Silje Drevland - Mathare, Kenya

  Sometimes you make decisions you just know is gonna change your life. It can turn out to be a good, challenging or even a bad experience, either way you will learn from it. For me, going on exchange with AIESEC turned out to be the greatest experience I have ever had, and what was supposed to be an 8 week internship turned into 15 weeks in the beautiful country of Kenya. 

A city that can seem chaotic, unstructured and dodgy at first, Nairobi can be enough to give even the most experienced traveller cold feet. Another intern and friend of mine from Germany was never picked up at the airport, so his first meeting with Kenya was being hijacked by a «taxi driver», taken to an ATM and robbed with a knife, before being dropped off in a bad end of town at night. But still, even with horror stories like this one, I feel Nairobi has an undeserved bad reputation. The same rules apply here as for the rest of the world's big cities; be attentive and take your precautions, and you should find Nairobi to be a beautiful, colourful and enjoyable place full of warmth and friendly faces, and an easy place to feel like home. The story of my friend's carjacking happened more than a year ago, and he is still living in Nairobi working for a Kenyan company, with no plans of returning to the «safe» environment of Europe. 

My first meeting with the slum area Mathare and the school where I was gonna work was no less than overwhelming. «Don't you feel like a rock star?» my aiesec buddy asked me as we were walking through the slum. And I did. Kids came running at us from every direction, smiling, laughing, shaking my hand and asking «Mzungu! How are you?», their mothers sitting in front of their houses greeting and welcoming me with a friendliness I found to be characteristic of Mathare. But the generosity of infectious happiness and the materialistic situation did not match. Being a teacher student and having experience from working in the Norwegian school system, I was shocked to see the conditions of my school project. 340 students were cramped together, most of them on the dirt floor, in a small number of rusty shacks scattered around an area of the slum. The supplies we had access to were restricted to chalk and blackboards, plus a small collection of old and torn books. But even with these huge limitations, the kids, to my surprise, turned out to be extremely bright and attentive! Somewhat opposite to what I have experienced in Norway, where you have almost unlimited access to school supplies but the kids can be a real nightmare to teach.

Teaching subjects and spending time with the school children was definitely the most fun and rewarding part of working in Mathare. And they loved asking, seeing pictures and hearing about Norway, as many of them have not even travelled outside of Nairobi. What was more of a challenge was working with the staff at the school. To be a «mzungu» (white person) is in Kenya synonymous with having money, and the school director never tried hiding the fact that they wanted us to buy things, both for the school and for them personally. Wanting to improve the learning conditions and the school situation for the kids I started a small-scale fund raising together with the three other interns who worked at the school; a boy from the Netherlands, a girl from Australia and a girl from China. And with the money we got from friends and family back home we managed to do alot. We bought enough desks for all the kids, an additional classroom, school books, sports equipment, two latrines, and even a small school library with story books, in addition to doing some fixing and janitor work ourselves like painting the school buildings. But still the staff always kept asking for more, and didn't seem to realize that our means were limited. We also had some confrontations with them about the use of corporal punishment. Because, although forbidden by law since 2002, caning is still being used by teachers all over the country. And even though we had a long talk about it and the director promised us that they would stop using caning as a way of punishment, the kids told us later that all the teachers, the director included, continued to use violence against them when we interns were not around. The frustration, anger and helplessness we felt over the system sometimes could be extremely demotivating. But to focus on the positive achievements and progress we made helped, and I still feel that we left the project in a better condition than when we first came, which is the most important thing.

If you love travelling, Kenya is also the perfect destination. And to be part of the fantastic Aiesec Kenya network, you get more opportunitites to experience the diversity of the country than you are able to take. I spent the weekends and holidays going on safaris, hiking, white water rafting, travelling the coast, attending aiesec conferences or just having fun in Nairobi together with all the other interns. Living in an interns house is an outstanding chance to get to know amazing and talented students from all around the world. After Kenya I have friends for life living in every single continent, something I feel is the true essence of Aiesec. The internship has also taught me better to see opportunities insted of challenges, and how everything in life in the end comes down to one thing: accept the things you cannot change and change the things you cannot accept. But without a doubt, the best thing of my 15 weeks in Kenya were the people.

Ina Lindblom - Yaondé, Cameroon

After turning in my master’s degree in psychology in November 2011, I decided to go on

an internship through AIESEC. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me get some

relevant work experience, as well as living in a completely different culture for a while. When

choosing my internship, I focused on finding an interesting project description, as I was open

to go to almost any country. I ended up choosing Cleverland Foundation in Yaoundé, the

capital of Cameroon. The job description included teaching various subjects in a primary

school, conducting workshops and planning a project on HIV/AIDS and malaria awareness in

villages. The internship ended up consisting of only teaching in the school, but this was okay

for me, as it was teaching I was mainly interested in doing. I also chose Cameroon as they

speak English and French, and I would then avoid any communication problems (although

I’ve now learned that you can absolutely have communication problems even when speaking

the same language).

I arrived Yaoundé airport two hours late, but found my pick-up team waiting for me

there. When interns come to Cameroon they go through an integration week, to learn how

to “survive” in the country. My TN manager was experienced in this, which made the first

week go by very smoothly. I already knew before leaving that I would have to share a room

and bed with a local student for the first week, as I had contacted interns that were already

there. I would absolutely recommend doing this, as it is easier for someone coming from a

similar culture to inform you on what to be prepared for.

After the integration week I moved to my host family, who was also the administrator of

Cleverland Foundation. I started working at the school, and was there every weekday for

the rest of my stay. There was no training provided (I’ve never worked as a teacher before)

and no tasks were prepared for me. This bothered me a little, as I had to ask the teachers if I

could teach in their classes. At times I felt that I was disturbing the normal teaching more than

helping. I understand that most interns in other schools have to teach very large classes, but I

was in a new school with small classes. Class 5 and 6 had only five children combined. This

probably made it a lot easier for me than if the classes were of normal sizes. I really enjoyed

my time in the school, and even stayed there a little longer than my internship period.

During my stay I got the chance to travel much around the country. Cameroon really has a lot

to offer tourists, with impressive nature in all parts of the country. In Waza national park in

the north I saw lions, giraffes, gazelles, monkeys and warthogs (Pumba), while sitting outside

in the back of a pick-up truck. In Kribi in the south I spent several days on endless beautiful

beaches, almost all empty since there are virtually no tourists in Cameroon. In the west I

went to a local farm up in the hills and picked avocados straight from the tree. Although

the transportation is not exactly safe or comfortable (try sitting four people crammed in the

backseat of a small car, driving in an average 100 km/h on unpaved humpy roads for several hours), it is definitley worth it!