Do Hearts Beat Differently on the Other Side of the World?

Why northern Kenya?

To answer this question, I have to start at the beginning. Despite the tears of my dear mother, my decision to go discover the "real" Africa was final long before I left. However, I realised that such a journey would not be the easiest for a young white woman. As part of the POTA programme, I was offered an excellent opportunity where I can combine discovering Africa with volunteering. One of the projects, which focused mainly on teaching and working with the youth, took place in the north of Kenya, in Lodwar, the capital of the Turkana region. Why there? The Turkana region is the driest, poorest, and most uninhabited region in Kenya. As a result, the local population faces many challenges related to education, health, infrastructure, water and food supply, etc. The region therefore needs some help to stimulate the sustainable development of the economy.

I have to give you a brief introduction to the POTA programme, so as not to do it any injustice. POTA is a programme that gives young people between the ages of 18 and 30 the opportunity to experience a lay missionary experience for 3-5 weeks. In addition to really high-quality preparation for the project, the focus is not only on the usual voluntary assistance, but also on the personal and spiritual growth of the individual through daily group reflections. Applications for this year's projects closed on December 15, but you are welcome to consider applying for projects next year. If you have any questions, feel free to also write to me.

A trip to northern Kenya

The trip to the north of Kenya was really interesting, mainly because of an incident that happened to us in Istanbul, where we had a seven-hour stopover. By the way, if you are flying with Turkish Airlines and have a stopover longer than five hours between the two flights, you will receive a coupon for a free meal at the information desk. The airline also organises several different free "Touristanbul" city tours for anyone with a layover of more than six hours between connecting flights. Despite a long stop at the airport, we focused on some administrative matters that were still necessary to enter the country during the post-corona period. After boarding and landing in Nairobi, however, we experienced a shock. One of the team members got a ticket in Brnik that said "standby". After an immediate call to the agency, we were reassured and thought that he would probably just be redirected to a luxurious "business class". What happened, however, is that the airline apparently sold far more tickets than there were seats available. In Nairobi, where we arrived at around 3 am, we panicked a bit. Thank goodness for free Wi-Fi, which allowed us to resolve the situation relatively quickly and find our taxi driver, who took us to the airport for domestic air traffic.

It was very cold (who would have thought that the temperature on the other side of the equator drops to 10°C at night in the middle of summer), and I was also surprised by the contrast between the luxury of the metropolis and the nightly shadow of the shanty towns we passed. Nairobi, the capital of Kenya with more than 4 million people, is the opposite of the simple Lodwar, our final stop, where for example there is not even a café. I remember the second part of the journey more vaguely because I was sleepy. The suspicious small red plane, like a bus with a short stop in Eldoret, turbulently but safely brought us to our destination.

From Nairobi, Lodwar can be reached in less than two days' drive (including by public transport). We used this option to go back. Driving along the vertical of Kenya is really wonderful, as you cross several different climatic and altitudinal zones, including the equator and the tropical rainforest. You can also see other landmarks of the country, such as Lake Nakuru, where flocks of flamingos live at certain times of the year.

Living and operating in Lodwar

I went to Kenya for a month in the summer of 2022, in a group with nine other peers with different interests and fields of study. In Lodwar, we stayed with our host, Fr. Paul, in the Cathedral Diocese, where our accommodation and hygiene needs were really well taken care of. First, we participated in the organisation of an educational meeting of young people from the whole region, for which we prepared various workshops on alcohol, drugs and other pitfalls of society, moral judgement and the problems of young people in Slovenia. The workshop was complemented by Kenyan young people who highlighted their problems. Together with the Kenyan youth, we also ate, sang, danced, played sports and, of course, made quite a few friendly ties.

In the coming weeks, we continued working with the three young people we met at this meeting in three centres: the Nadirkonyen Centre for homeless Children, the St. Luke Centre for deaf children and the Ewoi Centre for children with special needs (mostly physically impaired children with cerebral palsy or associated disorders). In the last one, we mainly cared for the children (feeding, changing, washing and helping them to exercise), while in the other two centres we ran various sports, creative and music and dance workshops in the afternoons. At Nadirkonyen, we also accompanied social workers on school visits, home visits and street work in the morning, which was a really priceless experience for me.

In addition, we made several visits to other places in the region during our project. We visited the young people of Kataboi parish church, the John Paul II Centre, which runs a school for children with special needs, attended the traditional Kenyan wedding of our host's nephew, visited the Kakuma refugee centre (one of the largest refugee centres in Africa), spent a day at and in Lake Turkana, which is, among other things, the largest permanent desert lake, and is said to be home to as many as 12,000 crocodiles. In short, we experienced a lot of beautiful things and met wonderful people.

Why Turkana?

I admit, I was nostalgic while writing the article. I miss the smell of freshly hand-washed laundry with African laundry detergent, the taste of fire-roasted meat and chapatis, the dancing and singing at every turn, the happy eyes of children, the drinking of sweet Kenyan tea (mainly because of the conversations that developed around it), the deciphering of African accents, the dancing roads and the squeezing on the benches in the landcruiser, even showering with a bucket when the shower did not work.

If for no other reason, visit Turkana to help the local population develop a sustainable economy. The only two white people we met were Austrians, who were employed for two years as project employees for the development of solar power plants and desalination of water from Lake Turkana. In addition, the region has a really great tourism potential. This beautiful African landscape is home to many traditional nomadic ethnic groups, many endangered species and is virtually the cradle of human civilisation (in 1984, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey found a 1.6 million-year-old fossil of Homo erectus around Lake Turkana).

I will not give you the answer to the title question. Go and explore it on your own.