Out of Africa

Short story of a trip to Kenya

I hope you all enjoy this story! It is a true story of the first of my many trips to Kenya. It was written years ago so please ignore any mistakes!    

    It sat there empty, and I wanted it to stay that way. However since we were leaving in a few days for Kenya I knew I had to start filling it with clothes that I knew I would never wear again. Slowly I started matching the simple t-shirts with the different skirts I would have to wear, and slowly the bag started filling up. I just want to get these two weeks over with was all I thought about as I packed. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t know anyone, other then my mom, that was going, and they didn’t seem like they had any plans to include me in their group. I knew I would be the outsider. The only reason I was going was to get my mom off my back. She was always pushing to get my sibling and me to go. I guess you could say that my mom’s main focus was the kids in Kenya.

      When it came time to start our journey to Kenya, I just kept thinking the sooner you leave the sooner you get back. There were so many other things I would have rather been doing that summer. However when it came time to say goodbye I gave my boyfriend a hug and kiss and told him I’d be home before he knew it. When really, I was trying to convince myself that.

July 31st

It’s our first day that we are actually in Kenya. So Sunday when we left it was about 4 ½ hours until we got to the airport. We then had only a few minutes to kill till we got on the plane for like 6 1/2 hours. I didn’t sleep very much, maybe like 30 minutes at the most. Now don’t forget there is a 4 hour time difference from home to London. So we lost 4 hours, but London was SO COOL! The buildings were so pretty. We rode in the subway type things. You gotta be fast for those doors. We also went on a duck tour. That’s where we got to see all of London but after that we were all so tired. We found this little park & slept in a field. It was a nice nap, but then it was back to the airport to make the flight to Kenya. That flight I think everyone slept most of the trip.

      So we got to Kenya around 6 or 7ish, but till we got all our bags and exchanged our money it was after 8 till we even walked out of the airport. Then we still had to get the tight vans packed & when I say tight I mean it they are really tight. Not very much room at all and there was 16 of us and all our bags into just two of these vans. There is like no room. And tomorrow we have a 12-hour drive to Magunga!!

      So we just got to the Guest House, got our rooms, had “tea time”, and went over some rules. I’m sitting in my room in the clothes I’ve been wearing for the past 2 days waiting for my mom to finish up in the shower. We’ve all been sweating & all we want is to get CLEAN!! But after lunch we are going shopping time to get everyone something.

Later on July 31st

Well I’m back from getting my shower, and I just wanna say if the water in those showers were hot then I don’t wanna know what the cold ones are like. The “hot” showers were FREEZING!!

      That first day there was just like I thought it would be. I was still the outsider, and I would tend to stick to my mom because I had no one else to talk to. We went out shopping after lunch. I got everyone I cared about something from Kenya. They actually had a mall in Kenya but we did most of the shopping in the Market place. You could get better prices there and with Simon (the guy who runs the children center) we knew we wouldn’t be cheated out of any of our money.

      After shopping, and dinner we had a group meeting. Great, more sitting there being the outsider while everyone goofs off and has a grand time, I thought. However this meeting wasn’t like that at all. There wasn’t much talking just a simple question asked by my mom that started to change my whole attitude.