people from all over the world. When I was in the customs area, I loved seeing all the different kinds of passports, and I was fascinated by the various styles of clothing I saw and the numerous languages I heard. My first trip to a bathroom — or water closet, as they called it, because Kenya was once a British colony — was not pleasant. It was old, small, and dirty. However, I later realized that it was one of the best bathrooms I would see for the next three weeks.

I was scheduled to spend the night at the home of Wendy, who worked with Village Volunteers and took in volunteers like me. She had a few extra bedrooms for that purpose. When my driver came to pick me up, I felt like I was in a movie: he held up a sign with my name on it and waited. I found him and was soon on my way to Wendy's home.

It was a very interesting drive that took about forty-five minutes. Kenyans drive on the left side of the street and the driver sits on the right side of the car — another hangover from the country's colonial days. It was morning, and the drive gave me a chance to see Nairobi starting its day. It is a city of about 3.1 million people.

The roads were in extremely poor condition and pitted with massive potholes. There were no curbs, garbage was strewn everywhere, and crowds of people were walking all over the place on both sides of the road. The road was packed with vehicles, mostly vans and buses. Driving in an actual lane did not seem to be important.

Signs of extreme poverty were everywhere. I saw all kinds of little huts and small, broken-down homes, but most of the buildings were high-rises, with clothes hanging everywhere. They were in very poor condition — cracked, rusted, dirty, and in great need of repair — and reminded me of high-rise projects I'd seen in the United States. There were buildings with various shops, but those looked very old and broken-down too. There were big signs and billboards on both sides of the road, and there was lots of noise: people shouting, cars honking, and music blaring. It was definitely totally different than anything I had ever experienced. I was trying to absorb as much as possible, as this environment was slowly becoming my new reality.

Also, all around the airport were soldiers with AK-47s on their shoulders. My driver told me the increased security was because the president of Kenya was coming to the airport that morning. I later learned that this level of security was pretty normal. It made me feel safe ... I think!

We arrived at Wendy's home, where I met Cindy, who lived with Wendy and helped out with volunteers. We had driven through a lot of...