Thoughts - October 16th 2008

Thursday (October 16th) already, I cannot believe how time is flying.
It is the weirdest thought to think it has only been 5 days so far on one hand and on the other hand it seems like I have lived here before and it has been years.

Life in this continent is everything different than I was ever used to.
I keep questioning myself how the heck I am going to bring my experiences back to the Netherlands. All those 23 years of what I was used to...
Now that I have seen parts of Kenya, I realize life can be a complete 180 degrees different than what or who I am.
Yet...a very important yet - all these people I see on the streets or the people I have the privilige of to meet - are all the same also.

No one can choose where to be born.
I have been given the amazing privilige to be born in a warm and loving family where I know I am safe and where I have been taught very valuable morals that make me a healthy balanced person.
At the same time, my surroundings in my culture in the Netherlands 'teach' me to rely on 'things' or 'people' or 'situations' or 'truths' which made me the way I am right now.
All I did and do is normal to me. Showers, refridgerators, the quiet streets at night, the structured and organized way of living, my breakfast-lunch and dinner days, the way of interacting with peers: E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G!

People here in Kenya are also not given a choice of where to be born.
Their simple, more 'back to basic' way of living they are bound to is amazing and almost unbelievable.
To me, this 'back to basic-thing' is one of the things that makes me cry the most when I think about it. For there is a longing in me so deep to also just dwell in Holy and Loving values.
Even now when I actually have a moment to write down my thoughts and let it come to me...

It is the beauty I see here in the value African people still have and we in the Netherlands have lost. As I can only speak for myself...I don't own a certain peace or warmth and smile or look in my eyes, thankfulness or joy - that people seem to have here.
It's just not in me. I have not been developed in that sence and it makes me sad and desperate to learn it still. This is my prayer.

Imagine you're standing on a street in Kenya, where cows, goats and people, walk, run - and (almost) every person spots you. The primair thought that crosses my mind is: "Why are all these people noticing me? They look at me as if I am different. I wonder for myself what goes through their mind. Then, I realize - I am surrounded with people with only another colour of skin. People, only raised in a different culture. Humans, just as me - but who look at me. What do they think of me?
Do they despise me? Are they jealous?
I, I personally would think negatively 'Oh, there you have another Mzungu who has all this money and comes over from her wealthy country check us poor people out...'.

The opposite seems to be true though, really. At least in my experience.
What I see is a loving way of respect. They look at me respectfully.
When I wave at children I pass on the street, they start smiling, giggling and wave back.
They seem happy to see me?
This respect, this love and joy, this kindness and goodness - is something so undescibable to me -that it makes me just sad. Why would my first thought be so negative?

I realize I'll go back in less than 2 weeks and I'll be back in the surrounding with people who have never had the experience for themselves as I am having right now. I thought I didn't need such an experience to be enthousiastic about my own job at Compassion and in a way I think I could easily have done my job joyfully for another few years - but this experience is changing my life upside down. It's shaking me and it makes certainties shiver of thoughts I thought I had settled.

There are so many more things to write about. From the second we arrived at Nairobi airport until this very moment I am sitting here - we as the group have been going all over to places. To me - it's more important to try and grasp the thoughts and feelings and changes this is setting in me.

I talked with Anthony over the LDP-dinner (Leadership Developement Program).
For him, as he grew up in one of the slumps in Kenya and was also one of the 'average' Kenyans who I see on the streets this very day... he, individually had the joy to come to the Netherlands and see the differences himself, just as I am experiencing the differences here in Kenya for myself.
Trying to combine 2 worlds in your head is impossible.
How can you, when you haven't lived and experienced it when you have never seen, smelled, heard, touched, tasted any differences.
He knows the culture-'shock' we're experiencing for he had the exact same experience in the Netherlands. But then the other way around.

Through pictures and little filmmaterial I hope to show who ever is reading these posts and is interested - what I am talking about.

You know how in a dream, you try to explain a person sometimes what you have dreamed but while you're sharing the story - you come to realize the story doesn't make any sense? The structure of the dream, the combinations of situations...in the dream it all made sense and it seemed all so real. But once I share my dream with a friend, they look at me as if I am speaking another language.
That same way is how this experience is to me and how I am afraid I won't be able to find words and expressions to show those of what I've seen and experienced.
I am experiencing an experience which I cannot just explain with words. Nore with pictures or film. All those films, documentaries and stories I've heard through people who've had the similair experience - it won't capture the experience and changes that are taking place in me. Not in completion...

But I am happy if only a part will come across...