Story of How I Grew As a Person

Stepping off the bus, I looked around the construction site. Where was the house? I had thought our task was to reinforce some parts of a house that needed to be repaired, but all I could see on the dusty ground was a pile of logs. It was a humid summer day, and my peers and I felt like the sun was already attacking us. There was no house to repair: We had to build it.

We first started to dig holes with pickaxes. I held the pickaxe without confidence, unsure where to put my hands. When I first feebly broke the ground, a cockroach the size of a small car popped out from the ground and made eye contact with me. I dropped the pickaxe in a panic.

Not a great start, but this was only the beginning.

After finally digging the foundation, we lugged logs twice our height (about the size of that cockroach) and started building the walls. After much log-lugging, only the ceiling was left to cover. Our leaders said making the ceiling could be dangerous because we might drop the log above our heads and get hurt, so we stopped before building the ceiling, and collapsed onto the dusty ground. I didn't notice that my hands were tingling but after I took off my gloves, I had scars on the palms of my hands. We had already drunk all of our water and my tongue was like sandpaper.

After work, we went to eat with the community. One hundred students sat around the room, so finding a seat was not easy; many eyes were watching my every step. Everyone seemed to want to talk to me. As a Korean kid in Kenya, this happened quite often. Children at the table asked me many questions: Where am I from, how old am I, and when am I leaving to go back to Nairobi? I answered their questions while eating Maharagwe, a type of bean soup with rice, and Sukuma, a spinach-like vegetable.

Some of the students on the site confused me for Chinese, and greeted me with a mistaken “Ni Hao”, which some Koreans might consider rude or even racist. But I knew they were not saying it to be rude or to tease me. Instead, they were trying to befriend me in the only East Asian language they knew. Smiling, I replied that saying “Ni Hao” to all Asians could be considered impolite. Instead of being stressed about it, I chose to use this as a teaching moment. I taught them “annyeonghaseyo” which means “hello” in Korean. Not as easy to pronounce perhaps, but just like the house, it's important to start friendships on a strong foundation of understanding. They taught me "Jambo", which is hello in Swahili, and so our multi-lingual English lessons began.

Building houses and relationships are both hard work, but with each log lifted and each lunch shared, my confidence grew. I became more accepting of others and was able to collaborate on projects with diverse individuals.

When I first arrived in Kenya, I didn’t know the culture in Kenya and I struggled to get along with my peers. I was also not comfortable with hearing “ni hao” almost every day, but as I grew up and spent time with people in and around Nairobi, empathy grew stronger between us. Because of this, I could understand more people who have lived in a different culture from mine, and we could understand each other and develop into better versions of ourselves. This has helped me to think bigger and seek to tackle the many different challenges that we face together, from unexpected floods to expected cognitive decline as we get older. While giant cockroaches still terrify me, and pickaxes are still unwieldy, I am determined to dig deeper and lift larger in order to build a place for everyone.

Ceiling included.