A Warrior's World

Red

I might be going to Africa this summer!
Several summers ago my parents went to Kenya to do volunteer work.

Elders of the Maasai tribe

This summer my mom is thinking about taking me there, to work in an orphanage. She started telling me about the things that they did and saw while they were there. I looked up some things to help me get a better idea of what it was going to be like. Red is a color for Kenya.




The Maasai people are a classic symbol of Africa. This is largely due to the fact that they have worked hard to keep their culture free of influence from the Western world. The Maasai warriors in particular continue to hunt and do their tribal rituals.

Maasai Warriors doing a tribal dance
Photo and information above and below courtesy of Kenya Information

The Maasai still wear tribal clothes of red cloth and many beads and pieces of jewelry. They also still perform special rituals, rites of passage, live in traditional houses, and farm and hunt their own food.

Children in front of their house

My parents got a chance to meet the Maasai people, learn about their culture, and to spend time with them while they were in Africa. 

Children in the Mission School courtyard

But red isn't only for the Maasai...

My mom worked in a school in Nakuru, Kenya, sponsored by an American organization called Kenya Partners.  There, she and a group of doctors and health care workers were able to work and spend time with kids and teachers.  

While she was there she worked with kids who have health issues, but also other stuff like anxiety.  She also spent a lot of time teaching the teachers, how to counsel and help the kids, how to recognize problems earlier, and about discipline methods that don't involve caning children. 

Squatter's Hill Preschool

Preschooler in her red school uniform

The school is home to about 700 kids, many of them orphans.  It is where I will be working if we go. It is an interesting place where the children are well cared for, happy, and grateful for all they get. There is a preschool, a grade school, and a high school at the school, and another preschool in the poor part of the city of Nakuru, called Squatter's Hill.  I get to help in the preschool, and work with the kids, while my mom is working with the teachers.  

Kenya Partners also has a health clinic I can work in if I want to.  It is where my dad worked in while he was there.  He spent his time in the clinic developing tests to see if people had diseases, then he tested methods with the patients seen there. The clinic is where the people in the community go if they are sick or hurt. It has a dirt floor except for in the exam rooms, windows but no glass, limited electricity, temporary waiting areas, and is very crowded. If I go, I won't be doing anything exciting, just checking people in, holding babies, and making them more comfortable.

The possibility of going to Kenya is really exciting. I love the idea of helping people, especially little kids.  I think I might want to do work for a service organization when I am older and I hope this trip will help me better understand what that would be like.  I actually was first inspired to go on a service trip by the movie Soul Surfer. As silly as it sounds, the part during the movie when the main character is playing with the little boy in the water and helping him trust it again after the tsunami made me realize that maybe I wanted to do something like that.

Thinking of taking on such a big journey makes me realize that I am also really quite nervous about even going.  It seems like the Maasai and the children I would be working with have lives that are so different from ours.  They are orphans and most own only their clothes and school supplies.  They don't always have a place to go when school is out and they only have a hope that with education they can have a better life.  According to my mother it is a very difficult place to go because it is hard to see that some people have so little when we have so much. It's also beautiful to see that people can thrive and be happy with what they have.

I have to admit, one of the cool things about working with Kenya Partners is that they say thank you to volunteers by taking them on a safari for their last day in Kenya.  We may go to a Maasai village and national park in the Maasai Mara, or stay in Nakuru.  I'm pretty sure I don't care where I go, because it should be amazing!  There are no "red" animals, but lots of beautiful ones like rhinos, elephants, and giraffes.

I am really hopeful that I will get to go to Kenya.  I really want to learn from the experience. I love kids more than anything. I hope that I have something to offer them too. I get to explore a new country, and new continent, and a new culture.
It will be a Red Letter Day.