Hello, everyone.

I’m happy to write that the first week of Nyasanda High School’s Volunteer Internship Program (I know, it’s a mouthful) has gone very well.  A few thoughts:

Before coming to Kenya, from the comfort of my bedroom, I remember visiting the UCRC website, seeing a picture of the students, and thinking, rather surreally: “In a few months, these smiling students will be my friends.  They’re strangers now—just so many anonymous faces in a shoddy, cinder-block classroom—but soon I will know each of them closely: their invisible dreams, struggles, tragedies—their solitary souls.”

Well, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, it has turned out that—for most of my time here—I haven’t worked very closely with the students.  When I have worked at the school, it has mainly been in doing manual work on the school farm while the students are learning in the classroom.  So, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that, until a week ago, I knew the names of only about three of the 36 students.  For the most part, the students remained anonymous faces—people I greeted and chatted with but didn’t really know in any significant way.

Fortunately, with this program, I’ve been able to spend full days with the students in open, conversation-friendly environments.  I’ve traveled to the different institutions with them (there’s no bonding experience quite like being crammed into a car with 9 other people) and worked alongside them as they undertake their internships. And, though it’s only been a week, I can now say that I know all of them at least by name, and many of them more personally.

What limited time that I have spent with them has been a glimpse of radiant kindness and fortitude.  These kids are sadly underprivileged; five of them are orphans being cared for by their extended families, and my guess is that about half of them have at least one parent who is deceased (more often, the father).  Though one couldn’t say that they are the poorest of the poor—neither of Ugunja nor of the world—they’re poor enough that their families cannot afford to pay for their schooling (not even Nyasanda’s severely reduced tuition), poor enough that they must wear the same outfit for an entire week, poor enough that they often eat just one meal per day.  And yet (as is the case anywhere, I suppose), they’re rich in so many other ways.  To me, one episode from this past week captures their singular, elusive richness, and—though it doesn’t offer much in terms of excitement—I feel it deserves to be documented:

I was spending the day with the team working at the local Ambira Health Centre, and we were giving ourselves a short break after cleaning the facilities for the past three hours (mopping and washing windows).  It was about eleven in the morning, and none of us had taken breakfast; I, for one, was starved.  In front of the health centre, there was a lady sitting on a stool trying her best to eke a living selling bananas, chapattis, and porridge to patients and visitors.  I considered buying some food as a snack/breakfast for the students (we weren’t scheduled to have lunch until 2:30) but opted against it, fearing that it would cause too much conflict as to why this team got a snack but the other teams did not (there are other thorny issues that have to do with how I, as a foreign volunteer, spend my money in UCRC activities, but I won’t go into them now).

So, for a few minutes, we just lounged around, chatting and relaxing—the students sitting as a group on the grass, and I leaning on a tree about ten feet away.  Then, one of the students (Benson) got up and bought a chapatti from the lady for five shillings (for the unfamiliar, a chapatti is like a tortilla, but made from wheat flour).  I looked on as he came back to the group of students, tore off a small piece of the chapatti, and, without saying a word, gave the remaining portion to another student.  She, in turn (also in silence), tore off a small piece and passed it on.  Seven students later, two pieces remained.  The last student took his piece, got up, came up to me, and offered me the last piece.  I politely declined, feeling that it would be awfully selfish of me to accept.  So, he went back and offered it to someone who had already finished his piece.

In the end, each student ate a barely bite-size piece of bread—of negligible nourishment, and probably more effective in whetting their appetites than satisfying them.   Nonetheless, it was one of the most touching acts I have ever witnessed.  What struck me was not so much that they shared the food among themselves, but that they shared it so naturally, so effortlessly; what struck me was not that it was some dramatic event, but that it was an utter non-event.  There was no deliberation, no delegation, no need for Benson to apportion the ten pieces beforehand.  It was as if they were repeating the act of sharing the chapatti for the hundredth time—maybe, in fact, they were.

And there was no complaint that one person had gotten more than the other, no dispute, no discussion.  There was no “Thank you, Benson” and no “You’re welcome.”  As far as they were concerned, Benson had done nothing noble or generous; he had only done what was decent.

Yet, whereas for us 5 shillings (about 7 cents) is basically nothing, we must understand that Benson had made a real sacrifice.  The students very, very rarely eat breakfast, and—if breakfast costs just 7 cents—it just goes to show you how poor these kids really are.  He could have used the 5 shillings to get a chapatti for himself, but he didn’t.  What little he had, he shared.  And, what little they had among themselves, they shared with me—an extravagantly wealthy person who very rarely misses breakfast and inwardly complains when he does.  If I were they, I would hate me (sorry about convoluted syntax), but they chose to extend grace to a personification of greed.

In the end, there was a certain sanctity to the whole event, this mundane epiphany—the solemnity, the unspoken understanding, the humility.  I was sublimely awed.

It was, I believe, a momentary glimpse of Heaven.  It was, I am sure, a most Holy Communion.