Desperation, Real and Perceived (IMPRINT ARTICLE)

          I have been in the Kariobangi slums of Nairobi, Kenya for almost two weeks now, with three months ahead of me. Four of us from the University of Waterloo are living in an apartment building in the Riverside area of the Kariobangi slums and though we are uplifted by the positivity and hope of the Kenyan people, we also see desperation daily. The poverty of living daily among sewage and few material possessions with thousands of similar stories is around every corner.  Everywhere you look from our roof you see garbage and debilitated houses and we are separated from that because we are mazungos, white people. This difference means that we have money and opportunities for the future that others do not have. I witness desperation while I have none. Our separation from this desperation is apparent every day in our attempt to live in community with our Kenyan brethren.

          One situation in particular sticks out. When we went into the city center of Nairobi to explore, two young girls started following us to beg for money. The Kenyan director of our organization Education for Life named George told us to never give the kids money because it perpetuates the poverty they live in. It is one thing to be taught this lesson between the well-off and another to follow it among the poor. We have all walked by a homeless person without sparing any change and later felt bad about it. As one girl followed me for five minutes, I finally gave her some small change although that didn’t absolve any of my bad feelings. I keep asking myself why I was born in my situation and she was born in Kenya. I have to believe it is for a reason, that we can all do something good with our position.

These differences in position were never more apparent than on Friday, when I went to the clinic with what I was convinced was malaria. Even though I am on anti-malarial pills, my hands and arms had begun to be covered in small red dots on Wednesday. I hoped they were an allergy but as I grew increasingly weak, I began to think they could be malaria because I woke up a few times with the bug net off my bed and body. Coworkers also thought they might be bug bites so I was whisked in to see a doctor on Friday, got a blood test and had to wait an hour, totally drained and depressed while waiting for the results. Despite my money and precautions, I was convinced I had malaria, a disease which can cause lifelong problems. I had the money to get the best healthcare possible and was better off than the millions who die from this every year, so why was I so scared? These desperate moments I had do not compare to the desperation I see in the shacks I walk by every day, the youth with no jobs and a dismal future.

My few desperate moments were for naught. Ultimately, I didn’t have malaria, just an allergic reaction that looked worse than it was. However, my first two weeks have shown me the separation that exists in our world first hand. My brush with disease in the developing world does not come close to what they undergo daily. I suppose this trip will show me the depth of our separation and whether I can be a part of the generation that will close this gap. And from what I have seen, I need to be. Desperation is scary, to see and experience.