When I first began this blog, I had not yet graduated college, I hadn't yet visited Kenya. It was my intention to share my trip to Kenya on this blog. It has not yet happened. This will change. Now.
It has been an entire year since I was in Kenya. I will never forget those three weeks. I would say that those could possibly have been the best three weeks of my life, but because I so hope to go back (as well as travel other places and do mission type work elsewhere) I can't say that.
It was unforgettable for many reasons.
I hadn't been out of the country before. I'd barely been out of Kansas or the Midwest.
Nairobi, Kenya is not only "a world away" from here because of the distance. The way people live, and the people themselves are so very different (yet so similar) to life and the people here. I am not saying that the living conditions are worse there than here. There are many things we can learn from each other to be sure. The hard work I saw some Kenyans doing, mainly in digging a ditch in front of Happy Life Children's Home (the home for orphaned and abandoned children I volunteered and stayed at). It seems I rarely see such hard work done by people here.
In some ways, it was refreshing to see the simplicity with which some in Kenya live. We didn't have hot water. Sometimes the water didn't even work. Not to mention, the Kenyans we met on Safari who are Masai. They live in mud huts, make jewelry and move from place to place. At the time we met the Masai though, we learned that their way of living was coming to an end. They would soon stop being nomadic, and live in one place.
Because of my love for anthropology, I think it's a symptom of being a sociology major, I mourn the loss of this cultural way of life. The reason this is occurring is for the preservation of animals and land (essentially). This particular group of Masai live on the Masai Mara Game Reserve where people go on safari (as I, and many others, did). A few Masai we met and got to speak with talked about how they become men by killing a lion. I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with this, but when you are dealing with trying to preserve the lives of animals, this is hard to accept. It's also hard to accept the end of this particular cultural tradition, despite how it may seem to outsiders.
Of the many things I learned on this trip, I learned, most importantly, that the life of a child is precious. Sometimes though, it's thrown away by the one person who you would think should care most, the child's mother. I was told stories about how some of the children at Happy Life Children's Home (HLCH) came to be there - in essence, how they were abandoned. Most of these children are not orphaned. Though, a few, can't be adopted to families because their birth parents still hold claim to them.
These children are abandoned, in part, because the mothers have no legal way to give up their child to the state, as we do (at least this is my understanding). Some of these children were as young as newborn, as old as school age children, who'd been found on the side of the road, in dumpsters, and other such horrible places. Some had AIDS, or were addicted to drugs because their mothers were. HLCH still took them in, cared for them, tried to bring them back to health. Sadly, not all of these children and babies make it to be adopted by families.
In fact, one of my favorite little ones in the group they called "the infants," which were newborn to approximately 6mo-1yr old, passed away at the hospital after I left with my group to return to the U.S. I remember finding out after I returned home, as he had been at the hospital for days, and I was unable to get a picture of him on my last day, like the others.
I still dream about this place, HLCH, the "mothers," the children, the city and it's people. Somethings are best learned by experiencing them yourself. If any of this made you feel something and you want to do something to help the kids at HLCH, or the people of Kenya, I suggest you do so! HLCH does have a blogspot: http://happylifekenya.blogspot.com/ which they seem to update pretty regularly. They also have a website: http://www.happylifechildrenshome.com/.
You can donate your money, your time, your heart, or maybe just your Facebook status. Which ever you desire. I hope you help in some way. This is something very dear to my heart. If you have any questions, please, please, PLEASE ask.
Until then, I'll be thinking on what else I can share with you about my trip to Kenya. Photos of course would be my next thought. Anything else, I'll have to ponder. If you have suggestions, let me know.
"Bringing Hope to Homeless Children" -Happy Life Children's Home
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