I don’t even know where to start. Traveling approximately 10,000 miles alone was pretty terrifying. Everything went smoothly, thank God, but there were many times when I would start thinking “I must be insane.” I can easily say this is the best experience of my life, though, and I have only been here two weeks. I have made friends with some amazing people, and it will be very, very hard to leave them.
Everyone around here gets excited when they see a “musungu,” which is the Kikamba word for “white person.” I would have to say that trying to learn Kikamba and understand the accents of the people here has probably been the hardest part of this experience. But I’m starting to adjust and I know a few useful words that help me communicate with the younger girls at Suvia. Kamba is the name of the tribe of people in the area, and I was told that the Kamba tribe is one of the biggest. They speak Kikamba, and those who have gone to school speak English. Swahili is the national language. Since each tribe (there are 42 in Kenya) speaks it’s own mother tongue, everyone learns Swahili so they can communicate with each other.
The 26 girls at Suvia Children’s Home love to sing and dance. They are between the ages of 3 and 13. They are total orphans (both parents are gone). When I first arrived at Suvia, there were only 25 girls. The 26th, and also the oldest one, only arrived on October 12. It had been difficult remembering all of their names because their names are so different from what I’m used to. Which is frustrating because I’m usually very good at remembering names. There names are:
Kavula Kilonzi, Mutheu Mweu, Mueni Kanini, Muthoki Kioko, Nduku Katitu, Kaluki Mutinda, Katunge Nyelele, Mercy Mutio, Mercy Kanini, Mumo Ester, Nduku Kioko, Muthina Mumbua, Nthenya Munyao, Mercy Mukii, Syombua Munyao, Mwanza Mutheu, Mbula Mutua, Mwende Nduku, Mwende Ndumbuki, Ester Mutuku, Ester Dunge, Mutheu Muthina, Mutheu Kinyingi, Muthamba Muinde, Musyenya Mutinda, and Purity Katungwa
Can you blame me for not remembering all of those? I can’t say half of them the right way.
Here are some of he Kikamba words I have learned:
Nenga – give me
Mwaitu – mother
Eka – stop
Uka – come
Hopefully I will be able to write more later...
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Story
First off, thanks to Danielle, Sarah, Brittany, and Caitlin for helping me make this blog. I've never been into the whole blog thing before, but here it goes...
It's hard to believe that I'll be on my way to Kenya in less than two days. I can't say that I never thought I would be doing something like this, because it's something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. I'm sure everyone who has heard about my trip is wondering why I would want to do something like this, so I guess I should explain a little. Here's the story...
A little over two years ago I went to a Life Conference for Christian and Missionary Alliance Youth in Orlando. The whole experience was amazing and I highly suggest it for any high schooler that has the opportunity to go. A week of some of the best speakers and musicians and being surrounded by thousands of other people that share your beliefs is like a glimpse into heaven, but anyway... I think it was the last night of the conference and they were showing some clips of different teens around the world volunteering and doing different things. There was this one clip, it couldn't have been more than thirty seconds, of these two girls in some African orphanage surrounded by a bunch of kids. There really wasn't anything special about the clip, and I don't remember a word that was said during it, I just remember seeing it and thinking that's what I wanted to do. I was kind of a moment of "and there it is." I really don't know how else to explain what I was thinking or how I felt. It just kind of clicked I guess. After I came home, I really didn't think to much about it and I kinda pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn't see how I could ever do anything like that, and even if I found a way I was too afraid to actually do it. But as I started thinking more about graduating and college, I started thinking about it more. Eventually I brought it up to one of the sponsors in my youth group (Glenn :]) and he gave me some ideas and stuff to think about. So I started to look around online to see what I could find out about orphanages and what kind of training and education I needed to work in an orphanage. Although there is a lot of information about it (as there is on just about anything on the web), I really didn't find anything useful. I did find one site (www.answeringforthechildren.org) and it gave me a little bit of hope; if they could do it, so could I. This past June I finally decided to send the couple a little email, asking things about how they got started and stuff. I still haven't heard back from them, but I guess having to take care of thirty orphaned children on their own is a pretty good excuse...
Wow, this going to be a longer story than I thought...
Anyway, I was extremely frustrated and had no idea what to do. I was graduating and needed to figure out what I was doing for college, but I couldn't let the idea go. So I started looking around online for volunteering abroad in orphanages. But I decided that it was a lot of money and I was too scared to go alone. Then someone from church (Glenn again :]) finally convinced me to go to the Dominican Republic with about twenty other people from my church for a week. We built a building for a water purification system for the people of Villa Hermosa and also did kids club with the kids in the community. Long story short, I put way to much pressure on myself to figure out my life during that week long trip. I started the trip thinking that the experience would give answers to all my questions and problems, and when it came time to leave Villa Hermosa, I realized that I was more confused and frustrated than ever. Not that the trip wasn't completely amazing and I would do it again (and hopefully will next summer!), it just didn't give me all the answers I was hoping for. But the trip did open my eyes to many other things, but that's another story...
So when we got to the airport to leave (or so we thought...) I had made the decision that when I got home I would try harder than ever to figure out a way of doing what I felt I NEEDED to do. I had already signed up for classes at CCAC, but I knew, even at the time I signed up for them, that was not what I wanted to do. I decided that I didn't want to waste my money on something I didn't want to do (not that education is a waste), so I made up my mind that I was going drop the classes; which I knew would go over well with my parents...
Anyway, when our group was just standing around waiting for people to check luggage and stuff--which we did a lot of--I started talking with Tim (who was the World Servants coordinator for our group). He simply asked me what I was planning to do for college in the fall, and I told him that I was supposed to go to community college but that I was interested in working with orphans. That's when he told me that the next week he was going to Ecuador to coordinator a group much like ours at an orphanage--Jardin Del Eden Children's Home. He said that the orphanage often has interns stay with them and that, if I was interested, he could talk to them while he was there about me going down to intern for a few months. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped at that point...
Obviously that trip didn't work out, but that's yet another long story. Basically, the people I would have stayed with in Ecuador didn't speak much English and I don't know Spanish, and apparently that is a problem. So when it started to become clear that the internship probably wasn't going to work out, I was determined not to just let it all go and just end up going go to CCAC for something I didn't want to do. But after some convincing from my parents--hah, yeah--we came to an agreement that I would go take some basic classes at CCAC that I would need no matter what I went for, instead of the Early Education and Child Development program that I had originally signed up for. BUT, the next day as I was finding classes to sign up for (sorry, I'll try to speed this story up...), Tim called. We talked about Ecuador and decided that was no longer an option, but he also told me about another opportunity... in Kenya.
I am leaving the evening of Saturday, October third for Kenya where I will be staying for the next nine weeks. I will be living with the pastor and his wife there and helping care for twenty-five orphaned girls who live at Suvia Children's Home.
I'm not ready to commit my life to living in an African orphanage or anything, but that's what this trip is about; figuring it all out.
It's hard to believe that I'll be on my way to Kenya in less than two days. I can't say that I never thought I would be doing something like this, because it's something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. I'm sure everyone who has heard about my trip is wondering why I would want to do something like this, so I guess I should explain a little. Here's the story...
A little over two years ago I went to a Life Conference for Christian and Missionary Alliance Youth in Orlando. The whole experience was amazing and I highly suggest it for any high schooler that has the opportunity to go. A week of some of the best speakers and musicians and being surrounded by thousands of other people that share your beliefs is like a glimpse into heaven, but anyway... I think it was the last night of the conference and they were showing some clips of different teens around the world volunteering and doing different things. There was this one clip, it couldn't have been more than thirty seconds, of these two girls in some African orphanage surrounded by a bunch of kids. There really wasn't anything special about the clip, and I don't remember a word that was said during it, I just remember seeing it and thinking that's what I wanted to do. I was kind of a moment of "and there it is." I really don't know how else to explain what I was thinking or how I felt. It just kind of clicked I guess. After I came home, I really didn't think to much about it and I kinda pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn't see how I could ever do anything like that, and even if I found a way I was too afraid to actually do it. But as I started thinking more about graduating and college, I started thinking about it more. Eventually I brought it up to one of the sponsors in my youth group (Glenn :]) and he gave me some ideas and stuff to think about. So I started to look around online to see what I could find out about orphanages and what kind of training and education I needed to work in an orphanage. Although there is a lot of information about it (as there is on just about anything on the web), I really didn't find anything useful. I did find one site (www.answeringforthechildren.org) and it gave me a little bit of hope; if they could do it, so could I. This past June I finally decided to send the couple a little email, asking things about how they got started and stuff. I still haven't heard back from them, but I guess having to take care of thirty orphaned children on their own is a pretty good excuse...
Wow, this going to be a longer story than I thought...
Anyway, I was extremely frustrated and had no idea what to do. I was graduating and needed to figure out what I was doing for college, but I couldn't let the idea go. So I started looking around online for volunteering abroad in orphanages. But I decided that it was a lot of money and I was too scared to go alone. Then someone from church (Glenn again :]) finally convinced me to go to the Dominican Republic with about twenty other people from my church for a week. We built a building for a water purification system for the people of Villa Hermosa and also did kids club with the kids in the community. Long story short, I put way to much pressure on myself to figure out my life during that week long trip. I started the trip thinking that the experience would give answers to all my questions and problems, and when it came time to leave Villa Hermosa, I realized that I was more confused and frustrated than ever. Not that the trip wasn't completely amazing and I would do it again (and hopefully will next summer!), it just didn't give me all the answers I was hoping for. But the trip did open my eyes to many other things, but that's another story...
So when we got to the airport to leave (or so we thought...) I had made the decision that when I got home I would try harder than ever to figure out a way of doing what I felt I NEEDED to do. I had already signed up for classes at CCAC, but I knew, even at the time I signed up for them, that was not what I wanted to do. I decided that I didn't want to waste my money on something I didn't want to do (not that education is a waste), so I made up my mind that I was going drop the classes; which I knew would go over well with my parents...
Anyway, when our group was just standing around waiting for people to check luggage and stuff--which we did a lot of--I started talking with Tim (who was the World Servants coordinator for our group). He simply asked me what I was planning to do for college in the fall, and I told him that I was supposed to go to community college but that I was interested in working with orphans. That's when he told me that the next week he was going to Ecuador to coordinator a group much like ours at an orphanage--Jardin Del Eden Children's Home. He said that the orphanage often has interns stay with them and that, if I was interested, he could talk to them while he was there about me going down to intern for a few months. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped at that point...
Obviously that trip didn't work out, but that's yet another long story. Basically, the people I would have stayed with in Ecuador didn't speak much English and I don't know Spanish, and apparently that is a problem. So when it started to become clear that the internship probably wasn't going to work out, I was determined not to just let it all go and just end up going go to CCAC for something I didn't want to do. But after some convincing from my parents--hah, yeah--we came to an agreement that I would go take some basic classes at CCAC that I would need no matter what I went for, instead of the Early Education and Child Development program that I had originally signed up for. BUT, the next day as I was finding classes to sign up for (sorry, I'll try to speed this story up...), Tim called. We talked about Ecuador and decided that was no longer an option, but he also told me about another opportunity... in Kenya.
I am leaving the evening of Saturday, October third for Kenya where I will be staying for the next nine weeks. I will be living with the pastor and his wife there and helping care for twenty-five orphaned girls who live at Suvia Children's Home.
I'm not ready to commit my life to living in an African orphanage or anything, but that's what this trip is about; figuring it all out.
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