I start to talk to some people to brainstorm ideas, and during one of these chats, Brian Williams of Think Kindness gives me the idea to see if I can collect one thousand pairs of shoes to send to Imani. I think this is a perfect way to bring together my school, Maine Central Institute, with my home at Imani, through the running programs I did in both places. I remember how much getting my first pair of running shoes from Claire and Lara affected me, and I want to give that feeling of joy to other kids at Imani. I call my effort the Kindness Project and quickly recruit a group of other students and advisors to help me. I call them the Kindness Crew, and I make them responsible for helping me organize shoe drives and put together a 5K race—all with the goal of collecting shoes and getting the money we need to ship them to Kenya.
Another important part of the Kindness Project is inspired by Brian. Like him, I start giving speeches to people on how they can include random acts of kindness in their daily lives. I ask people in the community to help me recognize people around the school who perform random acts of kindness on a daily basis, and we seek out businesses in the Pittsfield community to reward such good-hearted individuals. I then recognize these individuals in front of the whole school so they can serve as a continual inspiration for everyone else.
From the first speech I give about the project to the school, I am surprised and honored by the support that I see, with even more of it coming from the students than the teachers and staff members. By the end of the campaign, I have collected three thousand pairs of shoes—three times my goal!—and my senior project has become a way to truly connect the people I love in Maine with the people I love at Imani. I appear in local news programs and newspapers, and everyone at MCI is proud to be involved.
This experience helps me realize that, as humans, we always have opportunities to help one another. Yes, we do need to work to make money to support our lives, but what is the real value of living if your neighbor is suffering, or if your family member or friend is in pain?
I knew about how important it is to help others, especially given all the people who came to the orphanage over the years, but when I begin to make it part of my own life I am amazed to see how much people are willing to sacrifice their time, money, and anything they have to help a project succeed. Even though the experience is really hard—especially when it comes to organizing a 5K race—I am proud to have led the project. I owe a lot to the Kindness Crew, for without them I could never have finished it. Although I like thinking I am helping my friends at home at Imani, I know the real reason I am doing it is because I need to. Helping should not be about how it makes me feel.
Soon it is time to graduate. This is one of the sweetest moments of my life, but it is also very hard. I have come to make Maine my home, and I have made amazing friends: Alena, my best friend who always helped me, Avery, Franci, and many more. My teachers have been so kind to me and have never treated me like just an “African kid.” Instead, they have treated me like one of their own and have helped me the whole way.
Sadly, Lara and Claire are both unable to fly the weekend of my graduation. Claire is very sick, and Lara is giving birth to her baby in California. It is very hard, but I am happy to have Lara’s brother Will, his wife Gabby, and their two kids drive up for the event. Lara and Claire get to be on Skype with Will for the ceremonies, and they laugh and say that it looks like the graduation is really “The Sammy Show.” It is true that the teachers talk about me and my senior project a lot on the stage, even making kindness the theme of the school’s work for the next year. I am so pleased that even though I came to MCI so confused and lost, in the end the school is proud enough to talk about me at graduation.
My last day at MCI is very bittersweet. Saying goodbye to everyone, taking pictures in our gowns, and being honored together for our accomplishments is a wonderful experience. At the ceremony, I am recognized as a leader, and I feel happy about all that I have contributed to the MCI community.
It has been a great life, but it is time to move on.
After graduation, Brian invites me to Reno, Nevada, to spend the whole summer interning with him at Think Kindness. I also have to work with Claire and Lara to get my visa for Ecuador (where I am being sent with Global Citizen Year!) and to raise the money I need to participate in the program. I am so excited about Ecuador and am eager to learn my fourth language, Spanish. I am thrilled to think about the new country, the new culture, and the new experiences that lie ahead of me. Just like when I came to the United States, I do not know how it will be, but I know I am ready.
Over the summer, I complete my internship alongside Brian and another Think Kindness volunteer, Brianna. I also go to California a couple times to see Claire when she flies into town, as well as Lara and Louis and their new baby, Oscar.
On my last trip before I go to Ecuador, Lara gives me an incredible surprise. She has baked a cake to congratulate me for everything! It is the first cake anyone has ever baked for me, and I can’t believe she has done that. It is so delicious. However, that last day in the United States is still an incredibly hard day. I say goodbye to Claire’s parents, Barb and Lance, and then Lara takes me to the airport. I feel terrible because I don’t know how many months it will be until I see my “Sammy family” again.
I am leaving the United States, not sure when I will return, and I cannot help but think about all the things that have happened since I first came here and all the changes I have gone through. I arrived in the United States as a boy without a family, and I leave a man with a great one. I now have a family who will take care of me, a family who will love me all the time, a family who will yell at me if I do something wrong, and a family who will celebrate with me when I do something great. This is what I am most pleased with having accomplished, and I cherish it. I pray day in and day out that I will never lose it.
At the airport, when I get out of the car, Lara starts yelling at me out the car window. “Be careful! Call me!” And all those kinds of things that a mom says to her son. If Claire were here, she would be saying the same things, and I feel so proud and happy.
Eighteen hours later I arrive in Quito, Ecuador. The host family I am going to stay with comes to pick me up at the airport, and it is immediately very funny to me that I have almost no Spanish language experience. Claire and José have taught me a few things, but the only words I can remember are “Hi!” and “I don’t speak Spanish.” My host parents start speaking to me and I just sit there, nodding, having no idea what they are talking about. From their hands, I try to guess what they are saying—where I am supposed to sleep and what time I am supposed to be where.
On my first morning in Ecuador, my host father, Jorge, wakes me up and shows me where to take a shower. After I get dressed, he takes me to the kitchen and gives me a breakfast of empanadas, which I love. Then he takes me on a bus and shows me where to jump off when the bus passes a particular statue and where to walk to get to the language institute I will be studying at. I try to remember everything, but it takes a few tries until I can repeat the directions back to him correctly.
At the institute, I am thrilled that there are Global Citizen Year employees who speak English. After my host father leaves, I go to my first Spanish class with a lovely lady named Sofia. That first class is extremely hard, because Sofia speaks in Spanish and only uses English if it is really, really important.
Soon it is coffee break time, and I am exhausted after two hours of listening to a teacher say things I can’t understand. At break, I begin to meet other students from different countries like Switzerland and Germany. After some tea and cookies, I have to go back to class, even though I dread it.
For two more hours, the teacher talks on and on about things I don’t understand. I do feel like I am learning, though. I learn to say “I am” and “you are,” and I start to understand what the verb to be is all about. It is challenging, but I keep my mind to it.
The teacher tells me I have to buy some things, like a bigger notebook. At least I think th
at’s what she says.
Soon all of the Global Citizen Year fellows arrive in Ecuador. It is amazing to meet this smart, engaging group of students so eager to learn—students just like me who have wanted to come to Ecuador to spend their time volunteering and learning about the culture. I do feel like a bit of an outsider, but at least I am no longer the only one feeling that way in Ecuador. The students all are feeling like I do to some extent.
Living with my Quito family is a new experience for me. They are a middle-class family, and every day they pack me a lunch to take to school. At night we have dinner, and they ask how my day was and how everything is going. Claire and Lara have been my family for the last four years, but we didn’t all live together in one house. In reality, I haven’t lived in a house with parents since I was ten years old, so this is a marvel.
On top of that, the Quito family is really helpful in teaching me Spanish. At dinner, I sit with my mother and she tells me things. “This is a cup. This is bread. This is coffee.” She shows me some things around the house and teaches me what their words are in Spanish, and that’s how I learn the basics. The only word I find that seems related to Swahili is mesa, or “table.” Other than that, though, this fourth language seems so different from the others I know.
I make friends quickly with the other fellows, and together we decide to explore and get to know Ecuador better. I love seeing more of Quito and learn all about the difference between Old Quito and New Quito. Most people live in New Quito, but all the great, old buildings are in the old part of the city.
After a month of language and culture training in Quito, we are told it is time to move on to the communities we will be living in and helping for the rest of the year. The names of the communities are all written on pieces of paper inside balloons that we have to pop. My paper says Salinas.
One of my closest friends in Global Citizen Year is a boy named Canaan, and he is placed in a community near me. Canaan is actually from Ethiopia, Kenya’s northern neighbor, and though he was raised mostly in the United States, we share a lot. A girl named Kip will also be near me in the same province.
As we learn about the community, I realize it is an Afro-Ecuadorian community, which doesn’t make me that happy. I had purposely not wanted to be in an African community, even requesting that Global Citizen Year not place me in their program in Senegal before I was assigned to Ecuador. Being placed in an Afro-Ecuadorian community doesn’t sound like it will be a new cultural experience for me. I end up being very wrong about that, but I didn’t know it at the time.
All the kids going to my province meet at the bus, and we start out on the four-hour bus ride. I am getting nervous, and I know I am not the only one. When we arrive at the bus terminal, I see that some host parents have started showing up. I see joy on the faces of many of the volunteers and families. After all, it is an exciting thing to meet the family you will live with for nine whole months.
After twenty minutes, my family hasn’t shown up, and my nerves are getting worse. Then I see a black lady walking toward me. Since I am the only volunteer still waiting who is serving in an Afro-Ecuadorian community, I know she must be there for me. She greets the Global Citizen Year staff member and introduces herself to me. Then she says she is in a hurry. I quickly say goodbye to my friends and follow this woman, who I learn is named Capu. She says she is excited to get to know me, but I’m not sure, because her facial expression does not say the same thing.
We immediately get in a taxi with all my stuff, and then we stop at a gas station, where we get into another car, and inside that car she introduces me to her husband Diego, my host father. There are two boys in the car as well, two of my new host brothers—Diego, thirteen, and Herman, eighteen. The first thing that sticks out to me is that my mother has married a man who isn’t black. This is the first time I have ever seen that. When they tell me the car is their own, I realize this family must not be as poor as I thought.
We drive for a while through a really beautiful area, and then we enter the little community of Salinas. It is really hot, and all the concrete buildings everywhere make it hotter. On the streets, everyone seems to be sitting on the stoops, and I can see that almost everyone is black. It does not seem like the cultural experience I was looking for.
I live with Capu and her family for one week, and she shows me where I will be working and introduces me to people throughout the community. I find out that there are members of the national football team who come from the community, and I think that is pretty cool.
After a week of getting to know people, I feel relieved that I have been placed in the community I have. Everyone seems to accept me so easily as one of them, and not one person thinks I look different. The first weekend I am there, a big festival and a fireworks show takes place, and at the show I meet some kids my age who live in the community. Again and again, I feel that I come from the same place these people do.
Everyone is really interested that I am from Africa. They call Africa their motherland and try to associate themselves with the continent as much as they can. As soon as I tell someone from the community I am from Africa, I become a cooler person to them, and they immediately ask me questions about the music, the food, or the culture of Africa. It is very different from Maine. I take it as a fun chance to teach and expose people to what the real Africa is like.
I try to be as realistic as possible whenever I explain where I came from. A lot of people immediately say things like, “Isn’t Africa where a lot of people don’t have food and are always hungry?” I say, “Yes, for some people in Africa.” Then I say that I’ve heard of some parts of Ecuador where people don’t have food or water and no one has clothes and everyone is backwards. Then they laugh and understand what I am trying to show them. Yes, there is hunger in Africa, there is drought, but it’s not every place, and it’s not something that every person faces.
I also try to help them see that the media is really changing the way people are thinking about Africa. I say, “You know how some journalists have taken pictures of those Ecuadorian tribes with the painted faces that live in the forest?” I point out that a Kenyan who sees that picture will think all of Ecuador is like that, when it’s not. Things are not always what people think they are.
I let the Ecuadorians know that what they see on the news is what the media wants to show—the most shocking things. People aren’t seeing that Kenya is developing and is trying to get ahead and elevate itself.
During my time in Salinas, I have a few different jobs, or apprenticeships. First, I work with youth in some social development programs. For example, I give talks about sexual reproductive health and lead games to help people learn what I have taught. I also organize talks on alcoholism and on other issues that affect youth development in the area. One of my most successful programs is a computer literacy program that I start teaching at a cultural center. A range of people start coming—not just youth—and I am pleased to see how it really picks up over the months.
I also work on a dance therapy program for senior citizens and people with disabilities. We go from house to house checking people’s health, making sure they are eating well and staying healthy. We make sure the adults are doing some exercises as well, and we always integrate some dancing to music they really love.
Living in the small community of Salinas teaches me some important life lessons, and I learn a lot about cultural acceptance and not making judgments of others. It isn’t always easy, though.
For a long time I think that my host mother is really mean to my brothers and me because she just yells at us all the time, and I don’t like it at all. To avoid her, I go to work and stay out until really late, like 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., and just come home to eat and sleep. When I arrived, I also felt like people didn’t appreciate me because I am black. Usually the volunteers who come to the community are from the United States, the United Kingdom, or Germany, and they have blonde hair and blue eyes. Since I am not that, I think my host mother doesn’t like me,
and I reason that’s why she is always shouting. I feel uncomfortable in the house but decide not to tell anyone about it, and whenever people ask how I am doing, I say I am fine.
It is at this time that I know I need a visit from my real family—my “Sammy family”—and I am so happy that Claire, Lara, Louis, José, and baby Oscar come to Ecuador to see me. When they come to Salinas, they spend a lot of time talking to Capu and trying to understand some of the problems in our relationship. Capu is complaining that I am not doing things according to her rules, and as I hear her complain more, I start to tell Lara and Claire, “I just do not want to be here.”
As Lara and Claire are saying I have a good host mother, I am saying I have the worst host mother in the world. This is when Lara and Claire sit me down and explain something to me about mothers that I have never known. They tell me that after talking with Capu, they can see that she really is trying to take care of me. They explain that Capu does care, and she is trying to keep me out of trouble. Her rules are strict, but she is treating me like a son and working hard to make sure I am living a safe, productive way. It is not easy for her to follow every little thing I do and to correct me over and over until I learn to do it right.
Lara and Claire tell me it would be easier for Capu to just let me do whatever I want, but she knows that wouldn’t be best for me as a man. They explain that mothers who care for you like Capu are more right than I can understand in the moment, and I need to learn to obey her even when it is hard. They try to make me understand more about Capu as a person: she is very busy, she works very late, and her husband comes home only every other month because he is a truck driver, so she is doing things all alone. They talk to me like an adult and tell me that I need to learn to look at things in an adult way—to cut her some slack and see things as they really are.
Hope Runs Page 16
