I fell in Love with Africa
The trip to Africa that changed my life There are some journeys that stay with you forever. For me, that trip was to Africa. I travelled to Kenya as a volunteer, not as a tourist. I spent several months living in a small community called Kima, working in an orphanage with children with HIV. There was a school attached to the orphanage, so my days were split between helping to care for the children and doing some teaching. It was intense, emotional and completely life changing.
Arriving in Kenya: fear, culture shock and learning to say hello
From the very beginning, I was out of my comfort zone. I stayed with a local family so that I could learn Kiswahili and understand daily life. There were four generations living under one roof, with the great‑grandfather as the respected elder. He had gone blind from diabetes that had been left untreated for so long, simply because medical care and transport were too expensive. Stories like his were heartbreakingly common.
Everything felt unfamiliar at first. The food, the language, the pace of life, even the way people interacted. Everyone wanted to say hello, to greet the new face in town. At the beginning I actually found that quite overwhelming. I was used to the anonymity of life here in the UK, where you can slip by unnoticed. In Kima, you could not.
I still remember trying some of the family’s traditional dishes for the first time, not always successfully, and laughing together about my reactions. Those shared meals were where I really started to feel part of the household.
Life in Kima: back to basics
Life in Kima was simple in a way I had never experienced before.
There were no street lights. Once darkness fell, you were basically in for the night. The roads were mostly dirt tracks, so to get to the orphanage each day we rode on “piki pikis”: motorbikes that bumped and rattled over the red earth. There was no hot running water: we bathed with a bucket. To charge our phones, we walked down to the village, paid a small fee, ordered a Sprite and just sat while our phones slowly came back to life.
It forced me to slow down. Without constant connectivity and convenience, life became about the basics: work, family, food, conversation. It took me right back to a feeling of gratitude for things I usually took for granted at home. Hot showers. Healthcare. Reliable electricity. The ability to see a doctor when you need one.
Volunteering at the orphanage and school
The orphanage where I volunteered cared for children living with HIV. Many had lost their parents. Every day was a mixture of joy and heartbreak.
There were moments that shattered me: hearing the children’s stories, seeing the impact of poverty and illness up close, realising how fragile life can be. But there was also so much laughter. Kids playing in the yard, singing in class, proudly showing me their work. They were resilient, cheeky, loving and full of potential.
In the attached school, I helped with teaching. Standing in front of those classes, looking out at rows of bright eyes, I felt a huge responsibility. Education meant opportunity, and they knew it. Their determination to learn with so few resources put our own classrooms into sharp perspective.
What Africa taught me about gratitude
Living in Kima stripped life right back to what really matters. I saw families doing everything they could with almost nothing. I saw people suffering simply because they could not afford transport to a doctor. Among all the amazing realisations of how lucky I am, there were also many moments of sadness and disbelief.
Yet despite all of that, the people I met were among the warmest and most generous I have ever known. As time went on, the same constant greetings that had felt overwhelming at the start became one of my favourite things. Everywhere I went, people smiled, called out hello and made me feel part of something.
When it was finally time to leave the family after four months, I was heartbroken. I had arrived scared and unsure; I left with a new family, a new language (or parts of it!) and a different outlook on life.
Overlanding through East and Southern Africa
After my time in Kenya, I joined an overland tour through East Africa. It was a camping trip and it was, honestly, unreal.
We travelled in a truck, camping for a couple of nights in one place before packing everything up and moving on. Everyone helped with cooking and camp chores, and it became a little travelling community.
We crossed into Uganda, then onwards through other countries, eventually reaching Victoria Falls and Johannesburg. Along the way we camped in the Serengeti, listened to elephants moving in the dark, saw hyenas slinking around the edges of camp and headed out on safari. Waking up in a tent in the middle of the African bush is a feeling I will never forget.
It was raw, exciting, and at times a little terrifying, but it made me feel completely alive.
