This piece first appeared on the Gap Adventures blog. Jennifer Kefer is an environmental consultant who
provides legal and political expertise, strategic analysis, and advice to
NGOs, corporations and cities on a range of projects related to climate, energy
and other environmental issues. She serves as a
Senior Climate Advisor at the Center on Budget and Policy and Policy
Priorities.
Some people like to vacation. They fly to far-off countries to escape reality, doze on a beach, drink too much and perhaps sleep too little. I don’t choose to vacation; I choose to travel. That’s why I chose to go to Kenya with Gap Adventures. Rather than looking at travel as a way to escape reality, I view travel as an opportunity to learn more about who I am and to better understand my place in the world. Gap Adventures provides the tools for this self-discovery.
As a professional climate change advocate, I spend my days working to convince decision-makers to adopt policies to help address climate change. My efforts are met with resistance. In the US, decision-makers–and the American public–doubt the severity and even the very existence of climate change. While in Kenya, I spoke to dozens of people about these issues. I asked them whether they had observed any changes in their lifetime. Without fail–from educated guides to unschooled villagers–every person that I met retorted simply: “We don’t have seasons anymore.” In the United States we speak of climate change as a hypothetical, distant challenge; but in Kenya the effects are already visible. In the United States, I struggle to convince our leaders that climate change is a problem at all. In Kenya–thanks to Gap Adventures–I was able to work with people in the community to find solutions.
Our Cultural Safari included a village homestay in the Luo village of Kuwuor. For me, this was the main attraction of the itinerary. Certainly, any tourist company could take me to see the lions and zebras of Kenya–and though this was undeniably part of the draw–I knew that my trip would have been a failure if I returned home without seeing Kenya’s people. When we arrived in Kuwuor, a multi-generational group of villagers greeted us in song. I assumed that this was a show for the tourists; akin to the costumed villagers that meet cruise ships as they pull into well-travelled ports. But, within hours, I would learn that this enthusiasm was sincere. We walked with our host family across a small creek and open pastures to their modest home. Our host–the village doctor–insisted that my friend and I sleep in their bedroom during our stay. We shared meals, took walks and did chores together.
Many of the homes in the community were surrounded on all sides by small clay pots and buckets. These open receptacles were intended to collect water during the seasonal rains, to be used throughout the year. It was an inefficient system, to be sure. There were heavy rains the first night we slept in the village; yet, many of the buckets remained half empty in the morning. As climate change alters seasonal rains, making droughts drier and periodic downpours heavier, the people of Kuwuor will undoubtedly need to find a better system to harvest and store water. On our second day in the village, we joined a group of people from the village to erect two enormous rain barrels, positioned beneath the slanted roof with downspouts directing all of the rain into a single, covered container. We worked side-by-side with the villagers, carrying equipment, installing the gutters, positioning the barrel, and transforming their homes. These barrels will not restore the regularity of the seasons to Kenya; however, they will help ensure that the people of Kuwuor have water when the rains don’t come.
Before leaving Kuwuor, each of us planted a small tree. My host promised to water the tree–and implored me to return to visit it one day. I certainly hope to.