French teacher and Community Service Director Madame Martine Tawaji traveled to Bungoma, Kenya in August 2009 as part of her Mayer fellowship award as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Bungoma is a town in the Western Province with a population of 63,650. It is located 250 miles from Nairobi.
In Africa, Madame met the team of 10 other volunteers. The team’s accommodations included a concrete slab in a room adjacent to a Pentecostal church. The walls of the structure did not touch the ground so that water could pass under in case of heavy rain. The bathroom was a hole in a concrete slab, and there was no running water. The shower was from a bucket of yellow water, and meals were prepared by local women in the village and included freshly-slaughtered chickens and vegetables.
She and her crew, led by the project foreman, dug a foundation one meter deep, broke rocks with a sledge hammer, mixed concrete, and laid bricks with mortar for two weeks. The days were long and very warm with rain every late afternoon, but the team successfully completed the foundation and walls of the new home.
While in Africa, Madame also visited the orphanage in Kissumu where East Woods third grade students had sent books and mosquito nets, and the Meru Hope Children’s Home, another orphanage located in Meru. During her stay in Meru, since the children did not have school Madame helped the children with their daily chores and working in the fields.
It was a very rewarding experience for Madame and she is very thankful for the opportunity, and since then has volunteered again with Habitat for Humanity in Bali and Sri Lanka.