Studying to be a social worker, you constantly hear about shoes. How is it to be in "their" shoes... "hvor er det skoen trykker"? what is really the problem?
Walking around in the slum really challenges me and my shoes:) Would I be willing to trade shoes? Put on a pair of worn out car tire sandals that have seen to much of dusty muddy roads. I so badly want to say yes. Want to keep believing that I'm as open minded ans "conformable" as I've thought. But‚ I find myself trying to convince me of something I am not. I am not poor. I don't live in the slum. I have a nice apartment to go home to. I have a bed to sleep in. I have food on the table.I am educated. I come from one of the richest countries in the world. And Nairobi makes you so painfully aware of this. A city that is to dangerous to be able to live like you are anything else than rich and white. That's just how it is. It feels like a big dry potato that I have to swallow. I hate driving home from work, passing through town and somehow feeling like I'm driving into a different world. Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna choke on being the privileged one.
Sometimes all I want is to sell everything I own, not eat and just see if I would manage on the "other side of town". But, being here in Nairobi, a city contrasted with banks and money, internationals and all the pleasures they indulge in, and on the other hand the poorest of the poor, I feel like the answer is to just swallow the potato. Some things you just cant change and you just have to deal with it. You have to be able to accept the differences and live with a foot in both worlds.
Teaching the children in school today about self-awareness, I find myself in the same position, pondering on my own teaching. They wrote down things they can change, and things they can not change about themselves. A part of making them realize who they are and that life contains permanent and non permanent issues. Being here is certainly making me self aware. Who I am, where I come from, and who I want to be. I just wish that we could all wear the same shoes. I know I cant trade mine, and I know I will never fully know how it is to wear theirs, but I hope that I wont ever take my comfortable adidas for granted, and I hope I will be willing to give them a way, anytime...
<3 <3 <3
ReplyDeletejeg skulle ønske jeg var der med deg Misha!
Enjoyed reading your blog again last night Mish. We struggled so much with the contrasts of our lives (priveleges) with those we worked with in Thailand and Africa. It helped once when a refugee said after I shared how I felt "I don’t see it that way I wouldn’t be living here if I had a choice, why should you. I know you care about us because you came". I thought as you wrote: at least you’re there getting your Adidas' dirty. The question is not why we have more - but what we do with the more we have. And that is what matters most to them - not that we become like them (they don't want to be like them in their poverty) but that we care and use our blessings to help them. Love you!
ReplyDeleteåh, misha! tenk at jeg ikke har sett denne bloggen før nå! nå har jeg lest så og si alle innlegga dine og smilt og blitt rørt om hverandre. du skriver så levende! nesten så jeg er der med deg! orda dine utfordrer enhver norsk sjel som tar så altfor gitt alt vi har og hvor priviligerte vi er, takk. jeg er herved fast leser:) og gleder meg forresten til å se deg!! og igjen; gratulerer med dagen!!!:)
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