The Orphanage in Kenya That Fueled Hannah to do Something Different

In my first visit to the orphanage in 2010, I found myself arriving just one week after Laura had left (we would continue missing one another like this for the following two years). Needless to say, we had heard about each other for some time, but we never actually met until 2012.

But before we get into that, let me backtrack for a moment… back to my first visit to Kenya in 2007. At the time, I was in high school and avoiding doing our required service projects that had been assigned to us each year. In fact, the previous three years I had lied, saying I had done the service projects, when in fact, I had not.

Slacker. I know.

When my senior year approached, I came to the realization that I wanted to do something meaningful. I wanted to run a food drive, or something of the sorts, that I would run fully on my own, to provide relief somewhere in Africa (I was ambitious, trying to make up for the last three years).

When I entered into my service counselor’s office and told her my plan, she mentioned a Canadian organization, at the time called Leaders Today (now famously known as Me to We), that brought high schools students to Kenya for a month long service trip. Before I could give myself a chance to back out, I signed up for the trip and didn’t allow a second thought. Three months later I was at the Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, headed towards unknown land.

That first trip to Kenya passed in the blink of an eye. It was easy to fall in love with Kenya and its people. It planted a seed for something much larger and I had not even known it yet.

After that first trip, Kenya always stayed with me, and I knew I had to go back. I explored other places once I started college, but Kenya was calling me back. I decided I would go back completely on my own, and in 2010 I made that happen.

That’s how I landed at the orphanage.

The orphanage was a complex blend of everything good and bad. The good was obvious- the kids, the culture, the people. The bad was also obvious- the corruption, the abuse, the child labour. In my first two weeks at the orphanage, I knew something was not right. Nothing made sense; we paid $90/week to stay there, and with 5-15 volunteers there at one time for several months, the kids still were not eating properly, getting healthcare or receiving a sound education. Children were being kicked out left and right and were being punished for secretive reasons. Nothing was transparent and everything was far from honest.

Similar to Laura’s story, I became very close with a boy from the orphanage named James. James had a little brother Julius, and the two brothers became a driving force to keep me returning to the orphanage for several years. James was a 12-year-old boy with vigorous spunk and an unfailing faith in Christianity. He was a boy who said grace before every meal and ended his night by wrestling with anyone he could see. He hates bad manners and loves football. He is easily persuaded and quick to judge. He works hard and hates music that isn’t a pumped up mix of reggae and rap. He loves his grandmother and his younger brother, who thinks the world of him. James was a complex character from the start.

 

Over the past three years I grew close with every child, but with James and Julius it was always different. Between visits to his grandmother’s and walks to the Makuyu market, we talked about everything.

The visits to James and Julius’s grandmother were always some of my best days in Kenya. His grandmother stands hunched from decades of carrying water on her back and her face is set with deep wrinkles. She does not speak a word of English but we always seem to find a good conversation in my grand hand gestures and awful attempts at speaking Kikuyu. Together we cook and look through tattered family photo albums. And every year the photos that I give his grandmother from my previous visits always get added into the mix.

 

However, at the orphanage I had less fond memories. A few weeks into my first visit, the reality of where I was became clear. I woke up at about 5 a.m. and helped some kids get ready for school. When I got back to my room I fell asleep again. An hour later I was woken up by someone knocking on my door. The manager of the orphanage had asked that myself and another volunteer come quickly because a child was screaming out in pain. After we took him to the hospital, we learned that his femur was broken in half.

“How did this happen?” I asked.

“He woke up this way,” the manager said.

“But I saw him earlier this morning and he was fine.”

“You must be mistaken. I don’t think you saw this child,” the manager answered.

I knew I had seen him. I knew this child well. Less than two weeks later another staff member had told me that the manager’s wife had beaten the child that morning because he had soiled the bed while sleeping. It didn’t take long for me to discover that this was the truth.

From here I didn’t know what to do. Most volunteers just left when they found out how bad it was, but that never changed anything and always left the kids to be punished in the end. So, I decided to stay and I decided to go back for the following two years. However, I was always careful pretend I knew nothing (the director was notorious for kicking out volunteers when he found out they knew something), and all the while I was gaining the trust of the children and the outside community.

I knew eventually my breaking point would come, and in August of 2012, that time came. The director had kicked out yet another child (Moses), simply for having a cell phone a volunteer had given him. I was through with the orphanage, and I packed up and left. For the past 2 years I had been saving money from my job at university in the hopes of being able to take James and Julius out of the orphanage one day.

When I finally did pack up and leave in 2012, it was eight months after I had met Laura. I hauled out, taking James and Julius with me. With the help of another volunteer, we took Moses as well and placed the three boys in a boarding school Laura and I had heard about. After carefully looking into the school, we decided it was the perfect move.

It was at this point that Laura and I were coordinating care for John, James, Julius and Moses. Word quickly began to spread and the dedicated and ambitious Michelle Oliel joined us right then and there. As a past volunteer herself, Michelle had a strong attachment to the project as well. Together, we coordinated our efforts and founded Stahili.

That brings us to where we are today- a place where small strides and unyielding patience has united myself, Laura and Michelle in trying to make a difference. It has been an exhausting, endless, crazy, loving, tiresome, fun, fulfilling, crazy (did I say crazy already?) journey. There are so many components that have helped build Stahili, and it took each person and step to make it what it has become.

Stahili has become who I am.

Sometimes I look back and ponder the thought of what would have happened if I never had signed up for that trip in high school. The trip that I probably would have backed out on if I gave myself a day to think about it.

Hmm…I guess I’ll never know.

Well, as they say in Kenya,

Nice times!

Hannah