(part two is here.)
I left off with the entrance of a ‘young college student who thinks she knows everything’. Heh. You see, I was studying child development. I was an expert on all things kid-related, and I knew what was best for them, because my text books and teachers told me so. Plus, I’d taken the American Red Cross Babysitting Class when I was like 13. Thirteen!
I left off with the entrance of a ‘young college student who thinks she knows everything’. Heh. You see, I was studying child development. I was an expert on all things kid-related, and I knew what was best for them, because my text books and teachers told me so. Plus, I’d taken the American Red Cross Babysitting Class when I was like 13. Thirteen!
So there I am, spending a semester in Nairobi, Kenya, at the
entitled and enlightened age of 19. I have and do and always will love children
of all ages, specializing in two and three year olds. I never really thought I
would end up focusing all my energy on eradicating or relieving severe poverty.
I’m not an economic or sociological expert. But I remember seeing the cover of
a Christian magazine when I was maybe 10- starving Ethiopians holding their
hands up to the all-knowing western photographer who, I pray, was working to
ease their pain. That cover was the first time I was really aware- I mean
to-the-core awareness- of other people’s pain. And that may well have been the
day I began to shed the protective layer people keep between their hearts and
the world’s.
Because I don’t have it, that layer. I feel your pain. If
you’re in pain- I feel it. This is
called compassion, empathy or awful. Take your pick.
So: my point is, I distinctly remember the first time I
realized there were people who are suffering in this world. And then I went to
high school with a friend whose parents were missionaries. She’d grown up in
various parts of Africa, and regaled me with stories about Kenya- nothing
spectacular, nothing crazily eccentric- just fond stories of the women, the
colours, the children, the scents and sights that comprise daily life in Kenya.
And THEN I went to college, full of hope and energy and
wide-eyed wonder and stories from my dad about how his ONE wish in college had
been that he’d been able to study abroad.
So when my academic advisor returned for the school year
brimming with stories about his time in Kenya…well. Here. We. Go.
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