Margaret showed up with the sodas and biscuits about mid-day, but I couldn’t distribute them until the very end of school because they had a Kiswahili exam that I hadn’t known about. The ending ceremony was thus very rushed, as George and Eneka arrived at 3:10 and were in a hurry to get back in order to take some of the others Winjo. We did get back late, but by the time we got back they had already taken pikis to the debate.
I have such mixed feelings about my experience here. On the one hand, I love the kids, and teaching gives me a sense of accomplishment unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. And they love me too, I think, judging from the compositions I asked them to write for me (nothing like teaching a bunch of eager young Kenyan kids to boost the morale). They are so sweet, so hardworking, and so happy for kids who have seen too many hardships and too little comfort. School starts at 8 a.m., but most of them are in by 6 for WISERxBridge classes and do not leave until 5 or 6 in the evening. Some even sleep in the classroom—they stack their rolls of ragged blankets in the closets at the back—because it takes them too long to travel to and fro from home every day. I've always considered myself a diligent worker, but I dare not even compare myself to these kids.
On the other hand, I wish I didn’t have to do this anymore. Not least because it’s ridiculously exhausting (for me, at least)—which is one hundred per cent selfish but truly taking a toll on me. It reminds me a little of high school: leaving at eight in the morning, then pretty much completely occupied until they break for lunch, then another hour and ten minutes until the end of the day. By the time I get back to WISER I am too tired to do anything except eat avocados and idly browse the Internet, or, in the frequent event of the loss of connection, some other brainless activity (such as walking down to Tagache to buy more avocados to eat). I wish I had the energy to play football or interact with the WISER girls, but—honestly, I don’t. I’m lucky if I’m able to go over the lesson plans for the next day. I suppose it would not be such a strain if I haven’t been getting up at 6 a.m. every weekday to sneak in a quick run, but I am reluctant to give this up because it is the closest I come to being away from any people.
I am not a people person; I need time to be alone, or I start to lose my patience with the company I am in. For which I wish I could apologise to the people I meet on my runs who try to converse and the children who try to run with me—I don’t want to be rude, but I’ll ignore you because I really want to be by myself! Solitariness doesn’t seem to be a concept that is favoured around here; and running for the sake of exercise, too, is probably quite confounding in a community where by necessity people lead such physically over-active lives.
Two weeks is a rather awkward length of time. It is just long enough for me to get to know my students and colleagues a little better, but not long enough for solid relationships to form or for any long-lasting change to be done. At the end of my stay at Lisori I can pretty much name all the kids in my class, by their English names at least, and there are a couple I have grown quite fond of. But will I remember their faces in a few weeks, a few months, a year or two, after I graduate? I feel so guilty when I tell them I will not forget them, because I don’t think this is true. But I have been lying so often –out of kindness and politeness, certainly, but still lying nevertheless—that I cannot keep up with what I think the truth actually is anymore. When people ask questions, they want a simple answer: “yes” or “no,” and it is usually obvious which one of the two they wish to hear. And how do you tell them that yes, I actually do think that your life here is dismal and impoverished and backward compared to how I grew up? How do you look a child in the eye and tell him that no, I don’t really think your dream of going to the States and becoming a doctor instead of spending your entire life in or around Muhuru Bay, living a life very similar to the one that your parents lived, are very high at all?
I hate the position I find myself in. So much power, and yet so little. To these kids, we are the world; we come from America, that perfect society, and we bring with us presents, games and cameras. We don’t cane, we tell jokes, we have stories and knowledge and ultimate authority by virtue of our musungu status alone. We encourage them; we say, yes, you can make it if you study hard enough!—so that if they don’t make it they think that maybe they hadn’t studied hard enough. Which in most cases isn’t true, and in all cases isn’t their fault. In these two weeks I can give these kids a glimmer of hope, show them what the education that they deserve could be like, fill their heads with visions and ambitions and dreams—but at the end of it all, what does it come to? All I have really done is show them what they don’t have, how unfair life is, and now they know what they are missing out on. Have I really done any good? Are they happier because of the brief respite my visit has brought, or will they go back and feel cheated and dissatisfied with their own lives, now that I have opened up this world to them?
I don’t think any of them will be bitter, at least not now, because they are still young and they still have hope. And I have to believe that some of them will make it, because I feel like they will. They are a new generation and connections are becoming increasingly tighter now, between Muhuru Bay and Migori, Migori and Nairobi, Kenya and the world. There are those who have made it out there from backgrounds very similar to these kids’, and I want to believe that if they want it badly enough, they too will find a way. Or rather, that the way will find them—it is not really perseverance and hard work that they lack, but opportunities. Opportunities to learn, opportunities to ask questions, opportunities to travel out of Muhuru Bay and most importantly opportunities to gain the money to do any of these things. And this is why I feel so powerless, because I can’t give them the money, because I can only tell them about the fascinating things that they could see for themselves if they had money and hope that the money will come to them somehow. And hope that someday I’ll be able to do more, more than just give them dreams, kind lies, and empty promises.
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