Blog 1: Arts for Kids- Syed Wahaj

I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Kenya and execute my PATA project that was funded by UC Davis Center for Economics Development. I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on August 30, 2018 roughly around 2am. (I know what a horrible timing). I took a taxi to my friends parents house.


The time switch and jet lag really hit me because I had never gone outside the timezone of California. I slept in during the day and awake in the nights for the first two days before I finally had figured it out. I needed to take melatonin according to internet to which I pursued by purchasing at the pharmacy. The medication translation was very easy because the primary language in Kenya is english so it was very easy to locate and purchase. My expectation of finding the proper product was very different then how it played out.


I had written daily in my journal; how I was feeling that day, what made me very happy, and what was difficult obstacle. It was such a good idea because I was able to really go back into my journal to extract scenes and moments of how I felt but didn’t quiet absorb until later on.


First time I attended the Dream Children’s Home, it took me 6 km to get to the destination by walking. No transportation to and from my room was arranged because. I wanted to feel the ground in Kenya by jogging right through it. It was an amazing jog one way, I got to see a lot of the city, passed all of the busy traffic. Upon arriving, I was dripping in sweat and thirst, I had packed some water but it ended. I was very cautious with drinking water from the faucet from anywhere, the last thing I wanted was to be sick from some little mistake. I stayed thirsty until I got back to the store for bottled water in the main part of the city.

Upon arriving, I was greeted with such high energy children playing sports kicking balls running around screaming and laughing all at the same time. It was truly an experience because I had never been around so many children with limitless energy. I was given a tour of the orphanage, and met the children. I was surprised of all the different ages of the kids, they ranged from 5-15. There were approximately 80 students in the orphanage with only 4 rooms. They lived in dormitories with common places such as cafeteria, garden, and front yard. I met a lot of the children and tried to remember some of the names but it was very difficult to remember so many names, I have no idea how teachers can do it.