I felt a bit weird after yesterday. It was so nice to meet some of the village people but it definitely felt uncomfortable when we we lined up in front of them and they were so happy and excited to see us. A strange reaction on my part you might think, but it felt really strange to be celebrated when I felt like I hadn’t done anything significant and I wasn’t really bringing much other than myself and a willingness to collaborate and learn. Maybe that’s all I needed to warrant such a warm welcome but it definitely didn’t feel right, especially since we couldn’t stay longer and speak with them on a deeper level. 

We were going back out into the community today, this time to meet the schools performing at the exhibition and get a little taster of what’s to come. I don’t really know what to expect from the exhibition. Obviously it will be based on modern day slavery within the community and bringing awareness to the various issues under that. But I’m not 100% on how it all will be executed. I guess I’ll find out today 🙂 

It’s later on in the day and we’ve just gotten back to the university starving, dehydrated and quite tired. Today was a long, hot day and lots of travelling. The plan was to visit 3 schools which we did, but we were to be back at 2pm and as is the way in Kenya, things ran over late. The heat definitely got to us a bit today. We got loads of content though. I spoke to some of the secondary students about life in school and what they wanted to do once they graduated university. Some of the kids were really talented and so passionate about their art form and were presented themselves and their schools very well. I spoke to kids who wanted to be journalists, teachers and nurses. We listened to poems, watched short plays and heard speeches all about some very real topics that happen so close to home, to their friends and their community. Some of it was quite hard to watch because it was clear that issues such as child labour, child marriage and young pregnancy was something the children were familiar with. It was something that was affecting people they knew getting a proper education and experiencing childhood. It was sad that we got to leave them after they had been brave enough to put themselves out there in front of strangers and go back to out hotel to process something that the community had to deal with. I feel bad saying that it was an emotionally draining day. What made it that bit sadder was seeing a group of young, beautiful, smiling children greet us with joy and fascination as we left the last primary school and tell us that we were more beautiful than them. They compared their skin to ours and it was truly upsetting for children as young as five to have that belief. Again, we were being celebrated for no reason. I’m off to bed now as we’ve another long day tomorrow at the exhibition.