Taking care of and making sure that other people are having a good time and feeling comfortable on a service trip is hard stressful work. Those of us who have travelled quite a bit and know what to expect take things for granted. For example when you show up at your Safari camp and it is in a desolate and inhospitable Samburu landscape, and your camp is a walled concrete “hotel” surrounded by barbed wire and a gravel garden filled with nails, you figure this is par for the course, but when you see the look of sheer terror on the face of the twelve year old Japanese girl you are in charge of and you watch her almost pass-out from heat exhaustion after she listened to the blood drinking practices of the local tribe, you begin to wonder what is going on in her young sheltered mind.
You give her some water and place her in the shade and hope for the best. Eventually, the sun sets and her stomach is filled with food and water and you get into the van and make your way onto the Kenyan savannah and you see an ostrich and an elephant and a crocodile and the clouds become bleached by the setting sun and the golden fields of dry grass swish to the rhythm of the wind and a speckled Falcom alights on a tall Acacia tree, and you know that everything will all be alright.
The stress fades and you realise that you might be responsible for creating memories that will last a life time. You might be planting the seeds that someday may bloom into love for a place and a continent that so many people fear, and because of this fear, detest. You realise that even the most sheltered and protected kids need a dose of distress and discomfort to really understand the state of the world. That maybe seeing seventy-five tiny, dirty primary school kids shovel rice and beans in their mouths as they sit in a tiny bit of shade on a barren sand lot, is just what our privileged kids need to see to understand what we mean when we say that their position of power matters to how they interact with a world outside of their comfort zone.
Maybe they need to hear stories about how young Samburu women must flee their families and villages just to be free from rape and female genital mutilation and childhood marriage. Maybe they need to see that these women, young and old, have had enough and have found a way to fend for themselves, so that when we talk about service in the confines of our beautiful classrooms, we might all do well to remember the shear difficulty so many others deal with in the face of their everyday existence.
Maybe some part of their hearts and minds will be awakened as they drive by houses made of garbage and cow-dung, as they see hundreds of small barefooted children run up to the car smiling and hungry, begging for a wave, some money, an acknowledgement that they exist.
Maybe as they sleep that night in a room that earlier felt gross and uncomfortable, they will realise that it is actually clean, well-lit and safe. That in their bathroom there is running water and that they have access to wifi to check-in on their beautiful lives back home.
Taking care of and making sure that other people are having a good time and feeling comfortable on a service trip is hard stressful work, but at the end of the trip we all go back home and return to our lives- thankful that our week of roughing it is now over. We do not have to eat the porridge anymore or feel guilty at bearing witness to what at the time felt so unbearable.
It’s impossible to foster empathy in people to situations that they have never felt on a visceral level. So we drench our kids in experiences that might make them ill at ease. We force them to push themselves at a young age and look reality in the eye, in the hopes that with their eyes wide open, they will not be able to look away for much longer.
…
You give her some water and place her in the shade and hope for the best. Eventually, the sun sets and her stomach is filled with food and water and you get into the van and make your way onto the Kenyan savannah and you see an ostrich and an elephant and a crocodile and the clouds become bleached by the setting sun and the golden fields of dry grass swish to the rhythm of the wind and a speckled Falcom alights on a tall Acacia tree, and you know that everything will all be alright.
The stress fades and you realise that you might be responsible for creating memories that will last a life time. You might be planting the seeds that someday may bloom into love for a place and a continent that so many people fear, and because of this fear, detest. You realise that even the most sheltered and protected kids need a dose of distress and discomfort to really understand the state of the world. That maybe seeing seventy-five tiny, dirty primary school kids shovel rice and beans in their mouths as they sit in a tiny bit of shade on a barren sand lot, is just what our privileged kids need to see to understand what we mean when we say that their position of power matters to how they interact with a world outside of their comfort zone.
Maybe they need to hear stories about how young Samburu women must flee their families and villages just to be free from rape and female genital mutilation and childhood marriage. Maybe they need to see that these women, young and old, have had enough and have found a way to fend for themselves, so that when we talk about service in the confines of our beautiful classrooms, we might all do well to remember the shear difficulty so many others deal with in the face of their everyday existence.
Maybe some part of their hearts and minds will be awakened as they drive by houses made of garbage and cow-dung, as they see hundreds of small barefooted children run up to the car smiling and hungry, begging for a wave, some money, an acknowledgement that they exist.
Maybe as they sleep that night in a room that earlier felt gross and uncomfortable, they will realise that it is actually clean, well-lit and safe. That in their bathroom there is running water and that they have access to wifi to check-in on their beautiful lives back home.
Taking care of and making sure that other people are having a good time and feeling comfortable on a service trip is hard stressful work, but at the end of the trip we all go back home and return to our lives- thankful that our week of roughing it is now over. We do not have to eat the porridge anymore or feel guilty at bearing witness to what at the time felt so unbearable.
It’s impossible to foster empathy in people to situations that they have never felt on a visceral level. So we drench our kids in experiences that might make them ill at ease. We force them to push themselves at a young age and look reality in the eye, in the hopes that with their eyes wide open, they will not be able to look away for much longer.
…
The mountains in the distance fade into gentle shades of purple and grey, the clouds white and smeared across the sky. Their is silence and distance from the world. An Ornyx grazes quietly, swishing its tail, a bush is alive with butterflies. I’m standing up, arms crossed and face out of the pop-top safari van. Wind blown hair. Arms sun drenched. Bouncing on the red dirt road. You are alive and you are aware enough to know it. You are alive and you are aware enough to know it. You are alive and you are aware enough to know it.
I’m slightly embarrassed by my smile, but I cannot hide. Eyes closed, it’s all I can hear over he sound of the engine: You are alive and you are aware enough to know it.
I’m slightly embarrassed by my smile, but I cannot hide. Eyes closed, it’s all I can hear over he sound of the engine: You are alive and you are aware enough to know it.
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