(Photos Courtesy of Kurt Berning)
By Kurt Berning
The most common question I've been asked since returning to campus has been, "How was Kenya?"
Hmmm, well, that's a tough one to answer in a sentence or two. Instead I'll focus on a few things that stood out about my experience.
First, there was being a minority. A white, male, middle class minority. Weird, right? Now, it is clear to me that three months in Kenya only gives me a glimpse into what minorities face in the U.S. or other parts of the world. I was stared at, judged and constantly stereotyped throughout my time in Kenya because of my skin color. A student once asked after class, "What kind of lotion do you put in your skin to make it that color?" I laughed, explaining that I was born this way. I cannot control my skin color, my ethnicity or my family's economic status. I asked myself, why would people judge me because of the things I can't change? Why not base a judgment of me on things I can control, like my actions? It's so unfair! … Wait …
Now to give you a bit of context, I spent three months in Kenya this summer teaching at a secondary school through the Moreau Center's East Africa Internship. I volunteered with fellow UP students Jenny Doyle and Adrienne Shellnut through the Foundation for Sustainable Development.
Lastly, spending three months in Kenya gave me a completely different perspective on American culture. From the Kenyan perspective, I began to see America as selfish, self-absorbed and unbelievably wasteful. Sounds pretty bad, right? But it was not all negative. I also began to greatly appreciate our cultural diversity, our relatively uncorrupted government and how privileged we are as a nation.
In the end, there is no end. This service experience will continue to inform my life and my perspective on the world for the rest of my life.
Kurt Berning is a senior finance and operations technology management major. He can be contacted at berning12@up.edu.
(Photos Courtesy of Kurt Berning)
(Photos Courtesy of Kurt Berning)
