Harvey Scholar Travel- Travis in Kenya

Kenya 2013-Travis

Hakuna Matata. It means “no worries” in Swahili (Timon and Pumba make us well aware of that), and many people in Kenya take the meaning very literally. In my time in Kenya, I learned of a people with dedicated passions, faithful relations, and open-hearted personalities. The things we take for granted on a daily basis are a luxury there, and many struggle their entire lives to attain clean water, reliable transportation, and accommodating shelter. All it took was two and a half weeks to culture shock me, wake me up to the reality of this world, and to learn of the beauty of a place and a people.

I went to Kenya with the Invictus Initiative in a group of five people. Leaving from Denver, we went to Newark, NJ, then to Brussels, Belgium, before finally arriving in Nairobi, Kenya. In our first few days, we stayed at a YMCA hostel in Nairobi while traveling out into the city seeking out and meeting with NGOs for future potential projects. It was with one of these NGOs that we were led into the heart of the Nairobi slums, coming face to face with the heart of poverty. This experience was by far the most eye-opening of our time in Kenya. These people we saw had nothing. Sewage ran through their clean water. Burning trash was around every corner. Yet these people were happy, finding joy in what they had rather in what they didn’t. It was such a spectacle to see how they valued each other and the little things they did have.

Leaving behind Nairobi, we took a short flight to Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and got on a taxi to head to our home for the next two weeks. The road was rough, scattered with potholes and yet with few cars on it. The amount of people walking and on bicycles outnumbered the vehicles in the countryside, once again showing the priorities of this country.

In Sigomre, the small village in which we spent the majority of our time, we worked with a local secondary school to provide them with solar-powered light bulbs so that students would be able to study at night for their college placement exams. We visited a river crossing in which the bridge was in an awful state, in hopes that we could one day help with a bridge project. Finally, we worked with a disabled orphanage, bringing smiles to their faces and introducing them to the marketing idea of banana bread (which they called sweet cake bread). There were many other experiences, including soccer matches with the secondary and primary schools, which we were able to enjoy, but in the end, were all taken away by the beauty of this land (we visited the Masai Mara) and the richness of the personalities of the people.

Everywhere we went, we were greeted with smiles and chai tea. People loved opening their homes and their hearts to us, never once shying away from the opportunity to mingle with the Mazungu (the white people). Kenya did in fact show us all that we can love selflessly not by with what we have, but rather, by who we are, and no matter what, always remember “Hakuna Matata”.