Today I've realised the majority of my friends probably don't know exactly what I've been doing in Kenya. For all you know I could have been fundraising for a really long holiday! Well I can assure you I haven't and, as I enter the last leg of my journey, I figure it's about time I explain what's been going on.
So at some point in February, after a really rubbish couple of weeks and a particularly bad day, I started to focus more and more on my love of visiting new countries. I planned a hypothetical gap year, looked up places to volunteer and somewhere along the way fell in love with the idea of visiting Afirca. After much prayer, deliberation and thought (all of which took about 48 hours) I signed up with Outreach International to spend my summer volunteering at their coastal orphanage in Kenya. It looked idyllic to say the least. Living in a house on a white sandy beach, a bunch of cute black kids and an opportunity to help teach maths and english. Great!
Convinced this was where God wanted me to go, I booked my flights, paid my deposit and organised my vaccinations.
Unfortunately, as always, things didn't run as smoothly as I had hoped. I arrived in Watamu, Kenya, to the news that I couldn't actually go to the orphanage I had signed up to. I was left without a volunteer project and somewhat disappointed that the very thing I had been so excited to do wasn't actually possible. However, as always, God was simply working out His plan. The next day another volunteer took me to Gede Special School, home to 150 children, all of whom are either hearing impaired or have cerebral palsy, or a mixture.
My mornings were spent in the class of children with cerebral palsy, helping the OT and focusing on stimulating them, helping them move around etc. The 30 or so children in the class all had CP to different extents, and all had very different background stories. Some of the children had very loving, supportive families who came to visit them, whilst others had families who believed them to be possessed, who beat them and had merely dumped them in the Special School and not returned for years. It was obvious which children belonged to which category, unfortunately.
My afternoons were spent in classes with the hearing impaired (HI) children. This was difficult at first - I barely had any BSL let alone KSL! But the children were patient and loved trying to teach us new signs, though I soon realised they often called me stupid when I couldn't copy their hand movements exactly! I was given a sign name (related to my ear piercings - no surprises there!) and genuinely loved helping them. Their attitude to learning was immense. Even when teachers hadn't bothered to come into school groups of children would ask for help with their maths. Trying to teach fractions and ratio theorem with limited KSL proved entertaining!
So that has been the last month or so. I've been challenged and humbled beyond belief by the kids I've worked with. They are potentially the kindest, most loving and most generous children I've met, and, despite having so little are infinitely happier than the majority of people in the UK.
I do this way too often, but I apologise for the essay length of this post. I should have made more of an effort to blog while I've been away!
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