Sarah Parker's blog

Back to blogging from a new city!

New job, new city, new LIFE! I am so thrilled about where I am in life right now. My life looks completely different from where I was planning to be 9 short months ago. But things change, and this change (while difficult at times) was DEFINITELY worth it. I am more joyful than I have been in a very long time. After many months of struggles I can finally and gleefully say that life is wonderful :)

Well, I am not across the world this time but I am across the country... and this time it's for the long-haul. I just accepted a job in Denver, Colorado at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless as an intake specialist in the family services unit. What the heck does that mean? Well, I'm not entirely sure yet and that is all part of the adventure. This is my first real job and I am extremely excited to start. I know it will be very challenging, but I hope and pray that it will also be rewarding and reassuring that I am indeed a decent social worker. I am confident that I have the heart and passion to succeed in this position... but do I have the skills? I am sure that I do, but I have never had the opportunity to flex my social working abilities in this way.

So here I am... sitting in Denver with a new job waiting to find the perfect new apartment. Who would have thought that this is where I would be today? Most certainly not me. Maybe life is more exciting that way... when you just don't know what the future holds... and when it all comes together so beautifully... excitement, joy and awe fill the air.

So this is my newest journey. And I am so thrilled.

Difficult Decisions

I leave Kenya tonight to return home. I go back and forth about my decision to come home early, but I know that ultimately it is for the best. It was one of the more difficult decisions I have made recently. It is somewhat ironic to me that I am choosing to leave Africa, my most favorite place in the whole world. Previously I have had little desire to return home from this place. It makes my heart hurt not knowing when I will be back. And knowing that it could be a very long time before I return.

With that said, I have an extreme sense of peace that right now just isn't the time for me to be here. Working and serving in Africa is challenging and draining. I just don't have the energy or the joy that is needed to serve well in another culture. I will always have my passion for Africa, and Africa isn't going anywhere. Maybe one day I will be back for good. For now, that 'one day' isn't today.

I am not looking forward to leaving Kenya, but I am looking forward to being home. I will miss the Beacon staff and the Kenyan culture and the matatus. I will miss the Kware community and the sunny weather. And I will definitely miss the daily reminders that I am in Africa... camels on the highway, giraffes in the distance, dusty roads, bustling markets, friendly faces.

It is the right decision for me to return home. It just wasn't easy to decide.

Typical Mzungu Activities

Since it was my last weekend in Kenya, Maggie had the brilliant idea of doing some typical tourist things around Nairobi. And what a fantastic idea it was. On Saturday Maggie, Lance and I went to an elephant orphanage and a giraffe refuge center.

Every day for one hour the baby elephants at the elephant orphanage are brought out to eat and play and average people like ourselves are able to come to watch. These little elephants were so adorable. The smallest ones even wore blankets to keep them warm! You stand in a circle around this little play area and the elephants get paraded in with their caretakers to be fed from giant bottles, throw dirt around and "play" soccer. We spent an hour just watching these little elephants roll around in the dirt and kick a soccer ball around. They wrestled each other and came to check out the visitors with their trunks. Elephants have really thick, hard skin. But they are so cute!

Each elephant has a trainer that stays with them 24/7, they even sleep in the pens with the elephants. It is amazing to see the bonds the trainers have with their elephants, it is like the trainer is the parent and the elephants follow them around like really large young children. All of the elephants have been rescued from national parks where they have either lost their parents or their parents have been killed. The elephants are brought to the orphanage to heal and are put into a group. They are rehabilitated and released back into the parks in groups of 3 or 4 so that they can work together to survive and find a herd to join. It is an amazing project and they really do a lot of great things for the elephant population in Kenya. And fun fact of the day: Elephants have a memory of things for 10+ years. So, if I were to cross one of these elephants in the wild in the next decade, it would remember me as being a good human and it would tell the rest of the herd that I am not there to harm them. Isn't that crazy?

We also went to a giraffe refuge center. These giraffes have been rescued from various parts of the country and are brought to the center to be rehabilitated before being sent back into the wild. They have a huge area to wander in, but when they are hungry they just come up to the fence for some food from the visitors. Their black tongues are really rough, and they kind of nibble on your hands as they try to get the food. It was a weird sensation. We took a lunch break at the little cafe at the refuge center. It was amazing just to sit and relax and watch the giraffes just on the other side of a 3-foot stone wall. It was great. Only in Africa :)

It was a great way to spend my last Saturday in Kenya. It's going to be really hard to leave this amazing country.

Kitengela

On Thursday the social workers loaded into the back of the Beacon truck and headed to Kitengela, a town an hour outside Nairobi, to meet with the local leaders and do home visits/assessments. It was great to get out of Nairobi and check out another community. We spent all day walking around the community and meeting families in need.

I met a 19-year-old mother who is HIV+. She doesn't have a job and she relies on well-wishers for her food and rent money. She is supported by the local church who meet most of her needs. She dreams of being a seamstress one day, but currently has no training. It was really difficult to listen to her tell her story with tears in her eyes. She has had a difficult past full of struggles and sorrow. Her parents died when she was young, she was fired from her job for having HIV and she became pregnant while engaging in prostitution. Until her child was born she lived a risky lifestyle just trying to make ends meet. When her baby girl was born 4 months ago, she realized that she not only had to care for herself, but her daughter, too. This pushed her to reach out for help from the local church in hopes of starting life on the right foot for her daughter. When we arrived, the church leaders brought us to her. On the joy side, Beacon offers sewing classes through their Vocational Training Center, and we are hoping to get her enrolled here. Since she has limited ties to to the community in Kitengela, it is possible for her to move to Ongata Rongai to start training at the vocational school. The social workers are trying to make this happen so that she can start her training and empower herself through skills enhancement and following her dreams.

I wish I was going to be around to watch this story unfold, but I have full faith that the social workers at Beacon will do amazing things in this young woman's life.

Kenyan Wedding

Last weekend Maggie and I had the opportunity to go to a Kenyan wedding and it was wonderful. It was outside in tents and the weather was great, except for a few short showers now and again. The wedding was very similar to weddings in the States. We sang, we danced, we ate, we talked. Some of the differences are the dancing and parts of the ceremony. The couple danced everywhere they went! They danced in when they entered the reception, they danced to their dining table, they even danced to cut the cake. It made the atmosphere feel so festive. There were always people dancing with them, too. From the wedding party to the family members to nearly all of the guests. The dancing is very organized, and everyone does the same moves... I wish I knew them! I didn't join in, but it was really fun to watch. All the women were wearing bright dresses which looked gorgeous as they danced. During the ceremony, the bride and groom sit on opposite sides with their bridesmaids/groomsmen. They only came together during the vows for the first time. That would be so hard for me! I would want to be next to my husband the whole time. The wedding was a lot of fun and I picked up some good ideas for my wedding... whenever that may be ;)

Coming Home

Habari! (You can respond by saying “Mzuri”... and if you say it loud enough I just might hear you)

I wanted to let you know that I have decided to come home from Kenya early. Instead of staying through May, I will be returning on Tuesday the 23^rd of February. During my time in Kenya and at Beacon of Hope, I have come to realize that I have issues in my life that I need to sort out with myself and with God. Although I am finding joy all around me, I am struggling to find joy within myself. After a lot of thinking (and crying), I have decided it is best for me to return home to heal with the help of love and support from my family and friends.

I have no idea what will happen with school and my internship and really anything else I had planned for the next few months of my life, but I am ok with that. I need to do this for myself by taking a step back before pressing forward.

Thank you for your continual support and prayers throughout my time in Kenya. I hope that you will continue to support me and my decision to return home. And please pray for peace and guidance in my life as I transition back to living in the US and start finding joy within myself.

If you are in Madison, I will see you soon... surprise!

My Joy Today

Finding joy in all the right places.

1. I am alone in the office today as the other social workers are out in the field... which could be sad... BUT I have been able to assist clients on my own and figure out procedures with their help and expand my knowledge of the office by trial and error. Plus, my Kenyan English accent is in full swing, which always makes me laugh when I notice myself talking like a local. Joy found.

2. Another family I assessed this week has returned for services. The caregiver has brought her nephew's school information for assistance with fees. She also asked about signing up for one of our economic empowerment activities to contribute to her nehpew's school fees so she is not fully dependent on Beacon. Furthermore, she went to the VCT for HIV counseling and testing which is always fantastic. Joy found.

3. Sally sent me this wonderful map from around the world and it made me feel loved. Joy found.

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Finding Joy

The biggest job of a social worker at Beacon is to do household assessments. This means going to the home of potential clients, asking a lot of very personal questions and filling out a lot of paperwork. The paperwork is brought back to Beacon and filed, and the family is left with a referral form they are to bring to Beacon when they wish to start the services they are eligible for. This crazy system is drawn out, however it also empowers the clients to take responsibility to follow through on Beacon's service offers.

I met Josh (not his real name) and his grandmother on Monday. They live in a single-room shack made of corrugated metal in the slums of Kware. Josh's grandmother has a heart condition and struggles from pains in her legs that make it difficult for her to complete daily tasks and stay active. Josh came to live with his grandmother just a short while ago. He ran away from home (300km away from Nairobi) after his abusive father came to school and beat him in front of his classmates and teachers, causing Josh to be expelled. Now he lives with his grandmother who is ailing and he isn't in school. It is a story that is all too common here.

So, yesterday Josh and his grandmother came to Beacon with their referral form to start services - success! The grandmother went to the clinic to have her heart and health checked while Josh had a psych consult and therapy session with the head social worker. Josh came back today to sort out his schooling, and he is on his way to being enrolled in a local primary school. Woohoo! The system works! Josh is great, and it is probably a good thing for his grandmother that he is living with her now, as he helps were so much with daily activities and cooking and such. She never would have come to Beacon without his help.

Finding Joy. Josh has left his abusive father, he is helping his grandmother and both are helping each other get help from Beacon. Joy is always there, and you usually don't even have to look very far to find it.

An Average Day

The days here are long and exhausting. They are long when there is not much to do, and they are exhausting when there is too much to do. Here's the scoop on the average day of my life in Kenya:

I wake up around 7am if I am lucky. Other days I am awoken as early as 6am by the sound of chopping wood right outside my window... I don't know if I will ever get used to that. We start devotions at 8 where we sing and have a short devotional message prepared by one of the staff. Work starts at 8:30, and we usually have a line of clients already waiting for us when we get to the office. Walk-in clients come to request home visits or ask about services Beacon provides. We attend to them and make appointments throughout the day.

We have tea at 10. We're supposed to take a short break and enjoy tea without stress, but that never happens. Tea is served already prepared with milk and sugar. I love it, and I love looking forward to tea time every day. Lunch as at 1. Between tea and lunch the social work office is usually buzzing with work as we prepare our paperwork from the previous day's home visits and set-up our afternoon schedules. Sometimes we have meetings, otherwise we're working on our own tasks.

After lunch we usually go for home visits. Each social worker does between 2 and 6 home visits every day. Home visits are the first part of the assessment process, and our easiest way of sorting out a client's needs and desires. We have forms we must fill out that include numerous questions about the household, the children, the food they eat, their home, their health and anything else you can think of. Through these visits we make referrals to all the services Beacon has to offer and ask them to come visit Beacon to be enrolled in our programs. Sometimes we travel as long as an hour to reach a home that is in need.

After work Maggie and I hit the gym as often as possible. The gym here is very small, with about 6 cardio machines, 4 weight machines and free weights. However, a membership comes complete with access to personal trainers who make us work harder and longer than we plan. It's great to have the encouragement and accountability of someone helping you work out.

We buy food along the road at small stands and shops as we head home for the evening. By this time it's nearly 8pm and we are exhausted and it's dark out. We grab a matatu back to Beacon where we greet all the guards, say goodnight and crash at home. I am usually up just long enough to cook a small dinner, write some emails and read my book before I go to bed praying that the early morning wood chopping will be delayed tomorrow.

Sasa? Poa sana.

My limited Swahili vocabulary consists of numerous greetings. And that is about it. The most frustrating part about being here is not being able to speak the primary language. While many people in Nairobi speak English, many of our clients do not. It has been so challenging for me to remember words that I am taught, even if I repeat them to myself over and over. I do not know what is wrong with me, it's just so hard! I thought being surrounded by it would help me learn more quickly, but it hasn't helped one single bit. Wow, it is just so bothersome and disheartening to be reliant on people translating for me.

With that said, I really need to up my learning curve and put more effort into teaching myself vocabulary words. My goal by the end of February is to be able to understand the questions and answers for the household assessments we do in the community so that I can complete them myself. It is a lofty goal, but I think I can do it if I really put effort into it.

Sawa. I am on my way to fluency. Right? Right :)