Sammy

I remember when I went to Kenya in 2007 so well. I was beyond excited to finally be in Africa and it was an incredible trip. I had been sponsoring Musa for four years at that point and although I wasn’t going to the country he called home, I was right next door. I went with my high school ministry at church.  We went for two reasons. The first reason was to interact with high school students and talk to them about HIV/AIDS and Jesus. The second reason was because my best friend and the guy I was dating at the time had raised around $20,000 his senior year to build a well in Kenya. We were going to meet the community where the well was going to be built. In total, twenty-two people went on the trip. Eighteen of us were students and four were adult leaders. 

Buses and large vehicles are not that common in Kenya and so we had four safari vans with drivers. Our drivers were awesome. The one my group often rode in was with a guy named Francis. He spoke very little English. For example, if we said stop, he went into reverse; or when we asked him what animal that was, his answer was always gazelle. Even if it was a monkey-type creature.  We affectionately named his van and the experience, the Fran Van. There was one driver, in particular, I wanted to talk to. His name is Sammy and he was the leader of the drivers. He owned the driving company. Typically, it was Sammy and one other driver, but because we needed four drivers, he brought in two more.  Sammy was one of those people you instantly wanted to be friends with.  He laughed a lot, but he didn’t say much. When he did speak, everyone listened. He was very wise and I just wanted to know about him.

One day, when we were traveling to south Kenya, we stopped at this restaurant. It had the tallest, most beautiful waterfall I’ve ever seen.  For some reason, my best friend and I were a little late to sit down and so we sat at the drivers’ table. I began to talk with Sammy about Kenya and the AIDS epidemic came up.  My last semester of my senior year (I had just graduated from high school) was spent researching and writing a paper on the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  I had plenty of knowledge about the subject, but what I didn’t have was perspective. The kind of perspective from hearing about the impacts from someone whose life is greatly impacted, from someone who has seen the devastation with their own eyes. I didn’t want to know because I was curious, but because it’s heartbreaking. Sammy was very open about what he had seen and whom he had lost. He also understood a lot about the disease as well. The way he talked about Kenya, you knew he had great pride in his country.  He loved it.

This is Sammy

What saddened me the most was that he was so surprised someone like me would care or want to know about his country or the epidemic. What Sammy didn’t know what was that only deepened my love for this continent.