Earlier this year, I spent a wonderful 10 weeks in the county of Taita Taveta, Kenya volunteering with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) through International Citizens Service (ICS) – a UK government funded programme allowing 18-25 year olds the opportunity to volunteer abroad in one of twenty developing countries on a three month placement.
Several reasons had led me to the ICS programme: my contract at my job was coming to an end and applications for another had fallen on deaf ears; I wanted to gain the skills I needed for a job in campaigning; and I was hankering to travel but didn’t have the money to do so.
After feeling like I was going through a quarter-life crisis, I submitted my application for ICS in July, a month and a half before my job finished. I had no idea which charity I wanted to go with (you can choose from one of eight) and had hoped to be placed in time for the September-December cycle, perfectly coinciding with the end of my job. I originally had the option to go with Raleigh International to work on a water sanitisation project in September, but on discovery that I had to fundraise the higher amount of £1500 (rather than the standard £800) in just a month, I decided to opt for a January departure instead.
After a bit more research and a colleague introducing me to a friend of his via email who volunteered in Kenya with ICS in 2014, I decided to pick Voluntary Service Overseas as my chosen charity. I had my assessment day and was accepted, and shortly after found out I had been placed in Taita Taveta, Kenya. The countdown was on. I was lucky enough to find a short-term job that was relevant to my interests to fill the time in between.
Then in December, I was walking through the annual Christmas market in my town of Alton in Hampshire, England. when I remembered I had seen a stall the previous year selling handmade baskets. I had regretted not buying one at the time, so hoped it was there this year too, which fortunately it was.
I got into a conversation with a gentleman manning the stall, and he explained to me the story behind the products – they were made in Kenya by women, whose names are stitched into the baskets. They are then purchased by a lady named Suzanne Payne, who is originally from Tennessee but now lives in Alton. She sells the baskets under the title of ‘Baskets4Bread‘ and all the proceeds go to the wonderful charity African Promise which helps improve the quality of primary education in South East Kenya.
Baskets4Bread had also introduced two new product ranges this year – stuffed animals and paper bead jewellery. I finally purchased a basket, as well as stuffed elephant and a paper bead necklace, and told the man that I was off to Kenya in January. Further discussion revealed African Promise is based around 20 minutes outside of Voi – the main town in Taita Taveta, where I was headed in January.
Now, at this point I had no idea exactly where in Taita Taveta I would be living, or what I would be doing out there – all would be revealed once I got to Kenya.
“What a delightful coincidence” I thought. Little did I know just how much of a coincidence it would be.
Skip forward a month and month and a half, and I was en route to Kenya.
After three days training in Nairobi, and three days training in the community, my fellow volunteers and I (18 of us in total; 9 UK and 9 Kenyan) were matched to our placements.
Mine was to be Hadithi Crafts, a community based organisation (CBO) which sells handicrafts made by the 26 women’s groups it works with, thereby providing them with an income, and provides additional support to these women through craft support and training.
What was the main product they sold? Baskets. Hadithi means ‘story’ in Swahili, relating to the fact that each basket comes with the name and picture of the woman who made it, with a short story about the product and the group she belongs to…sound familiar?
The handover from the previous volunteers suggested that some new product ideas could be beneficial – so I thought, fantastic! I have some ideas – stuffed animals and paper bead jewellery, just as I had bought from that market stall in my little town in Southern England.
However on the first day of placement, I arrived at the little outdoor office where I would be volunteering for the next 10 weeks which was adjoined to a container with a shop inside, selling products from Hadithi and Wildlife Works. And there, amongst the baskets, was paper bead jewellery and stuffed animals – the exact same style as the elephant I had bought at the Christmas market in Alton.
In that first week, my placement supervisor took us to Kasigau to visit some of the basket weaving groups to purchase some new baskets. The first group location we visited was at the base of Mount Kasigau, where we were welcomed by two groups named after the areas where they are based, Kiteghe and Jora. On our arrival they sung to us and shook our hands, then laid their kangas onto the ground to put on display their baskets for selection. Each woman sews a piece of cardboard into the sides of their baskets on which they have written their name and the group that they belong to – just as those baskets on the Baskets4Bread stall had.
My supervisor started the process of selecting the baskets, and I assisted her in writing the sizes of the baskets on the ones she picked as we went along. Amongst the first few we looked at, I saw the name Defence – and I was sure that was the name of the woman who made my basket. I shared this with my supervisor, but she said there were quite a few ladies with the same name.
After a long day in the sun selecting baskets, we moved on to visit Buguta Disabled Group – where I discovered my elephant had been made! Unfortunately the animals don’t come with a name like the baskets do, but it was nice to know I was in the place where it was made.
I kept thinking about the name in my basket at home, so when I next had internet connection I asked my Mum to snap a picture of the basket and the piece of cardboard inside that had the name on.
Defence Pesa, Kiteghe.
The group we had visited earlier! The baskets I had seen with the same name! To think, Defence, the lady who made my basket that I had purchased that day in my little town some 6500 miles away, had probably been there when we visited that group. I was gutted I had missed out on the chance to meet her that day.
Lucky for me, a couple of weeks before we were due to leave, we visited the Kiteghe group again. After asking around for Defence, who wasn’t there when we had first arrived, she eventually appeared. Translating through my Kenyan counterpart Gideon, we explained to her that I had bought a basket she had made in my little town in England – I even showed her the picture of it on my phone.
Defence kindly agreed to a photo with me…
Now how many people who buy those baskets can say they’ve had a chance to meet the person who made it?!
When all the other ladies in the group saw me taking a picture with Defence, they piped up to ask why. My colleague explained how I had bought a basket in England that Defence had made. On hearing this they said, “Come on ladies, we must work harder so we can sell our baskets in England!”
As it would have it, Suzanne from Baskets4Bread and Charles from African Promise, the man it turns out I had spoken to on the stall that day in Alton in December, had also discovered the connection through the hashtags on my Instagram pictures. Charles is good friends with a lot of people at Wildlife Works, where the Hadithi office is based, including my placement supervisor Lore who founded Hadithi Crafts. I even bumped into Charles at the office one day out there!
It was as if all the decisions I had made, and those made for me had led me to be in this very unique situation – it definitely felt like a case of “right place, right time” and maybe even a bit of fate too.
And as if full circle, last Saturday I joined Suzanne from Baskets4Bread at a local summer fete to help sell baskets to raise awareness and funds for African Promise.
It just showed me what a small world we live in, and as someone on Facebook said in response to the story, “reminds me how we are all so connected even when we think our actions have little consequence!”
I’d love to hear any stories you have about small world coincidences, and let me know if you’d like to hear more about ICS, VSO and/or my experience of volunteering in Kenya.
according to gaia 