In light of the season of love and peace, I would like to share one of my stories from my experience in Kenya a few summers ago,
I am sitting here thinking about Christmas and the spirit of love and giving this time of year, I think about all those that are less fortunate than I and what I could do to help them. My mind jumps back to an experience I had in Kenya a year and a half ago. I thought about all that I was thankful for, and what I could give these people in light of the holiday. These people do not even have the proper resources to stay alive let alone many of the luxuries that I have. in the end, this experience taught me to be thankful for my mobility. When I say “mobility” I do not mean the kind of “run” or “walk” kind of mobile, although I am thankful for that too. The kind of mobility I speak of is the kind of mobility that takes me to UVM from my home in New Hampshire. It took me to Mexico, to Seattle, to Arizona, to Canada, to Montana to Scotland and to the Virgin Islands throughout the span of a few years. I am so thankful to have grown up in an environment where it is possible for me to see the world, to experience things that I could not experience from my home in rural New Hampshire.
One day, I was at the market with a few other volunteers, we were minding our own business buying fresh avocados, pineapples and mangoes, when a drunk man started harassing us and following us around. The local people were very friendly and tried to fend him off for us while we tried to make a getaway but he followed us all the way to the health clinic on the outskirts of the village. There we ran into a friend of the organization, Peter (A local Kenyan), who is a member of a non-profit organization called “shining stars”. This organization, which brings medical care to people’s homes that otherwise, would not be able to make it to the clinic. We followed Peter and his co-workers to one of their home visits since the drunken man was still harassing us and we were safe with Peter and the other Kenyans.
We followed them up a dirt road where we ran into the occasional cabbage-carrying donkey, a mutatu stuck in the mud, and the omnipresent children, yelling and running after us screaming “Mzungu! Mzungu! How are you fine!” Finally we approached a young girl, about my age helping an aged old woman up the dirt road. This woman was the client that we were coming to help.
I later found out that is old woman was in fact, not that old, and that the young girl that was helping her was in fact, her daughter. Her illness had aged her. She was incredibly weak, she was very thin, could barely walk, and had pain from breathing. This woman suffered from HIV/AIDS, the reason she was walking up the dirt road was because her husband had kicked her out of her house. She had been living elsewhere and was finally going home with the help of the members of shining stars. Her husband kicked her out of the house because of the stigma attached to having someone living in the house that suffered from HIV/AIDS.
We helped this woman to her home, which consisted of two small wooden shacks with dirt floors, insulated with cardboard and newspaper. We were invited into one of the huts and asked to sit down on wooden benches that were located on one side of the room. The other side of he room had a mattress stacked on top of a table. One mattress. This one mattress was all the family had to sleep on. Did I mention that this family was made up of seven children and two adults? One mattress for nine people. The ones who did not fit on the mattress slept on the dirt and manure floor.
As I was sitting in this wooden bench, observing my surroundings, the shining stars volunteers were outside the hut, trying to convince the husband to let the wife stay. They were attempting to persuade him to get tested himself, and the get the children tested as well. The ill woman was sitting next to us, we tried to make conversation with her in the meantime, but she did not speak English. This gave me a few quiet seconds to reflect upon the situation that I was witnessing. I had learned all about the AIDS stigma in school. I had watched documentaries about the poverty in third world countries from the comfort of my sectional couch and big-screen TV. But, I am mobile; I have the privilege to be able to witness these situations firsthand. I also have the resources to change this situation.
As soon as I was about to emotionally lose it (meaning I was about to break down in tears). A small child wandered into the hut and stared at me. I dried up immediately and put on a smiling face for this little girl who had just seen her very first white person. This girl was one of the dirtiest girls I have ever seen. Her face was encrusted with mud, it looked like she had been wearing the same clothes for months. The other volunteers and I exchanged emotional glances, we were all thinking the same thing: these conditions are unfit for 8 children, let alone any adult to live in. As we said our goodbyes, we promised the family we would be back with donations of food and clothing. As we were leaving the gate, the same dirty little girl followed us to see us off; only she was holding a plate of maize. This family was falling apart; they had nothing, yet their hospitality amazes me.
We fulfilled our promise. The next day, we went back to the family. We also brought along a few of the children at the orphanage where I was volunteering. We wanted to teach them a lesson on compassion and giving so, it was only right htat they presented the family with the clothes and food that we had brought them. I have never seen such joy in my life. It brought tears to my eyes. The little girl I had met the previous day was presented with a pair of mismatched sock (new, but somehow mismatched). She immediately took her mud-encrusted shoes off and put the socks on her feet. I have never in my life seen anyone so excited about something so mundane as a pair of mismatched socks. These were probably the only pair of socks that this girl owned.
After the seven kids were done putting on their new clothes and modeling them for us I got a chance to speak to the eldest. She was eighteen, my age at the time. I always think of this meeting I had with this young woman whenever I stop to think of my mobility. We were the same age at the time, yet living completely different lives. She was probably stuck in her wood hut most of her life, tending to her siblings and ill mother and avoiding her abusive father. I spent my childhood roaming free throughout my neighbor hood, playing with friends, only to come home when my mom hollered that dinner was ready. While I was jet setting over to Kenya, this girl was jet setting to the market, to pick up food to cook for her family. While this young woman and I may be leading very different lives, we are both human beings and both deserves the same opportunities. I hope that she is able to escape this cycle of poverty that she was born into and attend University and have the opportunity to see what the world has to offer and be blessed with the gift of mobility as I am blessed with it.
I like to think of this family around Christmastime, because while I am sitting down in a heated 2000 square foot house with as much food in front of me to sustain this family for a week, they are continuing on with their lives. Working hard in the field. Working to make money for their nine-person family so they can have enough food to live. I am so thankful for everything I have and would like to encourage all of you to think about families like this around this time of year. Think about what a small sacrifice on your part could do for someone who is not just struggling financially, but struggling to stay alive.
What YOU can DO.....
There are many charities out there that donate money to individuals and families struggling in developing countries, but here are a few of my favorites. It is important when donating money to a non-profit or charity organization to understand where your money is going. As an International Development minor, I also see benefit in donating where it will produce sustainable growth. for example, giving pounds of food to the hungry will actually in the long run, hurt them. This is because this free food will take profits away from local farmers which will in turn, cause them to raise the prices of their food in order for them to sustain themseleves. If individuals are given free food they will not buy the local, more expensive food. So, the economy as a whole suffers.
These donations I am speaking of are true for chronic food insecurity. In the case of the food crisis in the horn of Africa, giving food to the hungry for the short term (since this is an acute problem) will be beneficial to the populations. Anyways, enough of my lecturing... the bottom line is EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!
Save the Children: Holiday gift catalogue
There are categories from livestock to education, health and emergency relief, water and agriculture and more.
UNICEF: Inspired Gifts
The gifts are similar to those of Save the Children except more specific: Check it out!
Heifer International
Give the gift that keeps on giving: Livestock for families in need
Flying Kites
The organization that I volunteered with while I was in Kenya so I am a bit partial. :-) Donate to keep it alive! There are many programs to choose from, sponsor a child, oasis program and Flying Kites Global. Check out the website to lean more!
I know that I am so lucky to be living the way I do. There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about my experiences in Africa. I am hoping that my experiences in Madagascar will have a similar impact on me. I also hope that through my stories, I will have impacted others as well.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!
