“Seeing lions devour a wildebeest,”
“Experiencing Masai culture,”
“Trying new foods and learning some words in Swahili and Luhya,”
“The warm community welcome in Shisango,”
“Seeing the effect of a finished classroom on the community.”
These and many other highlights from our students in the Kenya programs inspired me to take my own trip to East Africa this January. I wanted to see and experience Kenya for myself!
Safari Njema
After a night in Nairobi, I headed straight to the Masai Mara National Reserve. The dirt road that leads to the park was sprinkled with Masai villages, and I was more than a bit surprised to see a group of zebras intermingling with a Masai man and his prized herd of cattle. Because there are no physical boundaries to the game reserve, it is not uncommon to see zebras, giraffes, and monkeys roaming through populated areas well outside the park.
Inside the reserve, the wildlife is even more abundant. Lions, wildebeest, ostrich, elephants, giraffes, gazelles, jackals, hyenas, and baboons…the list goes on and on. Their home, the Mara savannah, is among the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in all my travels. Vast expanses of tall grasses dotted by solitary acacia trees and divided up only by the green on the shores of the occasional rivers and streams. When we cut the engine on the safari van, the silence was incredible. It was so quiet I could hear the wind rustling through the grass and a giraffe munching away on the tender leaves of the trees. Imagine the sunsets and sunrises in such a place! I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky.
I continued my safari at Lake Nakuru. This shallow lake has a maximum depth of 3 meters and is a bird’s paradise. As we circumnavigated the lake, I saw my first rhinos, pelicans, flamingos, and Cape buffalo. The view of the lake from Baboon Cliff Lookout was incredible.
Village Visits
Though the animals and scenery of Kenya were extraordinary, the highlight of my trip was heading west to the Kakamega area. Our local coordinator Jeremiah Karungani was my guide, companion, and interpreter during our visits to Shisango and Munjiti, several Luhya villages that hosted our groups in 2011.
In Shisango, I got to see the secondary school classroom that our high school students built during the summer. The secondary students are very happy to have at least one classroom that is solely for them since they have been sharing space with the primary students. The community hopes to be able to gather funds from parents or the government to build more classrooms to complete an entire secondary building.
In Munjiti, the principal was so happy to show me the classroom that the gap year students renovated from floor to ceiling this past fall. Previously, the classrooms in the entire secondary school had been in extremely bad condition. Students sat on the mud floors because there were no desks, the walls were falling apart, and there were no windows or doors.Once the government saw the hard work of the Global Routes students and the community, they picked up where the group left off and are now finishing up renovations of the remaining secondary classrooms.The principal and students are thrilled!
In both Shisango and Munjiti, I had the opportunity to gather together with host families and teachers. At Global Routes, we try to do this as much as possible since it is the best way to understand their unique experience with our groups. Their thoughts give us a lot of new insight into the program and help us to better meet the needs or desires of future communities. Every single person at the gathering had something to contribute either in Swahili, Luhya, or English
Host Family Comments
- Girls can do hard work just like boys!
- Mzungus (white people/foreigners) can do hard work!
- The students were very open and loved to dance with our children.
- We learned how to live with people from abroad and realized that we can live together and get along.
- Students taught us that hugs don’t have to be obscene; they are just expressing warmth and kindness (in Kenya there is very little demonstration of affection).
- Students helped with all the chores, even taking care of the cattle!
- The group and project gave outside visibility to school and the government was shamed into remodeling the other secondary classrooms.
- We learned a lot about the students’ culture and enjoyed sharing our own.
- The students ate everything that we ate. They even liked ugali!
- The students learned to adapt to Kenyan culture and realized that they can change what they’re used to and still go on with life.
My friends, family, and colleagues have all asked me about the highlight of this trip. They were especially interested because I had never been to Africa before. “Honestly,” I tell them, “every day was amazing.” I soaked up every bus ride, conversation, meal, landscape, and piece of information that I could and a whole new part of the world has unfolded before me. This discovery is an incredible feeling.
