In the last couple of posts I have tried, that being the key word, to describe the reasons that a child here in Kenya would end up on the streets. I already described two ways, 1.) The child is a true orphan, and has absolutely no family to take care of them. The second reason that I talked about was economic and family situations that cause children to venture out onto the streets during the day. The third reason is the one that I think makes the least sense to me. It isn’t that I don’t understand why the kids do it; it is just that the way that I grew up, and was socialized. I have tried my best to put a name to this reason, and here it is: the third reason that a child lives on the streets is the, “this life sucks I’m out of here.” Reason.
I know, I know, that name is childish, and a little insensitive but those couple words really sum up why some children live on the street. It is a sad truth that many Americans know little about the actual continent of Africa. In fact before I came to Kenya, I didn’t even know where Kenya was on a map, or what the political and economic situation was, maybe that was just me, but I feel like it is a general truth. That being said, when I came here I didn’t know what to expect from the climate, or even what the different climate regions of the country experienced on the weather side of things. Here in the Rift Valley region of Kenya it rains, a lot. The area that we are in now is considered the breadbasket of the nation. A majority of the open land in this region is allocated for the growing of crops, mostly corn. For the first couple weeks that I was here I can remember thinking, “man this climate is nice, not to hot, not to cold, just a little wet.” I was right, it was nice, but what I didn’t know was that this was a small part of the country, and that it was, by a long shot, the area with the nicest climate. I
In the north of Kenya, bordering Sudan, there is a region that is known as Turkana. Turkana is a desolate desert, sharing many of the same attributes with the California desert. Although there is little in the way of water and other resources, Turkana is still home to many small towns, and many people. Most of the people in this region are nomadic sheep and goat herders, who travel from place to place looking for anything that their goats can feed on. Turkana is where you can find towns like Lodwar, or Kakuma. These towns are not huge towns, but they aren’t tiny either, meaning that large populations of people live in or around the areas where these cities have sprung up. Lodwar is actually the capital of the Turkana district, and just so happens to be the place where many of the children that you find on the street in Kitale come from.
Now that you have a small picture of Turkana and Lodwar, let me describe to you why I call it the “this life sucks, I’m out of here” reason. Life in these desert towns is exponentially harder then life in other places of the nation. Food and water are scarce, and the sun is always beating down on your back. Not only is the climate terrible, but the tribal life is also very difficult. Everything that is in the tiny shops has to be shipped from the rift valley, which may take a day or two, causing the prices to soar for common goods, and the economic situation of most of these nomadic herders is not favorable, so this obviously causes a huge problem. This hard life, mixed with an already tough tribal approach to life causes many children to look for a better option. The children from these towns will often hear about Kitale, and decided that that is a better option for them. I imagine that it is in some way like when people were talking about the US at the turn of the century, and making all of those absurd claims about how would life would have no troubles. Whatever these children hear they decide to jump onto an empty truck and hitch a ride back to Kitale, having no idea what they will find there.
Now this is where my understanding in life differs. I can not imagine how bad things would have to be in my home that I would risk it all and travel to a place that I know little about. It just breaks my heart to think of a child having to make that decision, and then to go through with it only to find themselves living on the streets. When I first found out about this I thought about how sad it was that these kids didn’t find the dream life that they were looking for, but then something occurred to me. This life on the streets must be better then the life back in their homes, otherwise they would have just gone home when things didn’t pan out in Kitale.
So in short, many of the children that live on the streets in Kitale had such a hard life where they were living, that they decided to risk it all, and live on the streets of Kitale.
The length of this post is terrible, I know, and I apologize. Hopefully I didn’t write all this in vain, and that someone has a better understanding of the situation of street children. Now let me give a warning, these are, obviously, not all the reasons that a child would end up on the streets, and in fact many times these reasons mesh together. This is just a broad picture of what I have learned while being here.
I thank God everyday for allowing me to better understand the world that he created, and teaching me what life is really supposed to be about. Thank you for reading my sporadic, and unemotional writing, I pray that your heart breaks for these children as much as mine does.
