Reflections on Africa

Perhaps it was a little Naive of me to think that I could just update this blog from Kenya while on mission. The people are poorer than I thought- most have absolutely no internet access, and so I did not have the opportunity to write at all along the way. Instead, here I am again at the end of the journey, and I suppose I might as well write some reflections!

Africa was absolutely amazing- the mission was one of the best experiences of my life. I remember a few years ago, my friend Shauna Page visited Ghana, and upon her return the thing that stood out most to her was the culture shock of returning. The culture shock arriving there is one thing, but it's when you come back and are suddenly confronted again with how superficial and consumeristic our culture is that you really feel it. In a sense, Kenya was more comfortable, because there we were just people without all the trappings and the social pressure.

At first, I was very intimidated in Kenya. We drove to a small suburb of Nairobi, called Embulbul. We stayed there at the Catholic Church, which is in a compound, and the first day, I was scared to leave the compound. I did wander a little ways, and found some children sliding down a dirt hill on garbage bags. This must be the Embulbul version of 'sledding'. I joined them for a run, and got very dirty. But that was right outside the compound, and being the only mzungu (white man) around, I was scared to go further. After all the assumption of most kenyans was that if you are white you must be wealthy... and therefore, what was to stop someone from mugging me? (This picture shows several children that were playing soccer in Embulbul. Their ball was nothing more than a bundle of bags wrapped in strips of fabric. We bought them a new one.)

People would come straight out and ask for money, ask for sponsorship for their various projects. I found myself protesting that though I was white, I was not wealthy- I was, after all a missionary, not a tourist. The difficulty is, that this was not true. For example, I have a car. I also have a nice condo. I have more than 3 outfits, and none of them have holes in them. (Note the girls in decades old dresses- this was typical.) I have running water, and a toilet that works consistently. In short, I have more than the wealthiest people I visited!

This is the difficulty. I always knew that there would be the desperately poor- but I expected a larger middle class. The middle class lived the way people on welfare do in Canada. I visited a medical doctor in his home- he had more than one room, a car, and a TV. No decent plumbing though, and his furniture and clothing were clearly 20-30 years old. No computer or ipod or any of these things we are accustomed to. That's what doctors have in Kenya.

I became embarrassed by what we have in Canada. I didn't want to tell people about my car or jobs or my problems, because it seemed so selfish. We drove for about four hours along dirt highways (few roads are paved in Kenya), passing village after village of grass huts and dillapidated tin rooves, and a river where every week another lady doing laundry of drwaing water is eaten by a crocodile. by the time we reached Malindi, our destination, I felt physically ill. Because it was all so ugly- and this is not something the people there drive through once, but where they live daily. (In this photo, you can see in the distance the grass huts. They don't look ugly in the photo, but it is sad to think that this is all these people had!)

Malindi was our third destination, so we had by then been in Kenya for 2 weeks. I was sad in Malindi to find that it was a tourist town, catering especially to Italians. I suddenly felt like the mzungus were fat and pale and ugly and frankly quite aweful. I me a beautiful 22 year old girl named Flavia there, who spoke very good English. (They teach English in schools, so most teenagers and young adults can speak it.) She told me that she had never had a conversation with a white person before, because she was intimidated by them because the tourists all treated her like garbage.

Perhaps this reflection makes me sound like I did not enjoy myself. I loved it, as it was a profound experience of love and meaning and richness, and I feel like my heart has expanded through it. However, the injustice in our society is more poignant to me now than ever. Mother Teresa used to say "Live simply so that others may simply live." She also said "It is a poverty that someone should die so that we may live as we like." I always thought the latter saying was about abortion, but now I wonder. People are dying all over the world so that we can maintain our lifestyle, own more cars, entertainment units, the latest fashions in clothing and furnishings. I don't want to be a part of this culture anymore. God has given me the opportunity to give so much- I pray for the grace to make real sacrifices, and so to grow in true charity as he has called us to.