A typical day lately finds me walking through Mwiki, greeting people as I go. When I reach the restaurant that sells chapatis, I am typically offered one in exchange for some chewing gum. Then I get to the stage and get excited if I find that one of my friends is working a bus there. If so, we joke and talk and then they tend to pay my fare. It’s nice, and I tend to carry food for them as especially during rush hours they work hard and typically go home with about 700 shillings a day (1,000 for drivers, which amounts to about $13USD). Sometimes they pay for me and I don’t bring food, and sometimes I bring them food and they don’t pay. I like relationships like this where we both look to help each other out, but we don’t need it. After reaching town, I walk to another bus station where I take the bus to Kangemi where Hamomi is. The man who organizes the bus I take wears this cute sailors hat and loves the fact that I teach classes. He always quizzes me with trivia questions through the window while I sit on the bus. If the bus is about to take off and has no more seats, he kicks someone off so I can get on the bus that is leaving soon and not have to wait for the next one to leave. Once in Kangemi, I start my walk to school, and every third day or so a piki piki (motorbike) driver will come up to me and ask if I want a ride. When I say no, that I will just walk and have no intention of paying, they say OK and go away. The people around me laugh and then I give them this smug look knowing what will come next. The driver will drive away a bit, then come back and say “nitakupromote” which means he’ll promote me, and take me for free. After school, my friend takes me on his piki piki to the stage. He actually gets disappointed if decide to walk with friends or students instead of getting a ride from him. My knowledge of Swahili makes me intriguing and they like talking with me, and the drivers also get lots of street cred for being seen taking the mzungu around. It’s a nice relationship I have here with Kenya. I give my time and energy to various projects like Hamomi at my own expense, and then many people bless me with free things. I like constantly being reminded how interconnected the world is, and how we can all do something to help out, even indirectly.
Working for free is another topic I’ve been thinking about lately, and it seems to fit into this blog topic nicely. There are varied schools of thought on this subject, ranging from its benefits in the form of gaining relevant experience and assisting an organization, to disrupting the economics of the labor supply and demand curves. A related example of the latter is like how at Hamomi a volunteer paid for the school to use an additional classroom for 5 months. I thought this was a wonderful gift until it came up in the context of school operations and learned that it is now difficult because there is not money in the budget to continue paying that additional rent, and they cannot keep the classroom. Therefore, this was an unsustainable improvement. Similarly, if someone works for an organization without being paid, it can be difficult to replace that workload once they leave because there had not been money budgeted in for a salary related to the specific work they had done.
For me, it has been an interesting experience and my views have developed throughout my time here. Most people I know here are Kenyans, but one day recently I went to dinner with some white girls who have been working here. They are all really cool, but the dinner made me think a bit. I typically feel very small in gatherings like this, as I don’t have a job, or a nice apartment, or access to the social world of ex-pats here. But I kept getting asked to order things because I know Swahili, and I was also responsible for bringing some Kenyan friends to hang out with us. When my friends came, I ended up sitting in the middle of the table, with my Kenyan friends to one side and my American friends to the other. My positioning at the table couldn’t have been better, as I felt in an in between place, not fitting in with the Americans and their conversations and lives here, but also not being Kenyan. My feelings of insecurity were later changed as I realized that while I may not yet have the professional success of many here, I know Kenya, and that is something that some people have stayed here for years and not been able to say. I enjoy my humble life here where I can enter into conversations with pretty much anyone here, from the women washing clothes by the river, to the Americans with high powered jobs, and be able to engage in a meaningful conversations because we share common bonds.
In working for free, I’m constantly reminded that I am doing what I do because I want to do, not because I need the paycheck. I truly enjoy going to school each day and actually feel guilty when people praise me for being a good person and volunteering my time to these children. Instead of having it feel like a sacrifice, I feel indebted to everyone I interact with for making my life so enjoyable. If I can work a job for no pay and enjoy myself, I want to make sure that moving forward in my life, I find fulfillment and happiness in whatever job I work. Obviously money is important, but detaching the act of working from the fiscal reward will help me to evaluate potential careers in a more honest light. Working for free has opened my eyes to the other motivations we bring into a job, but sometimes loose sight of because of the paycheck.
Well that’s enough for now, I’m gonna try to upload this post using the free wi-fi of a café and then go for a run. I’ll be in Cali July 1st, and then to the East Coast at the beginning of August. See you guys soon!
