The calling.

I am under it's spell. Not only does it consume me, but it consumes the night, touching everything with it's mystical glow. I am betwitched, by the moon. As I sit on the edge of the water, I close my eyes. I feel the ocean breeze hitting my skin like ice, sending shivers down my entire body, causing me to wrap my arms around myself even tighter. I can even taste the ocean, for it's saltiness lingers in the air. People would never understand why I was here. They would never understand how suddenly my urge to be near the ocean would come to me, and how quickly I would have to induldge. For as long as I can remember, the sea has been a part of my life. The only thing I ever had in common with my grandfather.  Although I never met him, his true love was for the ocean. I remember hearing stories about him from my mother, about how he spent all the time he could out on his boat, amongst the waves. There is just something about the sea; what is is, what it holds. It goes on as far as the eye can see, full of mystery and adventure. As I think of him now, tears roll down my cheek. Being near the sea is the only way I felt close to the people I lost. It's funny, for that's what first attracted me to Chad. He and I shared an equal love for the sea. Days and days we would go out, fishing, swimming, exploring. Now that he is gone too, this is the only way. The only way that I feel okay. I know he wouldn't want me to be sad, to mope around.... So everytime I miss him, no matter what time it is... I walk down to the beach, sit on the waters edge and look out a far as I can... For when I am there, I can almost feel him beside me, smiling that lopsided grin of his at me.


The waves whisper to me, calling me to the soft sand.

The water sweeps over my feet, surrounds where I stand.



The breeze caresses my face, whips my hair.

The wind encloses my body, acknowledging I'm there.

Being the change.

"Thank you, thank you for listening to my story. I hope that you can help what happened to me from happening to other girls."

 "You will be my Canadian daughter, for a child is someone who changes the life of their mother."

"All the years that I have been hosting students from KULE, I have never met a student as determined to make a difference as yourself. Don't ever change."

"It's people like you, traveling all the way across the world to help others, that will really make the difference this world needs."

"I wish I could come to your country, I wish I could meet your friends."

"I thank god everyday that I have all of you as my angels."

     It was easy to fall in love with Kenya. The culture, the music, the land, and the people. No matter what situation they seemed to find themselves in, there were always happy. No matter where you were, a smile could be found. It was hard to be sad as you walked through the slums, for when you looked down at the face of the child holding your hand, and how they smiled up at you as if you were their very own superhero, it was impossible not to smile as well. When the teacher kissed my forehead, when the children laughed as we tossed them into the air, when everyone thanked us for the work we were doing, when we exchanged knowing glances between others in the group, it was impossible not to smile. Even though the reality was that it was not perfect. Not at all, far from it in fact.

   Children running around naked because their parents couldn’t afford to get them clothing, murky water filled with garbage and human waste floating down the streets of the slums, people living in huts only slightly bigger than jail cells, children living on small meals of ugali (a filler made with just flour and water) and perhaps some beans…. The list goes on and on. It was hard, for never in my life had I experienced such opposite emotions at the same time. The thing that made all the difference though, was their hope. I cry now as I think about it. No matter how bad it was, whether they were living in the slums, had lost their parents to AIDS or had their family taken away from them for a reason as pathetic as not being able to pay a dowry, they still had hope. Hope that it would be a better day tomorrow, hope that their future would be brighter. Seeing how these people lived in such poor conditions, experiencing things that you would pray no one else would ever have to go through and having barely anything to live on.... It broke your heart. But the way they believed, the way they had so much hope, it just consumed you. I used to think my life was hard with all the challenges I have had to face during my life, but after going to Kenya…

     I will never be able to properly explain what I experienced in Kenya and how greatly it changed me. To be able to understand what we, as a group, experienced whilst in Kenya, you would have to go yourself. Today while at work, I talked to a man that recently donated $15,000 to a village in Rwanda so that every family had a home, clothes on their backs, clean water and enough food. As I told him about my trip, he said something that basically sums up my time in Kenya. “No matter how many times people tell you that you have accomplished so much, you will never truly be able to feel like you did enough. Just remember though, that they are one step closer to a better future because of you. You changed their lives, just as they changed yours.”

    3 weeks is all it took; to step out of my comfort zone, to take risks, to see the world through different eyes,to meet someone that changed my life and will continue to do so, to fall in love, to make a difference. My life changed in the summer of 2010. The summer I went to Kenya.

The power of a smile.

Sitting in a coffee shop, my laptop in front of me, my mug empty, I am still stumped. It's been almost an hour. 3times I have tried, tried to write about what I saw, what I felt, what I learnt. Never in a million years did I think it would be so hard. There is so much I want to share, so much I want to tell. How though. How can I explain to others how I felt, how I changed. So emerged in my thoughts, I didn't even notice when he sat down. "I brought you another latte if that's okay." "Thank you so much." It wasn't until after he went back to work that I noticed the drinks foam, he had made a happy face. What a sweet gesture I thought. 30minutes later, as his shift was finishing, he came over and talked to me. "I am curious, what the heck have you been concentrating on for 2hours!" Smiling, I told him about my struggles to write my newspaper article. I told him about my trip, how it changed my life. Interestingly enough, he had also done a service project to Kenya. Last year, he went with his three best friends and they went to the exact same slums as I did and helped a family move out of the slums into a proper house and they helped 6 youth get a college education. What an amazing story. It was really cool having someone here at home who had shared something as important to me as Kibera Slums. After a while one of his co-workers came over and said, "If we knew you were going to stay two hours after your shift, we would have kept you working!" Two hours! Thanks to his help,I finished my newpaper article, talking about his experience and my own. It's amazing the kind of people you can meet when you take a chance. Thanks for making my day Liam.