KENYA 2008

Hello again and welcome back…

Well, like i said there were rumours of a trip to Kenya this year, and yes, here i am, upon my return from that fantastic place to tell all you good folk all about it. So pull up a chair and pass the rusks, this one is going to require many a pot of coffee….

But first have a look at this Show-Reel.

KENYA 2008 SHOW-REEL

During the assignment in Kenya i was expecting pretty much the same sort of scenario as we had down in Mozambique earlier in the year. How ever i could not have been further from the truth if i tried. When we got there, you can tell pretty much straight away that Kenya is very much an African country. Not so much because of the sights and smells that bombard your senses before you even step out the airport, but more because in the faces around you, you can see, etched deep within the eyes, a hard glaze that doesn’t go away. But don’t get me wrong, there are many people out there that are happy and friendly, and you quickly get a sense of having known them for years. But that look in the eyes is still there..perhaps some hide it better than others?..or perhaps there are those who wear it as some sort of reminder for the rest of us, that come here to have a good holiday, lounge by the pool with dry martini’s and room service, while just on the other side of the hotel walls are millions of people who live out our own worst nightmares on a day to day basis…

The crusade was held out in a place called Huruma, in Nairobi. And for those of you who can remember, earlier in the year during Kenya’s elections there was major unrest in the area, with a large number of people being killed. (but don’t worry if you cant remember, it only had a brief mention between the sports and the weather)

On our daily journey out to Huruma, i could not help but wonder how these people manage to scrape out any sort of existence at all. there is a lot happening on the streets, with people being as industrious as they can, from selling hand crafted beds to old rags and home brewed moonshine. It is a very hard thing to see the stoic battle that the Kenyans put up with every day, because they have no other choice but to get up every morning and try again. I just cant get my head around it, and i know that Kenya is not the only place out there with its hardships, but why do we all sit around and do nothing about it??? Sure, we might chat about it over tea and scones, but what do each of us do to make some sort of a difference? Yes, you would be right in saying that, “what kind of a difference can one man make against such enormous odds?” and sadly the answer is most likely to be nothing at all(but i hope i am wrong) Now ask yourself, “what change could we make if all of us stood together and caused such a fuss that a permanent and positive change was made. If that were the case would our own lives be that much richer?

But i think i am jumping ahead of myself here, ranting on about the hardships of Kenya’s people. A good place to start would be in educating the rest of us who have it easy. To help shed the ignorance we are afflicted with, in that we somehow choose to shut out this reality in fear of it having sneak in and snatch away our little bubbles of safety and homely comforts we work so hard to attain. Though does it really matter that we have a nice house with a pool and a car or two in the garage?? Does it really matter that we are gold members of the country club ?? Or that we go on our annual holiday to the destination of our choice?? What with so many people starving and countless children being abandoned because they are simply an extra mouth to feed, or perhaps sold to a fate far worse just for a few dollars or a sack of rice!!

We had one case of a little girl of about three years of age being abandoned at our location out in Huruma. She ended up staying with one of the bodyguards, but was claimed a day or two later by her mother, who was interrogated by a few local chaps working with us at the event. I never heard as to why she just left her child there!! Another woman came to us one day with a new born baby. she had found it abandoned in the bush the day before, and what saddened me the most was that the baby was only a few days old. But what kind of circumstances led the baby’s mother to just abandon it in the first place to end up as just another statistic. But thank goodness that she was found and now has a chance of life. Its shocking, i know, but these two kids are only a tiny portion of the kids being abandoned or worse.

Don’t get me wrong though, Kenya is not all doom ‘n gloom. There are a lot of great things about it that make you want to keep going back again and again. The crusade that was held out at Huruma was a great success, with Pastor Dilkumar doing what he does best and the fantastic entertainment with Richard Jon Smith, Rossie with her beautiful voice and a rather charismatic Ruff-Tone. As always it was great to see people coming to the event with a world of worries on their shoulders, and then leaving with renewed hope and healthy spring in their step. It is such a rewarding experience to be a part of something where you are making a difference, even if it just a small one.

That is why i feel that it is so important to let the rest of the world know that there is a beautiful place where the children don’t smile and the eyes of youth are stained with a hardness that should never be. I was fortunate enough to have walked a small part of the back alleys of Huruma with Gheorghe and Daniel, local bodyguards who are two of the nicest people i met. While walking around and doing my best to take photographs as surreptitiously as possible (though being a tall white dude with two body guards in Africas’ largest ghetto is not that subtle) i got a small glimpse of life in the ghetto, and having chatted to some of the locals who were friendly and rather welcoming, i have to say that i really started to have my eyes opened. At first i was hesitant to approach people who stared, or looked on with a certain amount of honest disdain. And when i overcame my initial fears and started to engage with locals a bit, i found ready smiles and a welcoming atmosphere, despite the hard living conditions and overbearing poverty. All in all i think that my most memorable moments during my short stay in Kenya has to be the back streets of the ghetto. I know, i was rather surprised myself when i realized it. There is something there that opens the eyes and heart to the sadness in the world. It makes you want to do all that you can to help make life a little easier, even if its just for a moment.