I first visited Kenya as a summer WorldService Corps volunteer in 2000. It is a bit of a cliche to say so, but the experience really did change my life. Ever since high school I had wanted to be a foreign correspondent or a humanitarian aid worker and had glamorous fantasies of me trekking through 'exotic' countries and spinning tales for the people back home. However, I was completely unprepared for the sobering reality of living and working in a country wracked by political tension and trapped in oppressive conditions of poverty.
I struggled to come to terms with my own racism, which I was shocked and saddened to discover lay deep in my unconscious mind, just below a veneer of political correctness and self-satisfied 'social awareness.' I struggled to understand cultures that had completely different assumptions about the world. I was disappointed to find I had few answers for the staggering levels of poverty and low-level violence that characterized daily life. I actually had something akin to a nervous breakdown -- overwhelmed by all the new information and experiences to which my mind was completely unaccustomed.
As I sit today in an internet cafe in Kenya's capital Nairobi, I am struck by how much both Kenya and I have changed in the last eight years. In some ways, Kenya has become both better and worse. It has rid itself of the autocratic regime that ruled when I first visited in 2000 and has a growing economy. When I visited last July, I was pleasantly surprised at how much things seemed to have improved.
However, following the December 2007 elections Kenya was torn apart by civil war that killed, injured and displaced thousands (read this Human Rights Watch report for more details). It has been unsettling to be in a place struggling to come to terms with that violence.
As for myself, I no longer feel as shocked as I used to be by the situation here and in other countries struggling with poverty and conflict. This is probably the result of self-preservation -- I don't think I could cope with having another emotional unravelling Iike I had that summer in 2000. It is also because I feel there are ways I can help. One such outlet for my vocation has been working with Outreach International, an organization I feel is working hard to address social issues in the developing world. And yet, I sometimes wonder whether I will ever learn as much, be so vulnerable and open to new truth as I was as a 19-year-old volunteer.
-Matthew Bolton
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