So this is it, my trip’s coming to an end. Today we spent in the Nairobi, a bustling cosmopolitan city which is just like Kisumu, or Luanda, just with more cement. But you know, this is not Kenya. Kenya lies in the little towns and the farming villages full of innocence, laughter and smiles; Kenya lies in the 237 childrens’ faces that greeted us each day at the orphanage intrigued at our every move; Kenya is a nation of truly warm, beautiful people who have taught us more than we could possibly teach them. And I’ve got a deeper respect for Scott, a great travelling partner, whose humanity has touched many and has fared quite well in the trying situations we found ourselves in these past few weeks. So the real question is what comes next? We’ve promised a few boxes of books for the children at some of the orphanages. We’ll monitor the water pump project at the Vihiga Children’s Home to make sure it gets installed as planned. We’ll touch base with the girl who needed the operation to see how she’s doing post-op. There are a few promo films I've promised to make for some groups to post online for them, including Peter’s Water Project promo film, one of the main focuses of the trip, an organization we’d like to continue to support and fund a borehole well. We’d like to implement a penpal system between Tsawwassen/Vancouver school kids and the children at the Vihiga Children’s Home, and we were thinking of sending them a couple of laptops with webcams and Internet air time to open up the world to them, and possibly video-conference with children at home. And there’s some travel guides we’ll contact to give them write-ups for some of the places we stayed at, to help them advertise. But you know, this is just the tip of the iceberg; there’s so much need in Africa, and in 80% of the world. The question rolling around in my mind is, how much of a difference can we actually make? Because when I land back in Vancouver and get back to my family, the Matatus will still be dodging potholes on the rugged roads, children will still be playing soccer with rolled up pieces of plastic bags, orphans will still be roaming the streets at night, scavenging for food and looking for a comfortable overhang to bed down for the night. What changes? But if out of all the people we’ve met and all the new friends we’ve made, if one child can see a different side of life and can see choices that they wouldn’t have known before, then I suppose that’s a start. A waterfall begins with just one drop. Though we’ve left our boxes and most of our clothes, and are travelling quite lightly now, I’m leaving Kenya with much more than I came with.
So Scott will be out of Internet access for several days where he’s going. As for me, thanks for sharing the experience, it’s been great having you all along for the ride. Through the different places we';ve explored, we have a good idea where we would return to with our families and continue volunteering in the near future, as it’s been a wonderful experience. Till next time…
