A member of my community, Brother Richard, is doing his seminary training at a nearby catholic parish in the town of Mabera. He told me he was planning a youth seminar and asked me if I could help with it. So this weekend I made the trip out to Mabera, but I was not really sure what to expect.
My first day, I got the lay of the land. The tour included the Catholic Church compound where we would host the seminar, the new church being built across the road, and the catholic girls school. There are 42 different tribes in Kenya, and along with the physical introduction, I got a cultural introduction to the people of the Kuria tribe who live in this area. It is holiday break, but the school is full of over 120 young girls who have run away from their families because they do not want to be circumcised. Every three years the Kuria tribe gathers all of their young girls between the ages of 7 and 13, takes them out to a field and performs female genital mutilation (FGM). Although it is technically illegal in Kenya, it happens anyways and you can hear the drums, singing and dancing that goes along with the ceremony. I won’t go into the details about what actually happens when a female is “circumcised.” It can be easily googled for those of you who are curious, but just know it is an awful and barbaric practice. Not only can it cause problems physically, but it is supposed to signify a girl becoming a woman and this leads to many of these very young girls dropping out of school and being married off. There are a few brave girls who escape circumcision but it often means disobeying their parents and a few are unable to return home. I felt a heaviness in my heart that lifted a little as the girls gathered around to sing me a welcome song.
The next morning I got the agenda for the seminar. This included me teaching lessons on self-esteem, assertiveness, communication, friendship, and romantic relationships for about 4 hours each morning. Then I arranged some group building activities and games before we had free time to kick the soccer ball and toss the volleyball around at the nearby field. We had almost 70 youth attending the seminar ranging in age from 14 to 22 years old. In our free time, some of the girls taught me their traditional dances and in turn I taught them the electric slide and the Macarena. It was an amazing experience and I think I got just as much out of the seminar as the youth did.
The only difficulty of visiting a new community is that everyone wants to feed you. I would start my mornings with breakfast and only one cup of chai was never acceptable. Approximately two hours later it was time to take a chai break… yet another cup of chai. Then a few hours later it was time for lunch. If you do not fill your plate, you will be asked to please take more. Then for dessert you will be asked to take a mango, then a banana, and then an orange because you haven’t had one of those yet. Then another few hours later it is time for more chai. On one of these days we went to visit some members of the community at their homes and I ended up eating two lunches because it is impolite to refuse food when it is prepared for your visit. I came back to the parish with a bloated stomach to drink more chai and then force myself to eat dinner. I don’t think I will eat for a week now…
I had such a wonderful weekend dancing, singing, and both teaching and learning from this group of young people. I know some of them will do great things in Kenya.
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