Here At Last!

by Volunteer Ellie Honan
Expanding Opportunities, Kenya

I’m here!!! I’ve actually been here for a week. So sorry I haven’t posted at all. Things did not turn out as planned, which I am learning is often the way in Kenya. Bev and I had some mishap on the road and then we stopped at her children’s home for the night and because of obligations she has here we are staying for the week. The boys in the home are great though! They are so fun to hang out with and I am learning a ton from them.

The standard of living here is insanely different. I dont like when they serve me and treat me all special because i am white so i have been helping with all the work and it is EXHAUSTING!! My hands and feet are all blistered, but it is actually really fun doing the work with the people here. They just enjoy everything they do. Whether its studying, hauling buckets of water onto the roof for the shower, or shoveling poop out of the latrines they are all laughing and singing.

I went to school with some of the boys for a day and man they have it rough. This village is pretty middle class but they were learning on old crates in cement rooms with absolutely no resources. The classes and material were actually similar to ours, and they were preparing for a standardized test, but the environment in the school feels like being transported into the late 1800s. Everything is written on the blackboard because there are no printers (no electricity at all actually) and the children have to stand when the teachers enter a room and they are all terrified of the teachers. They have reason to be terrified as there is very regular corporal punishment. When i was at the school, the teachers called me into the office and at first they seemed mad that i had come and were grilling me with questions, but by the end, one of the teachers was making me write down my phone number so that she could call me when she comes to visit her son in the U.S..

The people here are all like that – so friendly and social. I am really going to miss the boys from the home when I leave Sunday, and I have only known them a few days! i have so many more stories, but limited internet time and I want to try and upload pictures. All in all i am having an amazing time and i am healthy as can be (besides looking like a lobster and feeling like my hands, face and arms are on fire from sunburn).