Making a Difference - Years Later

We spent 10 days immersed with families and new friends, learning about the culture and experiencing unforgettable life lessons, including walking over five kilometres to gather water and purchasing a goat from a Maasai warrior for dinner. 

Our goal was to dig the foundation for the maternity ward. With bold aspirations, many of us naively envisioned completing a project from start to finish. Over the course of a few days, we worked in the African heat using basic shovels, pickaxes and bare hands to carve out a trench. One student asked why they weren’t using a backhoe to dig the trench. My answer was that the community didn’t have the resources to acquire one. The rich red soil was extremely hard and full of rocks, with some boulders weighing well over 100 pounds. By the end of our adventure, it appeared to us that we had made little progress for all of our efforts. 

Kenya left an impression on us. In particular, one Maasai Mama came out of the centre holding a package of birth control in her hands. I stopped her to ask how the hospital helped her and others from the community. I quickly learned that she was 21 years old and had seven children. This was the norm for many. Marry early and forgo schooling. We joked that I had no children yet and she called me “Grandma.” I laughed and explained to her that many women in North America have their first children well into their mid-thirties. The boys looked a little shocked by her revelations, and also learned that prior to 2010, most locals had their babies at home or in the bush, including little access to birth control or family planning. The Maasai Mama left the hospital and thanked us generously for our help. 

I always wondered about the impact we made, as do many from such an experience; perhaps sometimes we take more away than we give. It was heart-warming to see the end results years later.