Steve Dreany – Jan 15, 2012

Before writing this I wanted to wait until the visceral response had passed and I would be able to write a more reflected, intellectual response. So here I am, just over three months after returning from our three week journey to Kenya - ready to tell you what the trip meant to me. At this point I believe that the three week trip to Kenya was just the beginning of what is going to be a lifelong journey.

     What I would describe as the tasks that we participated in was significantly different from the experiences that I had. I’ve never experienced anything as profound as what I experienced there.

     The tasks we undertook while there were four food distributions, organizing the teaching of small business skills and funding startups for 39 widows and 1 widower, evaluating and funding (and not funding) micro-loan applications, purchasing a knitting and several sewing machines for small businesses, putting the finishing touches on a school for former street girls, organizing and starting a school in a remote village, supplying 10 computers to a youth group that teaches young people the skills necessary to be job-ready, buying arts and crafts from innumerous people and groups so that the profit made from selling them in Canada can be returned to them for future projects.
         These are just some of the projects that I can remember right now. There was so much more, we worked very hard, from sun-up to sundown, from the time that we landed almost until the time we took off. And yet, overall, I would have to say that the trip was one of the most selfish things that I have ever done. As any volunteer would tell you, what you get from giving is so much more than what you give.

        While I was in Kenya the most common emotions that I felt were of admiration and shame. Admiration for the people of Kenya and their culture; and shame, not of myself, but of our people and our culture.
         While many people in Kenya live in abject poverty, and there seems a healthy realization of the reality of the situation, there is still in many an overarching sense of hope; of respect for both one’s self, each other and their country; and a strong will to do whatever each person can to improve the situation. Without the trappings of our culture, there is a greater sense of community. People know each other better, live more closely together and greet each other more personally. In many ways I imagine going there is much like time-warping back to the 50s and dropping onto Mayberry. I admire that, and I’ll explain why later.
         After experiencing the way that people live in Kenya, and realizing how little one truly needs to live it is now contemptible to me the way that we live in our culture. Day after day we live a life of senseless and needless accumulation and consumption, all in the name of “need” when in reality we could all live with so much less. Our consumption is depleting the world of valuable resources - doing untold harm. If we redirected those resources to the betterment of the less privileged all if humanity would be better off. The impoverished for having more, us for having less.

        Maybe then, we as a culture wouldn’t be as isolated. Isolated in our homes in front of our televisions or travelling cocooned in our cars. We seem to live isolated and in fear. In fear of each other, in fear of the world around us, afraid to let our kids go out and play. By having less I believe we would be more dependent on one another, know each other better. Then maybe our kids could play in the streets, with each other, instead of via text messages and online games. People could walk about with their heads up, saying hello to one another, instead of isolated by ear buds, heads down, mistaking text messages for conversations. Then maybe we too would be a people instead of a collection of individuals.
         And that is what I admire about the Kenyan people – they are a people. Whatever they are in, they’re in it together. They have resilience beyond anything that we have having to survive so much hardship each and every day. Realizing their plight, making no apologies for it and working hard to improve it.
         So what does all of that mean to me? Ada & I are taking steps to realign the way that we live our lives. We’re taking steps to reduce our overall consumption and diverting the resources to help the less privileged, both here and in Kenya. I know that even the smallest contribution here can equate to a life changing difference to someone there. After all “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”(Helen Keller 1880 – 1968)
         My only fear – maybe then they’ll be more like us.