Kimuka, Kenya: Living Among the Maasai
I arrived and had no idea what I was doing there. Laying awake at night, I stared at the tin sheet ceiling while squirming on the sunken mattress. How on Earth am I going to survive in this Maasai village for two months? What was I thinking when I signed up to travel alone to an area without running water?
Eventually this instant culture shock wore off, but the first two weeks of my volunteer service were likely two of the hardest weeks of my life. While most Kenyans speak English, they prefer to converse with each other in Swahili or their native language, often leaving me, a sole-English speaker, alone in my thoughts. Yet, while I struggled in solitude, I learned a very important lesson: the necessity to observe. Before long I remembered how and why I ended up in Kenya. I wanted to understand how others lived the way they do. Growing up, I was raised by a single mom who had two primary goals. First, she desired to give me the life she didn’t have, complete with after school activities and educational opportunities. Second, she committed herself to making me a productive member of society, aware of my privilege and willing to help those less fortunate. Yet, I had grown up oblivious to the trials and tribulations that millions around the world face daily simply to access their basic needs. Living in Kenya, immersing myself in a different culture in a developing country was meant to test me— it was the purpose of my being there. |
|
During my two months in Kenya I learned more than most students learn in five months studying abroad in Europe. I played an active role in day-to-day Maasai life. I traveled every day to a pre-primary school where children and teachers made do with few supplies, learning their alphabet on recycled maize sacks. I went home to help my host-mother make dinner, shucking corn or beheading the eldest rooster for stew. I washed my clothes by hand and joined Maasai women in their beading ventures. I sat face-to-face with HIV-positive women barely scraping by on casual labor skills, struggling to afford school fees and food for their children. I experienced a side to living completely outside of my comfort zone and astoundingly different than most other young people— most other people for that matter— will ever experience, and I am grateful.
Many days I would come home emotionally exhausted, facing internal dissonance and trying to make sense of the world as it was presented at that time. What does it mean to be developed? Should everyone be developed and educated, even if they are happy with their current life, even if it means losing their culture? Children lacking school supplies is part of larger poverty-related problem that will not be fixed by donating pencils, but if you can alleviate the immediate need, should you? Or does that create expectations and perpetuate other problems? What is my role as a Westerner? Am I doing harm, or good? Or are we at the point in our globalized world where people are going to cross global socio-economic lines regardless? All of these questions remain heavy in my mind, yet my current studies are contributing to my knowledge and personal opinion about each.
One thing is for sure, while my work in Kenya reaffirmed my desire to pursue a career in International Development, it led me to a completely different reality. Sitting in a classroom reading about economic progress is entirely different from living it. There are many critics of international development work, and rightly so. Criticism is key to improvement. Yet, regardless of the geopolitical complications, one question remains: Is it our duty as fellow human beings to improve the lives of others around the world? I answer this with a resounding yes. It is within our best interest as a global community to ensure that every man, woman, and child has access to basic needs and education. And this is why I have dedicated my career thus far to representing those who are denied these basic needs.
Many days I would come home emotionally exhausted, facing internal dissonance and trying to make sense of the world as it was presented at that time. What does it mean to be developed? Should everyone be developed and educated, even if they are happy with their current life, even if it means losing their culture? Children lacking school supplies is part of larger poverty-related problem that will not be fixed by donating pencils, but if you can alleviate the immediate need, should you? Or does that create expectations and perpetuate other problems? What is my role as a Westerner? Am I doing harm, or good? Or are we at the point in our globalized world where people are going to cross global socio-economic lines regardless? All of these questions remain heavy in my mind, yet my current studies are contributing to my knowledge and personal opinion about each.
One thing is for sure, while my work in Kenya reaffirmed my desire to pursue a career in International Development, it led me to a completely different reality. Sitting in a classroom reading about economic progress is entirely different from living it. There are many critics of international development work, and rightly so. Criticism is key to improvement. Yet, regardless of the geopolitical complications, one question remains: Is it our duty as fellow human beings to improve the lives of others around the world? I answer this with a resounding yes. It is within our best interest as a global community to ensure that every man, woman, and child has access to basic needs and education. And this is why I have dedicated my career thus far to representing those who are denied these basic needs.