My time in Kenya, 16 April ? 01 July 2004

Next to a small river, in the backyard of my parent?s house, listening to a tape that a Swiss friend made for me, enjoying the first sun after I arrived back home, more then a week ago already. Reading some articles from the newspaper about Kenya, I recognize so much from the country I started to love not so long ago.

In those ten weeks I spent in Kenya, I learned so much, so much more then for example my previous year at the university. There?s now way that I can write everything down here, so if you have any questions, doesn?t matter about what (the sponsorship, the volunteer work, the country, all the good and all the bad things), feel free to contact me!

By working for Out of Africa, I learned about so many aspects of the country and charity work. I?m glad I ended up with OOA, I could see with my own eyes that they really try to help the country, which isn?t that easy as it seems, in the best way they can. A charity means a lot of money in Kenya and people everywhere want to make a profit out of that. OOA mostly works with locals, who know how everything works in their country, which prevents frequent made faults by NGO?s, because they only look through Western eyes.

Part of my job was the communication between the sponsors and the children, which gave me a lot of opportunities and showed me that the sponsored OOAmoney really goes to the needing people.

I had the privilege of making all the pictures for OOA, which gave me a lot of joy (since photography is one of my biggest hobbies) and left me with a lot of good memories.

Desmond drove me through the beautiful landscapes, on out way to all the schools, mostly placed in remote, rural areas. After the work (collecting the sponsored children, making all the pictures and helping them with the writing of their letters and the questionnaire), I mostly ended up surround by a lot of children. At secondary schools, they wold more often stare at me from a certain distance. At primary schools they would group up around me, trying to touch my skin and pulling my hair and they always try to communicate with you. This creates a bit of a problem, because mostly the only English they know is: ?how are you??, ?fine?, ?what?s your name?? and sometimes ?where are you from??. Because they really wanted to communicate with you, they kept repeating those sentences over and over again, doesn?t matter how often you already answered them, even if you did it in Swahili.

I also learned a lot about the lives in Kenya; how most people have to struggle for life, their beliefs, their habits, their way of life. I learned this by visiting the children at their homes, but also by travelling alone through the country. This was hard sometimes, lonely, but also put me into the position of learning the stories of a lot of different people. I still find it hard to imagine that so many people, too many, live such a hard life, especially because you see the children with a big smile on their face almost all the time.

I have to admit that the office work, the waiting, all the attention you get as a mzungu and the loneliness and danger in certain situations (especially with the big camera I have), sometimes gave me a hard time. But the best thing to do when you?re feeling bad is to try and learn from it, which I did. You learn what?s important for you to make you feel happy and you can try to learn to enjoy or avoid the situation next time.

So if someone asks me about my time in Kenya, my answer is:

Very, very good. I did a lot, learned a lot, saw a lot, met a lot of good (and bad) people and enjoyed a lot!

many thanks,
Ann