Armored
In early 2007, after graduating college a semester early, I set out on a mission to visit a place so wildly unlike any place I’d been before. In those days I felt lost and admittedly, still do. Degree under belt and with no recruiters headhunting me back then, I decided to travel and meet new people, two things I’m no stranger to. I’d be traveling solo — another thing I was accustomed to (my parents sent me off on an airplane, tout seul to Florida one summer when I was six!). Both journeys, frightening, but the prospect of doing something new, so invigorating. I researched locations that last semester ad nauseam and finally decided upon a humble village in Kenya called Ukwala. I’d be volunteering at a primary school in this remote village as the only American, and the only Black volunteer. My time there was incredibly changing. Here, I share a bit of that experience.
I walked, transfixed by the soil. My feet flattened the granulated earth with each step, leaving a trace of the journey in the grooves of my rain boots. Each flex of the foot kicked up some more of the cinnamon and saffron colored dirt known as laterite. Rich in iron and aluminum, and found mainly in wet, tropical landscapes, it looked as if it had been set in a kiln. The residents of Ukwala must surely take this for granted, I thought. I wouldn’t. Ambling down the scarlet roads of this sparse Kenyan village, you’d be liable to see a motorcycle in the distance traveling at such a speed it billowed a cloud of the stuff in your face. Children emerged from either side of the path wearing the soil on their feet and legs almost like armor protecting them from whatever was ahead on their morning journey to fetch water.
Nestled in the western part of the country and a two-hour bus ride from Lake Victoria, Ukwala is closer to Uganda than Nairobi. A fact I’d been reminded of on the nine-hour bus ride from the Kenyan capital. The vibrant matatu bus bumpily transported us over unpaved roads to the final destination: Mathiwa Primary School. All the meanwhile, Maasai littered the sides of the dirt roads, donning their brilliant garb — a technicolor feast. One that struck a contrast with the children wearing the soil for protection. All of them forming some sort of a collective of troops: bold, dignified and fearless. If ‘eleleu’ was the battle cry of the ancient Greeks, ‘karibu’ was theirs. Instead of taking up arms, they took up smiles and waves for the passersby.
We arrived at the school under a pitch-black Kenyan sky. So dark, it was almost as if you could slice it with your arm, plating a piece of its goodness like chocolate mousse cake. We were welcomed with dinner by the school’s headmaster and teachers eager to have us instruct their students and tend to the modest garden on the premises. “Please, eat!” they exclaimed in their Kiswahili lilts, marveling at how voracious our appetites were and probably how easily we acclimated our palates to a different cuisine. Hunger will do that to you.
I treated my empty stomach to chicken, rice, ugali and sukuma wiki, a collard green-like vegetable and a staple in East African cuisine. A dig of the fork scooping it all up and a swift movement to the mouth delighting in the distinct flavors. My fellow volunteers and I, so peckish from the extensive trip behind us, barely looked up from the bowls in which we’d been given our dinner. Eyes drooping from fatigue, we were escorted under kerosene lamps to our accommodations next to the school: a small four room house with no running water and no electricity. Each of us designated what tiny sliver of the cold concrete floor we’d make our own with a throw-down of a sleeping bag and mosquito net. In this remote village, catching malaria from those pilfering bloodsuckers was of equal concern to what was for dinner any given night.
The next day, I was stirred from sleep by the busy morning chatter of the village women and their children pumping water from the well in front of the house. They smiled and stared as I joined them, eyes fixed on the other curious brown body that made its way across the world to find a bit of herself in the land of those who came before her. The children sat on and laughed from a swing that hung on a grand tree in front of the house. As one child accelerated themselves into the air with a pump of the legs, another cheered them on hoping their turn would produce equivalent, if not better, form. That same morning, I extended gratitude to the universe for bringing me to such a place; all the meanwhile wishing my loved ones could experience the same joy, the same wonder as I was.
Later, we tended to the garden on the school’s land. Beads of sweat rolled down every crevice, either caught in some article of clothing or falling to the ground, deepening the hue of the already amber-colored earth. The sun set in a blaze of color matching the land on which we’d toiled. Tomorrow, I’d awaken refreshed and ready to collect just a bit more of my own armor — surely a safeguard for the journey home.
Romane is a Haitian-American woman with a penchant for a horn section. Part dreamer, part empath, part wanderer, she is currently based in Brooklyn. You can follow Romane on Instagram.
