Jacks making friends in Africa

Volunteering Day 2 and 3

We entered day 2 of volunteering with excitment and alot of coffee. We had only been through an introduction the day before and we were already exhausted. Today would be the first day I taught a class at the school. I was teaching English 1, which you can probably tell by my blog enteries, is a good place for me to start.

I sat through the morning classes until the grade 1 teacher handed me the chalk and said "ok its your turn." I figured at that moment I was going to sink or swim, and if I was going to sink, I'd at least try to make it entertaining for the class.

I taught. I danced. I hi fived. And we all laughed alot. These kids are smart. Real smart. Defenitly smarter than I was at their age, and their enthusiasm and general smarts made the class fly by. We had a blast. So much so that kids from the other classes were ignoring their teachers completely and watching my class. A few of them shouted out answers too! Ha.

At the end of the class, I patted myself on the back, happy that I survived and thinking "hey that wasn't so hard", then I realized I was covered in sweat. I guess my adrenaline got me through it all.

Day 2

Day 2 started with another English class. And then was followed up by a little blue collar work in the school yard. A week of rain prior to our arrival, turned the school yard into a swamp. There were holes everywhere, and standing water everywhere there wasnt holes. We needed to fill these in before they got any worse. Armed with the shovel I borrowed from Hugh (thanks Hugh!) I tackled the cement solid mound of sand that would be used to fill in the craters. My team of 5 eager students surrounded me, and without instruction shoveled the loosened sand onto empty rice bags and two by two tansfered them to the holes and filled them. I stood in amazement of these kids. Working their tiny muscles to the point of exhaustion and never once complaining. I laughed at the thought of me doing the same thing at their age.

After we finished our yard work it was time for field day. Every Friday the kids walk to the local field and play soccer and all sorts of games. It was awesome. I dove right in with the kids, and played my first official game of soccer. I wasn't horrible. I actually scored a goal. The kids went nuts. Then I had another break away and it was me and the goalie. Me 33, him 6. I fired the ball point blank range and the kid blocked it. It bounced of his 4 foot frame and i fired again, this time even closer. He blocked it again! I couldnt believe it! Stuffed by a 6 year old. I could only laugh as all the other kids came up and razzed me for my poor performance. After the game the kid came up to me and said "dont feel bad, I'm the best goalie around." Somehow his admission didn't make me feel any better.

On the way back to class we walked through the Ngando Slums. 30 kids deep, holding hands. I can only imagine what we must have looked like. 30+ African kids surrounding a goofy looking Mazungo (white person). I won't lie though, I felt a little like Jesus.

Along the way we stopped at the local food stand. A shack alongside a hundred other shacks selling odds and ends. We bought 20kgs of rice and 20 kgs of beans for the kids. It ended up costing us around $30, which is absolutely nothing considering these kids will be able to eat for weeks on it. We quickly realized how little it takes to make a difference here. $30 can feed 100 kids for two weeks. $20 can buy them all new books and pencils (most kids have to share their books and pencils because they can't afford their own. The ones who don't have someone to share with just sit and stare out the window. Its kind of heart breaking).

I'm absolutely loving my time here, and loving the friendships I'm making. I hope my presence here shows these kids that someone out there in the world cares about them. Because I do. I also hope that in someway they realize how much they're helping me. Their smiles, kindness and friendships are shattering my world. It's an awesome experience and one I know I'll never forget.

If you find these kids to be as awesome as I do, and feel like helping, head on over to http://rirutaumc.homestead.com/children_of_africa.html.

Volunteering Day 1

I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to put this into words. I swore to
myself I will not come off as preachy. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be
some great writer bound for the Nobel Peace Prize. I do know I want to document
everyday of my volunteering experience in the Kenyan slums. I guess I'll just have
to be honest and hope you forgive me if I come off as a prick.

I didn't know what to expect. I'll just put that out there. Sitting at home on my thousand dollar couch watching my two thousand dollar TV I've seen the commercials before. Kids. Hungry. In Africa. Flies surrounding them. Dressed in tatter and torn clothing. Pleading to the camera for help. Somehow, I will admit it, I always wondered how acurate these commercials were. In my synical mind I thought once the cameras were off, the kids were patted on the back for playing the poor kid part, and handed a pocket full of candy and sent on their way. It couldn't really be that bad? Could it?

Well I guess it all depends on how you define bad. As I ducked my head through the
tiny slit cut in a rusted sheet of metal my defenition of bad was about to get alot
cloudier.

I stepped into the school yard. A muddy patch of dirt closed off from the rest of
the slum by sheets of metal. A rotten smell immediately hit my nose, and I noticed
that not far to my left, and even closer to the schools source of water, was an
over flowing set of bathrooms. The school itself, nothing more than a few walls and
a roof divided into countless class rooms sat in the middle of the space, looking
as if the owner had abandoned it decades earlier. It looked rough to say the least.
It begged the question ' how can kids learn in an environment like this?' And then
I met the kids.

To say I've never experienced a time of equal joy and utter heartbreak would be 100%truthful. They ran to us. Smiles beaming. Eyes filled with excitment and wonder. All dressed in their "school uniforms", all pressing their way through, beside, and over one another...just to say hello to us. They wanted to touch us. I'm not sure why, maybe to make sure we were real. Whatever the reason, within the first 5 minutes of being there every child had shaken my hand. Some two or three times. In the blink of an eye the muddy septic field was gone, and I was surrounded by 50 of my newest friends.

I was standing there. Taking it all in, when one of the older kids in the group
came up to me and asked me if I could sing a song for him. I let him know that no
one wanted that. Trust me. Then I asked if he could sing me a song. And he did. He
clapped his hands twice to get a beat going, and before he could utter the first
word of the song, the entire schoolyard ran to surround us. Every kid was singing.
They danced. Shouted. And sang in perfect harmony. And I was in the center of it
all. It was one of those moments you only see in movies. A moment that makes you
step back and ask 'Is this really my life?'

It's impossible to explain the feeling that comes over you when a group of
strangers, especially kids, are so excited to see you. It makes you feel instantly
like you are home, and as these kids giggled and danced out of their mind with
excitment, I felt right. I felt like this was where we were meant to be.

I can't say everyday will be this rewarding, or that my next entry will be
positive. I can say I think I already love these kids. I hope at the end of two
weeks they might feel a little of the same for me.

Obama killed Dave Matthews

I knew it would come to this eventually. One of my great loves would become jealous of another and strike that love down. I never knew it would be our President doing the striking.

Here's how the bloodbath happened. I purchased 'Dreams of Our Fathers' through the Itunes store. Downloaded it. Synched it with my Iphone. Errr...Wrong move. While synching the audio book, my Iphone decided to erase all of my Dave Matthews albums. All of them. All 1000 + songs. All bootlegs. All B sides. All live shows. All unreleased songs. All Dave and Tim. All of it. Gone. Because of Barack Obama and his dreams. Ugh.

And now I'm Daveless. Me. The guy who has seen him live over 60 times. The guy who listens to nothing, and I mean NOTHING, but Dave. Stuck. Like a rat in a sinking ship, if that rat loved Dave Matthews and had a rat sized Ipod with Dave songs on it. I'm kinda losing it. I mean what am I supposed to do on these bus rides I take, actually talk to Sabrina? Ha, that's gobbledeegook.

sos- stranded in Africa...(pause)...send more DMB.

Fun Fact

For the 49% of whiz kids at home who have a problem with our current President, I'd like to inform you of the rest rest of the world's opinion.

They LOVE him.

I mean like serious man crush love. The men love him and the women really love him.

Here's another fun little fact. He's single handedly made it ok for Americans to travel again. We no longer need to pretend we're Canadian. We can be proud Americans. Obama has given us international street cred, and it feels real good.

I've heard this on more than one occasion from the people I've met on this trip. " The great thing about Obama, and what his election meant for America, is that it's still possible for people to change the country. The American people weren't happy with the way things were going, so they changed it, and that says something to the rest of the world. It says that they (Americans) weren't ignoring the problems. All the bad shit that was making them look like an global joke. They realized there was a problem and fixed it. The world respects that."

That's a real good thing to hear, and it's an even better thing to experience. I can't tell you how many cities I've been in where complete strangers, knowing I'm American, shout across a busy street "America! Obama!". I can only imagine last year that it would have been something more along the lines of, "America! You suck!"

Walk into any market around the world and you'll find an Obama shirt for sale, or being worn by a local. Umbrellas, hats, buttons, stickers, everything you can imagine emblazened with his portrait. And this is 5,000 miles away from where the guy is President. I walked into a local restauraunt today, made of straw and reeds, in the middle of Tanzania, and I found a hand painted portrait of Obama greeting me as I entered. In Tanzania! Imagine that being a painting of Bush or Sara Palin. Ha.

I guess Obama has become the presidential version of soccer...err.. football. While 90% of the world gets it, half of America doesn't.