Life's Not Fair

"Nobody said it would be easy... No one ever said it would be so hard..."
-Coldplay

I'm angry at the world today. It was a ridiculously emotional day, and I'll explain as best I can.

Being here and seeing such horrifying levels of poverty on a daily basis has been hard, but not impossible. Even when walking through the worst parts of Kibera, it's hard to acutally imagine living in such conditions. It's almost like you can't fully let yourself absorb the situation, or it will overwhelm and devastate you. Maybe it's not the best way to fully experience a new culture, but I've found that the only way you can deal with it is to try and keep your emotions checked at the door, so to speak. Mentally absorb the things you are seeing, while keeping your emotions out of the equation. This approach was serving me quite well, until today.

It was like probably our 10th or 11th day at the orphanage. We did an activity with the children where they mapped out their communities for us, and then talked about what the liked about their communities, whether they felt safe, or scared, or secure, and what they considered the most urgent need in their community, in order to hopefully get grant money put to the most effective use. We took them one-on-one to determine their background to see how that affected their wishes and fears and desires. We split the kids into two groups: the orphans/boarders, and the children who live in the surrounding village.

One of the first kids I talked to is a boy in my class, who I've adored since day one (let's call him Bob). Now, Bob is just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen. Huge brown curious eyes, and a permanent smile glued on his face. He sits in the first row of the class, and always knows the answer. While the other kids want to colour or do PE, all Bob wants to do is learn. I think my particular affinity for him really took off the day he came to school in a Scout uniform. The kid is just precious, and helpful, and innocent, and could melt your heart in an instant.

I found out today when we started talking to each kid individually that he is acutally one of the boarders at the school. With the help of Eunice to translate, the wife of Pastor Simon/the head teacher at the school, I started to ask Bob about his community (which is basically the compound). He was sweet and outgoing and helpful as usual. However, when Eunice started telling me about his background, everything changed. As it turns out, Bob was orphaned at a very young age. A friend of a friend of a friend of someone or other took him in, and together they came from upcountry to Nairobi. At some point, this guardian decided they didn't want to care for him anymore. Somehow, he ended up at the gate of the orphange with one bag of clothes, crying and begging to be taken in because he just wanted to learn. At this point, Bob was on the verge of tears, and when he turned to look at me, he started sobbing, which prompty launched me into tears at well. I gave him a huge hug, and tried not to let him see me with my eyes, which were just brimming with tears. Bob has basically been at the orphanage ever since, and he just excels. When he calmed down and went outside, Eunice was teary eyed as well, and told me how she just used to cry when children would show up at the gates, needing to be fed and schooled and just loved.

What surprised me was that all of the children who stay at the orphanage aren't acutally orphans. While some of the are, the majority of them are from the adjacent village. Most commonly, they come from single-parent homes, where the parent (usually the mother) is HIV positive, and simply can't care for them. So they come live at the center, and are brought to the village to see their parents whenever possible. By the end of talking to the boarders, my heart was in a billion little pieces. I just couldn't grasp how life could get any more unfair then it was for these beautiful children, until I started talking to the kids from the community.

Their stories were even sadder. While every boarder commented on how safe they felt, almost every child from the outside community commented on how unsafe they felt, due to "theifs", "abusive drunk men", and even "teachers who hit us" (don't even get me started on that one; suffice to say that teachers are able to hit children here, and I've had to walk out of my classroom in anger so as not to pummell the teacher across the room). While the boarders commented on how the best part of their community was "sleeping on a bed", the kids from the town often live in small, one bedroom houses with up to 8 or 9 people living and sleeping on the floor of the one tiny room.

It's funny how perceptions change. On my first day, when I saw the dormatory where the 20 boys share 5 bunkbeds, I was so shocked and saddned. Now that I find out that this is a high point of their lives, and that they are the really lucky ones, it kind of breaks my heart even more. Despite every sad story I heard today, the truth is that these kids are so lucky. They get at least 2 meals a day, they have roofs over their heads, they attend class regularly, they have people who care about them.

It was just such a hard day, hearing these personal stories about these perfect children who I've grown to care about so quickly. How is it fair that they were born into the life they live, while I was born into mine? I have more than I could ever need, and they have so little, and yet manage to keep smiling ALL the time. It just saddens me to my very core. I can't imagine going home and never knowing what happens to these kids. At this point, I would do anytihng on earth to help them and at the same time, it feels like it would never seem like enough. There are just so many needs, and meeting them all could just never ever happen.

I guess the best I can do is just love them and listen to them and play with them and guide them in the short time that I have left here. Maybe some day, I will be fortunate enough to return to see the people that they are growing into. I met someone the other day who's university tuition here in Nairobi was actually paid for by a couple from Langely, of all places! Part of me feels like putting money away every week now, in the hopes that in 10 years, I could try to do the same thing for Bob, or an amazingly deserving person like him.

I guess I'm glad that I finally opened up to acutally "feeling" Africa, instead of "observing" it, but truly, I ache inside for these kids, and the millions more like them. I think what I am getting out of this experience the most is that the most important thing you can do in life is to give of yourself as much as you possibly can. Maybe the reason we were born into such privelige is to be able to help people who aren't as fortunate. It's really the only way to make sense out of an injustice that is so crushingly senseless.

-Delaney xo