First week !

One workweek officially over ! And what a week ! 

The first three days were focused on orientation training. With our local partners, Esther (director of Wefoco), Justus (our tutor) and Abraham (Wefoco volunteer), we covered topics such as cultural shock and adjustment, security and safety, social recognition, and the volunteering program. We had some interesting moments, sharing ideas and comparing points of view. Linda and I are actually the first volunteers to come through the European initiative EU Aid Volunteers, so a lot of procedures are new to them too. 

The second part of the week was focused on our mission and tasks, which are becoming a bit clearer with time. 

On Thursday we went to visit a women group supported by Wefoco in a remote village; it is quite surreal as the living standards in the countryside are harsh. The ladies cooked for us a gigantic meal of steamed cabbage, green banana (plantain), indigenous vegetables and smoked meat. We try our hand at sugar cane eating for the first time (which turns out to be pretty hard for our European teeth and gave everyone a good laugh, considering here even toddlers eat chew the branches so drink the sweet sap). We had a look around the houses, the different fields and crops. The journey from and to the village was an adventure too, as we hoped on boda bodas, (motorcycle taxis), on muddy, country roads, under the rain! 

We also got to visit two different schools, Mukambi Primary School and Rise and Shine special need school. We had a warm welcome from the kids and staff, and got to observe an ECE class (Early Child Education), which is like preschool. 

Teachers can have up to 50 children per class, making it quite the happy mess from time to time!
I will write a more detailed article on education and schools in Kenya, but it was lovely to get our first visit and contact with children. 

This first immersion into the Kenyan way of working is quite interesting; from surprising to frustrating to rewarding, I’m pretty sure it will be a valuable lesson of patience, open-mindedness and abnegation. Remembering everyday that this is not my culture and that my own criteria are irrelevant here, that my own pace will not get me anywhere if I don’t take into account the cultural gap. Accepting that people are often late to meetings or just don’t show up, that meetings are conducted in a very different way and can last a few hours for only a couple of points to tackle, that greetings and folklore remain super important, even in a professional context…
We were prepared extensively for this during our trainings in Austria and Estonia, but I have to say that living it firsthand is a completely different thing!

Overall this first week went smoothly, and even if the first couple of days were quite rough emotionally, by now we can picture ourselves enjoying our 6 month stay, so that’s quite the achievement ! 

A few pictures : 

Team WEFOCO

Lunch at women group 

Having fun on the boda boda

Mukambi Primary School

Shianda Village

Wefoco Team (2)

Rise and Shine School

Beautiful Kenya