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.

Sawa Sawa, Kenya So Far

      Sawa means alright in Swahili, and that is where I am at now. I have grown accustomed to my new life in Kenya and I am now at the point where I can have an even mind and put some of my thoughts to paper. It has been the strangest experience I have ever undertaken so far in my life. I have been shocked so far by the Kenya I have seen so far because of stark contrasts. We in Canada live in a world of convenience and it seems everywhere I look, things are hard. Education is hard, buying and making food is hard, traveling is hard, living is seemingly hard. So why are the vast majority of the people so happy, and why do I see so much hope?

     My work has been with the Education for Life organization located in the Kariobangi, Huruma and Korogocho slums in Nairobi, Kenya. The organization mostly goes around to schools and teaches life skills that students do not necessarily receive from parents, guardians and teachers in the hectic and desperate world that a lot of the people in the slums live in. I have been involved in dealing with some of the most enthusiastic children I have ever met so far, especially since many of them rarely see a mazungo, the word for white guys which I hear around corner. I can safely expect that most times I hear raised voices on the street, it is about us, the white people that stand out so much. However, Education for Life has been a haven because of the difference I feel like I will be able to make over this summer, both in the people around me and in my own life.I will be helping out in three grade four to six classes each week, helping them discuss the issues they face in the slums and helping to ensure that they will become high character individuals in a difficult society. I will also be leading a weekly Youth Alive Club, where I will be in charge of leading a group of thirty kids in developing their talents and showing them that learning can be fun. I am also involved in working with youth that are setting up small businesses in Nairobi because of specific skills they have, such as woodworking and auto mechanics, and in overlooking garbage collection systems.

      I am extremely gracious at all the smiles and greetings I have been receiving the last five days, opposed to what I thought were malicious chants the first couple of days when I did not understand the language as well. Heads are turning but as I am greeting them in their language and smiling, I am receiving positive greetings back. What I attribute this to is that I think most Kenyans realize the position I was born in and instead of resenting me for it, they want to greet me and be nice to me. I think this mostly has to do with hope, where people live their lives as best they can and fight for improvement, whether for themselves or their children. I hate giving up and I think resiliency is an admirable quality of the Kenyan people. Maybe that is why they are such good long distance runners.

     Those are my immediate thoughts and I hope this blog was not too jumbled, I will write a cohesive post about what I have learned so far about corruption in Kenya in the next few days as well. Those are some of my first thoughts on what has so far been a humbling experience. I never realized how big the world's population was until I saw what is behind some of the numbers on poverty I have been researching for three years. But just like these Kenyans, I wish to live with hope for the future. There is one quote I have always really liked,"the courageous never surrender hope". I will try to live up to this while in the slums of Nairobi.

On the Cusp of Kenya

This is it, hours before I leave Canada for three and a half months. This is an article that will be appearing in the Imprint at the University of Waterloo on Friday, which is partly new and part of an old blog. I will write for this school paper about my Kenyan experiences every two weeks when it comes out. I will also be updating my blog about once a week. I want to greatly thank everybody that made this trip possible, your support has been greatly appreciated. See you all back in Canada, feel free to comment or drop me an email at cmbrenna@uwaterloo.ca  .

On the Cusp of Kenya

             I am departing to live in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya for three months for an international volunteer program called Beyond Borders. This will easily be the biggest change of my life and right now I am teetering on the edge, about to dive head first in. A lot of preparation has gone into this trip, as it has to making any big step in life.  A lot of people had to provide support for me to get here and I leaned on friends, family, my fellow thirteen students on similar trips to Uganda, India, Ukraine and Dominican Republic, professors and total strangers that talked to me, wished me good luck and vanished into the woodwork. I am anxious and excited before going, but I know I am only prepared because I have this support.

            I will be working in the slums of Nairobi called Mathare and Kariobangi. These are the second and third largest slums in Nairobi, characterized for their poor infrastructure, poor water quality and lack of security and privacy. My whole entire life I have lived in suburbs, in a house that could likely fit ten Mathare dwellings. This is partly why I am so anxious because of the fear of the unknown. I have read books, talked to people that have experienced slums, and watched movies that show their struggles in depth, but I still have no idea what slums will be like until I am there. Overall, I just see my worldview changing in ways I cannot imagine right now.

I anticipate this trip being a time of great personal growth because of how much I see my world view changing. No matter where I go, I will see poverty on a scale that I would be very unlikely to see anywhere in Canada. I think Joseph Schumpeter’s term creative destruction is very applicable because of the changes I will undergo in Kenya. Joseph Schumpeter was an Austrian economist that moved to the United States in 1932 to escape the Nazism in Germany where he had been teaching. He coined the term creative destruction after Karl Marx’s use of the term in describing how healthy economies would nonetheless encounter times where great amounts of change was underway and through the destruction of established systems came new innovation and thinking. Essentially like the phoenix, a period of destruction would cause new ideas to be accepted into society. Nazism might be a good example of this because after the end of World War One and the amount of financial hardship that Germany endured during the 1930’s came the fascist Nazi movement. Creative destruction can be positive or negative, depending on what is destroyed and why it is. I see myself undergoing a change that leads to positive personal development on Beyond Borders, and indeed I already have. Every year, every month, every day should be a moment of growth and this summer will reflect this attitude.

I will be learning a lot overseas and I think I will be greatly changed because of it. Ideas I might have had in the past will die to be replaced by a global view of the world that will not shove problems that we create in the developed world under the rug, so to speak. That is the outlook I see myself having when I come back, but I will only know when it is over. While I am over in Kenya, I will undergo creative destruction that will give me a new worldview when I get back. I look forward to sharing these changes throughout the summer.

Preparation and Gratitude

Two things that stick out from my journey so far in the Beyond Borders program are the preparation that is necessary to get me to this place, one month from leaving to live in Kenya for the summer, and the gratitude that I have to all the people that got me to this place. Both have been integral parts of the journey so far and I could not have achieved this without the people involved.

                First off, preparation. I have had two terms in class, learning about development issues and the complexity of the problems involved. The first term was learning from different sources, from non-fiction to fiction, small journal articles to long three hour documentaries, to learn about what we will be getting ourselves into over the summer. I was continually taught the lesson that no issue is black and white; even something seemingly simple like HIV/AIDS is a complex issue. The second term barely had any classes, only five, and was instead mostly a self-learning environment where we wrote about the lessons we were learning at volunteering at the Kitchener Working Center along with the fundraising efforts we had to get ready for our placements.

                Why is preparation so important? I think it is because it gives each of us a choice; I can listen to these lessons and learn it or I can ignore it. There are many times where I, deliberately or not, choose the second option and those are the times where I fail. One thing I have learned this term is that leaders are never a fluke. They prepare extensively to get to where they are. They are organized and have put a lot of thought into each problem, and if they do not know what to do, they will learn from their mistakes and do better the next time. This type of reflection is important because it shows that every situation is important and that the preparation aspect of their task is not taken for granted. The preparation for Beyond Borders has not been wasted on me. I have put my heart into this program and I am in a very good place a month before my trip starts. It is only because I made a conscious choice to put all I have in this program and I followed through with it. I hope to make this choice, to not ignore the preparation needed in Kenya to get the most out of my trip, during my time in Nairobi.

                The second part is gratitude. Despite my readiness for the program, I have had many down moments where I did not think I would be ready. However, the support I have gained from friends, family and random strangers has meant the world to me. Last Monday, I was a bit overwhelmed after our last class for the term but did not have time to contemplate all of the lessons that we talked about at the Working Center. I had a big paper due the next day and after the joy I felt at class, I was back into the paper zone: dour and focused. On my way into the library, I met two old friends that I talked about Kenya to. The first had not known about it, but his genuine enthusiasm for my journey meant the world to me. Then right after I ran into another friend, who told me, unsolicited, that she really liked my blogs and hoped I would have a great trip. This type of support, genuine and heartfelt, is the type that we all need in our lives and that I am so grateful for. It does not always come from places you would expect but it shows the power of human connections. I always try to be nice to people that serve me, whether that be waitresses at restaurants to janitors at school. This is because I always try to think that they are not robots but instead are humans, like you or me. I will only see strangers in Kenya but from everything I have heard about the country, they will be gracious and will welcome me into their country with open arms. I am glad to say that I saw this type of human togetherness in Canada this term, when I was at my lowest. We are all connected, and showing gratitude to your friends and family is the least you can do to show that you recognize these special connections.

                Everyone that has helped me on my journey so far has been appreciated for their help and in return I will pay this forward in Kenya and be the nicest, most open person I can be. I want to ensure the lessons that I learned these past eight months will help me be the best ambassador in Kenya that a Canadian can be, and one that all of my friends would be proud of.

Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do

          My experience in this program has not only been a learning experience for me, but it has also been an experience that has been instrumental in me looking at my generation differently. I used to be very cynical so when I looked at global problems such as climate change or broader problems such as poverty, I did not have a lot of hope for the future. Now, I have hope. This is not only because of my thirteen peers in this program but also looking at fellow students differently. We have a lot ahead of us in the future and school is a time to ensure that growth not only happens, but it happens in a positive manner that benefits many people.

Throughout my time at the University of Waterloo I have continually been humbled. In class, I am always amazed at the level of articulate answers and questions that some of the students have. Over time, I have had responses that I am proud of but being humbled never stops. There always seems to be another student that is more successful, smarter and more confident than me. I have started to use this as a challenge but these students are also my friends and I am proud of their accomplishments. My time in university has given me a good view of this generation and I am proud to say that I have hope that we are able leaders to solve future Canadian and global problems. My personal growth is challenged by these students and friends and all of the lessons I have learned along the way will be tested in Kenya.

The funny thing about personal growth is that it is tested in small ways every day. It might be a paper, work or stressful relationships but in each of us is a way out. There is a saying I have always really loved, “tough times don’t last, but tough people do”. It is an element of personal growth that I think we should all follow. We never get out of these times alone; it is our relationships that we build with others that help us get out and move on. Living in my new home in Kenya will be very different. I won’t have the same comforts that I have in Canada, both in terms of material things but also the friends and family I know I can rely on. All this means in Kenya is that I will try to be as open as possible and hope to build similar relationships in my new home. One of these places that I will attempt this is the organization I will be working for, Education for Life.

I will be volunteering in the slums of Kariobangi in Nairobi, Kenya for Education for Life, an organization that focuses on providing education to youth that grow up in slums and especially those that are neglected because they have AIDS. This deadly disease is an epidemic across the world but especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya has 1.5 million people living with the disease, the world’s fifth largest figure according to the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ke.html). This organization is dedicated to combat this disease and is a grassroots, sustainable organization that is trying to change things on the ground, one kid at a time. Across the developing world, education is seen as the way out. If a kid is bright, he can get away from the slums, go to a proper school and hopefully get a job that could in turn lift his family out of poverty. With the world’s 86^th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, Kenya is in the middle of the pack for global economic power yet has large amounts of inequality, both in Nairobi and Mombasa but in the smaller cities and towns as well. The problems that exist in Kenya cannot be fixed with one solution; they will take time, patience and hard work by millions of citizens to overcome. The only way to do it is support the organizations that are working to make the country a better place and convince others to do the same. I think that Education for Life is one of these organizations and I believe that they are believers of the mantra “tough times do not last, but tough people do”. They fix what they can and do not let the substantial problems of their country get them down. I hope to fight through the tough times on this trip and help, in whatever way I can, to ensure that tough times won’t last for the friends I will make.

The Screams of Future Generations

I went to a talk by Romeo Dallaire on Friday at which he emphasized the importance of our generation and the need for us to lead. He told a story about a specific five year old boy in Rwanda who he saved from being killed when he was the UN General in charge of Rwanda during the genocide. This five year old boy was like his own son back home and any other five year old boy… innocent. That boy, based on the timeline of Rwanda, is now roughly the same age as me, as is Romeo Dallaire’s son. But don’t you think those two took different paths? And are that Rwandans’ friends that are the same age much worse off than the guys that I went to school with? This is because the world is not made up of the innocent and the guilty. We all have shades of grey in us, nothing is black and white.

I agree that our generation is extremely important, but haven’t leaders been trumpeting the importance of the next generation for decades? Isn’t this bit getting a bit stale? This type of view is, to me, really easy to fall back on; we are doing okay, the leaders today are just using the same old political rhetoric as always. But that is a dangerous way of thinking. We can either sit on our haunches and do nothing or we can do what the leaders of all past generations did and try to make the world a better place. Some were successful, some were not. Some were greedy; others were altruistic and died penniless. But each of us needs to strive to be the best that we can be for ourselves and our communities to become leaders.

Dallaire’s message for the university students in the audience was simple: shape the future. He also stressed that we, as citizens of the middle power of Canada, have a responsibility to protect the less fortunate in the world, whether in our own country or others in the world. To which I add that we need to connect with them and hear their stories before we protect them.

My last blog was about food in Kenya and I referenced a guide book to write it, The Rough Guide to Kenya. This reference caught the attention of the book’s author, Richard Trillo, who lives in London yet was reading and commenting on my blog because of the power of the internet. It is amazing how connected we can be, how I will be able to easily mail and call my family and friends while across the world in Kenya, how Obama can be taking a tour of Rio de Janiero and be receiving updates on Libya at the same time. We overlook the power of the internet because our generation grew up with it but the connections it can foster can cause great change. Imagine if you had a pen pal that you sent an email out to every week, but instead of sending letters to the United States or Great Britain, you were sending emails to Ghana or Mozambique. We could learn about the world, learn about poverty and ways to help those most in need. Wouldn’t this be a better way to use the advances in communications technology then sending videos of talking cats to friends (something I am quite guilty of)? We need to use our increasing technological knowledge to make the world better, not be sucked into a fake one.

In the movie The 11^th Hour, a line that really hit me was regarding “the screams of future generations, asking us to change”. I am trying to make sure that I try my hardest to fix these problems because I do not want to feel that I did nothing to change the world for the better. That is why what Dallaire was saying is so important. He is an extremely influential figure: a retired Lieutenant General in charge of UN operations in Rwanda, he twice ignored direct orders to leave with his troops from Rwanda to safety during the genocide because he had a moral duty to protect as many innocent lives as he could. He is also a Senator working in Ottawa right now to serve Canada, trying to make the government work smoothly. And he is telling our generation that we need to shape the future because his generation will not be around much longer. Among our generation are the leaders of tomorrow and if we strive to solve global problems and live in a better world, then we need to start working now on coming together to cooperate. I personally do not want to sit back in fifty years and know that I did not listen to the screams of future generations about global problems, from the poverty and the environment, and know that those are my children that will be harmed. So I will listen to what everyone has to say this summer and try to find out the best way to connect with everyone I meet and find out ways to help fix global problems and protect the many vulnerable and innocent people on the planet.