‘The important thing is not to draw attention to yourselves,’ he’d said. ‘There are no guarantees that these men are beyond corruption.’
When it comes to my turn, I step tentatively forward and make my way through the security frame. As planned, the alarm is triggered and I’m asked to step aside. The guard motions for me to raise my arms. His intention is to frisk me but my orders are to get through airport security without being touched. I have thousands of pounds in local currency and U.S. dollars strapped to my chest. The rest of my group have similar amounts strapped to theirs. Under no circumstance must this be detected. This means that each of us has to discreetly short-circuit the airport’s intermittent stop-and-search procedure by whatever means available. I’m favouring a proactive approach.
Instead of raising my arms, I reach into my pocket and pull out a small nail scissors. ‘I think it might be this,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m always forgetting the little things.’ I smile foppishly and hand it to the guard in charge who passes it to his colleague before running his security wand over the length of my body. Finding nothing else to trigger his device, he ushers me onwards. I’m through.
I gather up my belt and my shoes and my day sack and discreetly scan my eye over the rest of the room to see if the others have also made it through. They have.
It’s 2007. And I’m in Africa.
Our target is a Western Kenyan non-governmental organisation called Omwabini. Our contact is a Mary Bunyasi. Her son, James, will bring us to her.
The Omwabini project is set up as a charity to provide accommodation and education for over five hundred local children and young people orphaned by HIV/AIDS. It also supports the local communities, providing clean water, housing, and educational support where needed. We had heard a number of stories of third-party intermediaries creaming off upwards of 90% of all monies donated before it could reach the charity. This is the reason we are here – to cut out the middle man. In fact, to cut out all the middle men.
According to the UK charity, Avert, Kenya suffers from the third highest HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world, with over 1.5 million people living with the virus. UNAIDS puts the current number of orphans created by this epidemic at 660,000. I’d like to say that my part in this mission was a totally altruistic one, but the truth was that I would have jumped at any opportunity to travel into Western Kenya regardless of the pretext. It just happened that this pretext came with its own feelgood factor. I mean, who wouldn’t want to help AIDS orphans, right? And, anyway, I’d had a crap year, my relationship had finally folded, and I was more than at a loose end. So, when I was asked if I’d like to be a money-mule into Africa, of course I was going to say yes. (This is not a part of the story that I am proud of.)
* * * * * * * *
The journey in had been a long one. London to Nairobi had been an eight-and-a-half-hour flight, followed by a further four-hour stopover in the capital before we could board our connecting flight to Kisumu, a port town on the north eastern edge of Lake Victoria. This was where James had agreed to meet us in order to take us the final 120km north to Kimilili, a predominantly agricultural district, and home to the Omwabini project.
By the time we reached the compound it was dusk and most of us were drowsy with sleep. James turned off the road, navigating our vehicle slowly over the uneven ground between plantation crops and old farmyard equipment, doing his best to steer clear of the large potholes that scored deep into the red earth. Despite his efforts, the jeep continued to bounce and buckle its way over the jagged terrain, eventually coming to a stop in front of a high, broken wall.
‘Thank god for that,’ I murmured as I reached forward and flung open the passenger door, twisting my body to the side to allow my feet to slide out of the cabin and onto the wet ground. Relieved to be feeling the full weight of my body on my legs again, I took a complete turn around the vehicle before beginning to help the others untie the tarpaulin that secured our luggage to the roof.
The rain had set in again. Headlights and torches illuminated the compound entrance – a heavy iron gate that was currently taking two bulky men all of their strength to push open – while large raindrops bounced and glittered over the ground and the corrugated iron roofs of the outbuildings on either side of us, firing off a cacophony of untamed notes into the air like rapid gunfire.
‘Come! Quickly!’ shouted a voice that had managed to squeeze itself from behind the security gate. ‘Come inside, out of the rain! My men will deal with this.’
Needing no more invitation, we hurried after him. The voice, which belonged to a tall, shaven-headed man in his late forties, led us past the gate and into the main house of the compound.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, as the last of my group managed to duck out of the deluge, ‘I had hoped that we would be welcoming you with better weather.’
‘Some things we can control,’ I said, smiling, ‘Unfortunately, the weather isn’t one of them.’ I held out my hand.
The man smiled and ushered us into a side room, inviting us to make ourselves comfortable while he went to let the others know of our arrival.
Whilst we waited, we each undid our shirts, slowly unwrapping the complicated netting of currency bills that had been so carefully and so tightly packaged around our stomachs and chests. Collecting the bills together, we stacked them as neatly as possible onto an old mahogany table beneath the window and waited for our host to appear. All that was left was to hand the money over, get fed, and be allowed somewhere to rest until morning.
Moments later, the door burst open and a decidedly formidable woman entered, flanked by two tall, muscular, and equally formidable men. James followed from behind before coming forward and standing beside his mother. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Mary Bunyasi’ he said. ‘She is the Director of the Omwabini project.
We had been given strict instructions by our UK organiser that nobody connected to the Omwabini project should know about our means of transporting the cash to the charity. It was safer this way.
Mrs Bunyasi stood motionless, looking us over with a fixed, stern expression, as though deciding whether or not to trust us. Finally, she conceded a warm smile, allowing the room to relax again. ‘Thank you for coming all this distance for us,’ she said. ‘And with such kindness and charity.’ She placed her open palm over her heart, a gesture of recognition and gratitude. ‘The children here are very grateful to you. You will meet them in the morning. But for now, please come this way, you must be very hungry.’
Over dinner, we exchanged stories and learned a little more about each other and about the Omwabini project. But my mind kept flitting in and out of conversation and I found myself constantly distracted. Catching myself idly nudging my food around my plate, I thought about the charity dollars that must have gone into this meal – a meal that I was stealing from these people who could scarce afford it. I shouldn’t even be here. I was a fraud; an opportunist. Every mouthful I was consuming was another singular theft. I glanced at the label on my beer bottle. Same. I really oughtn’t to be here at all. All I’d done was freeload my way onto a random charity trip. And, why? Just so that I could escape myself for a while; so that I could push the envelope on the sliding doors of my life and pretend to be the other me for a short time. Who was it that had even paid for my trip here? Was I actually helping or hindering this project? Was I being cost-effective?
I couldn’t honestly say that I even ‘felt’ their mission – not because I didn’t care – of course I did – but because I couldn’t honestly say that I felt very much of anything these days. I hadn’t felt anything since the breakup (or was it the breakdown?) of my relationship. I wondered whether anybody had ever used the term PTSD to describe the emotional aftermath of a relationship. PTSD was a term that had evolved out of war zones. Hmm. In that case, perhaps PTSD was exactly what I was experiencing.
Here I was, watching this scene around this dining table as though I was viewing it on television. I was no more a part of it than if I was sitting at home flipping channels over a TV dinner. What the hell was wrong with me?
I picked up my beer and politely excused myself before stepping out onto the front porch. The evening air was refreshingly cold on my face, scented with the unfamiliarity of wet crops which I instinctively inhaled, holding their essence firmly in my lungs before exhaling slowly. The moon was busy pushing its way through a gap in the storm clouds, rendering my surroundings in bright monochrome and drawing out a clear line between earth and sky. It had continued raining while we ate indoors but now all that remained was the quiet drip, drip of water from the overhanging gutters of the outhouses. Somewhere in the distance I could hear sounds that I didn’t recognise.
Finding myself a dry stump beneath overhanging branches, I sat, zipping up my jacket against the evening drop in temperature. ‘What a day.’ I looked around the yard, reminding myself of where I was, why I was here, breathing in the dampness while trying to pinpoint any emotion that might anchor me to this place. I neither knew what I meant by this, nor what I was expecting from it. Of all the things I wanted to feel, disappointment wasn’t one of them. And neither was this guilt. At some point, months ago, I’d managed to switch off all emotion in order to protect myself and, at some other point during that time, I’d managed to misplace the reset button.
‘Hey,’ said a voice to my right. It was Michael, one of the long-term volunteers who had earlier introduced himself to me around the dinner table. ‘How you doing?’ He approached carefully, ducking beneath the branches that were protecting us from a fine drizzle that had once again begun to fizz in the air around us.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m good. Just popped out for some air. You?’
‘What do you make of all this?’ he asked, motioning towards the compound and the land beyond. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag on it, holding the smoke in his lungs and meditating over its essence as he studied the spot colour of its burning ember against the darkness.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’m still taking it in.’
‘Took me a while,’ he said. ‘I must have been here several months before I found any sense of peace or relationship with the place. I guess it’s every white privileged person’s burden to feel a fake in an environment like this, at least at first. As though we’re all here to salve some inherited blame of our own making, rather than to help these people. You know what Africans call it? Voluntourism. How’s that for making you feel like shit as soon as you arrive?’
I instinctively flinched and looked away. ‘… And how do you feel now?’
‘Now? Well, you have to make a choice. There’s no winning. You help and you’re a liberal do-gooder; you don’t help and you’re instantly selfish. Or worse. In the end, you have to dig deep, ask yourself why you’re here. For me, guilt is a luxury that doesn’t belong in Kenya; it’s an indulgence that these people we serve cannot afford. It’s of no consequence to them, compared to the work we’re doing.’
‘And how long have you been here?’
He paused. ‘This is my third year.’
‘Really? What do you do?’
‘I build, mostly. Huts. New homes for families who’ve lost theirs. I also teach newly arrived volunteers how to build using local materials and techniques.’
‘That’s pretty impressive,’ I said, inwardly acknowledging my utter uselessness in all things practical. ‘Were you a builder before you came?’
‘I was a teacher.’ He smiled, as though this admittance threw an absurd light onto him. ‘History. Hated it. The teaching, not the subject. Actually, not even the teaching. The institution of teaching. The bullshit of it all. Had to get out. I learned to build by doing. After I arrived here. Watch and do, that’s the thing.’
I studied his profile in the half-light. He could be a future me, I thought. I could be talking with my future self. Then again, probably not. I moved to change the subject. ‘That’s quite pretty,’ I said, pointing the tip of my beer bottle in the direction of the hills beyond the compound. Amongst the treelines, one could just make out a series of tiny glows, yellow lights lending warmth to an otherwise grey backdrop.
‘They’re fires,’ he said.
‘Yes, I can see … The glows look quite inviting from here.’
He reached into his pocket and lit another cigarette off the dying embers of his first. ‘Do you know what those fires are?’.
‘No.’
‘On the 27th December – eight weeks from now – Kenya has its general election. What you’re witnessing right now is evidence of party representatives canvassing for votes. Those glows? They’re village homes burning; warnings of what is to come if the villagers vote the wrong way.’
‘Shit! Really?’
‘Really. It’s how things are too often done around here. In the name of democracy.’
‘… Not so pretty, then?’
‘The closer you get, the uglier it becomes.’
We sat in silence a little longer, me searching out the final dregs from my beer bottle, Michael finishing his cigarette, both of us lost in our own thoughts as we stared into the distance. Fuck! What have I flown into?
Eventually, leaning forward, he put out his cigarette. ‘See you at breakfast.’ He tapped my shoulder gently. ‘Good to meet you, by the way.’ He turned his back and wandered off into the house.
I took one last lungful of the evening air before pulling myself onto my feet and heading towards the outhouse on my left, which had been designated as my room for the night.
A dank aroma greeted me as I pulled the latch on the door and pushed my way inside. I reached blindly along the wall for a light switch. There didn’t seem to be one. Giving up, I rummaged through my rucksack for my torch. A shallow beam of light gave away the sparseness of the room, a meagre stone barn into which somebody had dragged an old metal bedstead and a dressing table.
Tapping my foot against the edge of the bed instantly set the floor alive with the sounds of clicking and scurrying as what seemed like a sea of cockroaches ran for cover into the various corners of the room. Recoiling slightly, I tapped it again, just to make sure. This was not going to be an evening of undressing for bed. I lay delicately down onto the mattress, focussing to control the shivers running down my back, and placed my rucksack on my chest. Tonight, I shall probably sleep with my boots on, I thought.
I didn’t know then that there was a storm brewing outside the compound that was about to knock Kenya’s evolution back decades, or that Kisumu was about to see some of the country’s worst clashes. I didn’t know that ethnic violence was growing as I rested, or that voter intimidation and expulsion threats were discreetly happening all around me. I was unaware that more than 1,200 people were about to be killed or that over 35,000 were to be displaced as a result of the biggest election fraud in Kenyan democratic history. I couldn’t have known that Reuters news agency would soon be reporting on machete-wielding youths burning houses, raping women and murdering members of rival communities just weeks from now. I turned over, pulled my jacket tightly over my shoulders and drifted into unconsciousness.
While breakfast was being served, I typed the word Kimilili into Google. The English equivalent of the Swahili word came up as physical. Makes sense, I thought, being this is, after all, a hard-working, agricultural area. I did the same with the word Kisumu. I hit Return and the word Toxic instantly sprang up on my screen. I looked around and quickly put my phone away, embarrassed on Google’s behalf. Surely, it had made a mistake.
Our first obligation of the morning was to visit the orphanage school. We’d been told that the children wanted to meet us in order to thank us personally for the aid we’d brought.
‘This is very important to them,’ said Mrs Bunyasi – or Mama Mary, as the children referred to her. She explained this to us as she met with us briefly over coffee. ‘It’s also very important that they know that they have friends across the world,’ she said.
How long did I have to endure this fakery? My fakery, not theirs, not hers.
‘Don’t be ungracious,’ whispered Michael, discreetly, seemingly able to read my mind.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. I knew exactly what he meant.
‘You’re feeling uncomfortable about meeting the children. But it’s not about you, it’s about them. This is why you’re here – regardless of why you think you’re here.’
‘To be honest, I’ve lost track of why I’m here,’ I replied.
‘And that is your proof – if proof were needed – that the decision to bring you here was not yours in the first place. Fate isn’t a popular concept in the West. You don’t feel that you should be here, and yet here you are. Accept this. Accept what you brought with you for these people. They don’t care about why you did it, just that you did it. Allow them the gift of being grateful.’
For some illogical reason, a tear caught in the corner of my eye. This made me instantly angry with myself. I hoped Michael hadn’t noticed, but I think he had.
‘I know,’ he said, and touched my shoulder in the same way as he had done last night.
‘Stop being so bloody … wise,’ I said. And then I smiled.
‘It is indeed a curse,’ he said, grinning back at me.
Africa is exactly what it says on the packet, and a Kenyan school looks exactly as one might expect from the movies. But what one might not instantly discern from news footage or movie scripts is the human warmth that exists in these places. They say that kindness is uncompromisingly borne out of necessity. I’ve always thought this to be a horribly cynical view, despite not totally dismissing its probable accuracy. I grew up on a poor street where everyone’s door was permanently open to everyone else. As I started to make my own way in the world, and began to move up the economic ladder a little, I experienced fewer and fewer open doors. Wealth, it seems, breeds independence, breeds disinterest, breeds social inertia. But here, in this place, interdependence was everything. I didn’t meet a single child, a single adult, whose vulnerability and naked honesty wasn’t indelibly written onto their faces. Suddenly, I found myself worrying about what these people might find written on mine.
As I was ushered around the complex, from one classroom to the next, I found myself fighting to hold onto my chosen indifference. Why was I doing this? What had I lost that I was so afraid of reconnecting with? And how long ago had I lost it?
‘So, what do you think?’ asked Michael, as I got back into the jeep.
‘The school uniforms are hideous,’ I said.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know.’
Michael tutted. ‘Your personal journey’s going to be a long one,’ he said with a hint of humour and a touch of sarcasm.
‘I know that, too,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Listen, I have to go into town for some errands after I’ve driven everybody back to the compound. Fancy coming with?’
‘Uh, ok.’ I said this partly out of obligation, partly out of curiosity.
The drive into Kimilili wasn’t long but it gave us time to chat further. Michael seemed to be set on teaching me about how things worked around here. He also seemed set on trying to figure out how I worked. I felt as though I ought to be annoyed by this and yet, for some reason, I wasn’t, which annoyed me more.
‘Kisumu is the poorest Kenyan town,’ he said as he reversed the jeep out of the compound and back onto the main road. ‘See those huts, over there? That’s what I do. I manage the construction of those for families who have lost their homes.’
‘Why – I mean, how do families lose their homes?’
‘Usually, through a death. The HIV rate around here is pretty high. If the man of the house dies, all the family’s possessions go directly to his family. And this can include the home itself.’
‘That’s a bit crappy,’ I said.
‘It’s tied up in the practice of widow inheritance. This is where a male relative of the husband takes on the responsibility of looking after the widow after the man’s death.’
‘And does the widow have any say in this?’
Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘The basis of this tradition is practical enough, designed to shelter the woman and her children after the husband has gone. But it can very easily morph into a way for relatives to appropriate the dead man’s wealth, leaving the widow and children penniless and often homeless.’
‘I see. I guess the answer to my question is that she hasn’t very much say in the matter at all.’
‘Unfortunately, not. What outsiders often don’t realise at first is that the widow is also a possession to be inherited. There is an expectation that one of the brothers of the deceased man would inherit the wife, taking her as his own. As you can imagine, this doesn’t always play out well, and if the widow refuses she is cast out with nothing. The children with her. I recently had to help a woman who was forced to leave the family home with nothing but her son, a three-year-old.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She now lives in one of those new homes I pointed out to you. She was one of the lucky ones we got to know about.’
I felt Michael was reading my reactions in my face. I wished that he wouldn’t keep doing that.
‘Would you like to see one of the huts up close? Inside?’ he asked.
‘Yes … if the owner doesn’t mind.’
We parked up alongside the market. Michael left me in the Jeep while he went to pick up a few provisions for the evening. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but I’ll get a better price if I’m on my own.’
‘Absolute offence taken,’ I said, grinning.
‘… Meh!’ Michael grinned back as he shut the jeep’s door. Having locked me inside the vehicle, for my own safety, he made his way across the road towards the market stalls.
‘I, um … oh. Never mind.’ I settled myself deep into my seat and tried the radio. It didn’t work.
Across the way was a row of small independent stores, mostly variations of brick and corrugated iron shacks selling meats or fruits or plastic items for cooking or cleaning or laundry. I wound the window down and sat back up. Wooden tables set out on the makeshift pavement in front of the stores gave passers-by hints of what they might find inside each shop.
I smirked to myself as I spotted a sign written in cheerful clown-red paint above one of the doorways: “Everything 100% Cholesterol”’.
‘Ah, well, I don’t think that the shopkeeper fully understands what he’s written there,’ said Michael, following my line of vision as he returned to the vehicle.
‘I’m admiring his nihilistic approach to dieting,’ I said cheerfully. ‘He’s probably the breath of fresh air that most western women’s weekly magazines have been screaming out for.’
‘I … Hmmm …’ Michael tailed off.
The market was set out over a large square, a combination of cattle market and food stalls. Michael drove the jeep up to the far end and stopped. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I want to introduce you to someone.’
I stepped out of the vehicle and followed him along the pavement to a corner plot upon which a circular mud-brick hut was set back behind a large vegetable patch.
‘Wait there, I’m just going to see if the head of the family is in.’
I watched Michael make his way up the path that led to the hut’s entrance, which comprised of an ill-fitting wooden door attached to a gnarled frame. Michael tried the door, it opened, and he entered.
I looked around and quickly realised that I was the only white face in the immediate area. Should I be self-conscious about this? Was it dangerous in any way, standing out so much? Across the way were benches set against shop fronts. On these was a patchwork of mostly elderly men, each looking over at the car, checking me out. I waved. They didn’t wave back. I didn’t try again.
Suddenly, Michael was back, standing beside my door. Next to him was a child of around eleven or twelve. ‘This is Silas,’ he said. ‘Say Hello, Silas.’
‘Hello,’ said Silas.
I stepped out of the vehicle. ‘Hello,’ I said, holding out my hand for Silas to shake.
‘Silas has two brothers and one sister. He is the oldest in his family and so is now the family’s head.’
I looked back at the child. ‘But he’s …?’
‘He’ll be twelve in a few weeks.’
‘Yes, but he’s …’
‘Yes, he’s very good at looking after his brothers and sister. Aren’t you, Silas.’
‘I look after them,’ said Silas, offering me a warm, toothy smile.
‘Silas would be very proud to show you around his home,’ said Michael, ‘If you’d like that, of course?’
‘Of course, I would,’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’ I looked at Silas. ‘Are you sure that’s ok?’
‘Come. I show you,’ said Silas.
Michael nodded his assurance and I followed Silas in through his door.
The hut was a typical circular mud-brick affair, thatched, and with the interior divided into three sections, for cooking, sleeping, and general needs. Silas and I shared only a basic language but his pride and enthusiasm in presenting his home to me was all we needed. Michael’s words from last night came back to me: It’s not about you, it’s about them. Silas was clearly honoured to show me how he lived; my job was to be accepting and grateful of this. And I was.
Back outside, I heard raised voices. Michael was busy speaking abruptly to a thin, balding, local man. I stepped forward but Michael motioned me to stay where I was. I looked down at Silas but while Silas seemed curious he didn’t appear overly concerned. Eventually, the balding man backed away and began to leave. Michael held his glare as the man crossed the street. Having reached the other side, the man stopped still and stared back over at us. Michael took a step forward, making the man quickly turn away and disappear amongst the busy market stalls.
‘He’s not a good man,’ said Michael.
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s Silas’s uncle. He inherited the family until Silas’s mother too died of AIDS, and then he threw the children out. He now wants to take the home we’ve given them. I’m not about to let that happen.’
Not knowing quite what to say, I put my hand on Michael’s shoulder.
‘Silas doesn’t know this yet but, on Tuesday, I will be driving him to the local hospital for the results of his latest HIV test. There, they will tell him that he is HIV positive.’ Michael looked away as he said this.
I looked over at Silas, who was busy moving some brooms around to the side of the hut. Silas saw me watching and smiled back at me. I smiled in return but placed my sunglasses over my eyes to hide my reaction to Michael’s words. The young boy who had lost both parents, who had been betrayed by his wider family, who had nevertheless chosen to take on the role of head of his household, and who had been so proud to share with me what little he had in the world … It was more than I could bear to realise that I knew his future before he did. This was too much. Too much.
Michael and I drove back to the compound in silence.
‘How did Silas contract the virus?’ I eventually asked, as the penny began to drop.
‘His uncle,’ said Michael.
* * * * * * * *
Tomorrow, I would be leaving. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. The team shared a final meal together in the main house and when it was time for bed I entered the darkness of the outhouse and tapped for the last time on the leg of my bed. Immediately, the floor came to life and I again watched the animated scene through the shallow beam of my inadequate torch.
Laying down, I looked up into the darkness of the room and found that I had remembered something from my past. I had remembered how to cry. When the tears came, they were instant and surprising and forceful, like the rains that had continued to fall since I’d arrived here. And I wept for Silas. I wept for his innocence, and his grinning face. I wept because I knew his future, and I wept for a world that I couldn’t change.
And then a strange thing happened. I wept for myself. For the breakup (or was it the breakdown?) of my relationship. And I realised that the tears weren’t of loss but of relief. It was as though a light had suddenly come back on inside me. I didn’t fight those tears, I welcomed them. I was cured. I let them flow and I enjoyed their company. I had come to Kenya as a fraud and I was going home whole and clean and honest.
* * * * * * * *
Nairobi to London is an eight-and-a-half-hour flight. Exhausted, I dragged my luggage over the threshold and into my hallway, leaning down to scoop up my mail as I did so. Amongst the junk and the final demands was a postcard. I turned it over in my hand. It was from Michael. How did he get my address? And how had it got here before me? On the front was a photograph of school children waving in front of a row of huts. On the back, he had written the words, There is no winning. In the end, you have to dig deep, ask yourself why you’re here.
This article first appeared in the travel anthology, ‘Wish You Were Here’, part of a collection of anthologies edited by Alyson Sheldrake. This book, along with the rest of the collection, is currently available on Amazon.
