Life lessons learnt from being a volunteer teacher in Kenya
What I learned volunteering in Africa
When I was 23, I left Europe for the first time, and headed to Nairobi. I lived with a local host family, and worked as a volunteer teacher at a primary school. The school was in the arid Maasai plains south of Nairobi, towards the Tanzanian border.
I lived in a small town, down a dirt path behind a fuel station. Children drank from straws out of puddles, and women scavenged in the bins for food to eat. The school I worked out was out of town, along a highway that was in the process of being asphalted by the Chinese army.
At first almost everything was shocking to me. Over time I adapted. I got used to seeing dead dogs and donkeys by the side of the road, men with automatic weapons guarding the supermarkets, the barbed wire around middle-class homes, and visiting the slums.
I got used to swallowing lumps of meat whole because they were too tough to chew, to using pit latrines in the darkness, and the frequent power cuts.
I got used to the reek of rotting detritus and garbage under the hot sun — a smell I will never forget — so much so that ever afterwards when I come across that familiar stench, it bizarrely makes me feel at home, and even brings a smile to my lips.
