Walking down the Staircase

At the beginning of this year I had three goals: to graduate, to get into teacher's college and to not die in a foreign country. Well here I am in wonderful Kenya. Its strange how life treats you once in a while. Sam, Connor, Emma and I are all living in a wonderful apartment and some of the original plans have changed. I'm pretty calm about everything that has happened since we landed. It is strange the extra things that have been added to our routine including purifying water or doing some hand washing. It was difficult to walk down the 6 flight staircase at first and see everything that Kenya offered to us. Before this, I had been waken up at 5:30am because someone in our building had decided to do laundry on the balcony. It was a little unnerving and scary to hear that much noise. Walking down the staircase, I did not know what to expect and it was extremely difficult. Seeing the slums and the continuous set of shacks, some of them small businesses others had mattresses right on the ground. The stairs we got. The elderly looked at us as if we had ulterior motives to being here, the adults looked at us as if we were examining their lives like they were in a zoo. There were intimidating and aggressive looks but the look of a five year old girl walking to school side by side to her mother made me believe in the child's innocence and beauty of humanity. Children don't judge because they don't know how to and this girl bravely smiled, waved her hand and shouted Jambo to me. It is in this moment that I knew this summer was going to be alright. Three and a half months is a long time. It starts by going to schools to make appointments to make sure life skills can be taught in the classroom. What would take us one email takes a 4 hour walk across the Kariobangi Slum. It is unfortunate that teachers are not necessarily educated themselves and are not compensated well. These problems lead children to not trust their teachers or even teachers who hate children and hate teaching. I was offered a primary math class to teach for the next three months in addition to the life skills workshops that I will work with in 20 different schools. The four of us wandered out of the apartment to play with the children in our neighbourhood and it was a humbling experience to see such promise and real joy. I look forward to sharing more of my story with you all.

Asante Sans (Thank you) for Reading!