Feelings: The Great Unknown

As I sat across from the two children I sponsor to attend school in Nairobi, trying unsuccessfully to meet their eyes, I wondered what they felt. Their teachers told me the children were excited to see me, and the kids said the same, but I worried that I might be embarrassing them.

The two had been set apart from their classmates on that December 2010 day, so they could eat their lunches with me. Having met them 1.5 years before, and having established and maintained regular letter exchanges with them since then, I was ecstatic to spend time with them again.

I did not need them to feel the same way. They are the children whom I've chosen to support through their schooling, and whom I mentor as well as I can from my San Francisco home, thousands of miles away. Their education, safety, freedom from hunger, self-esteem, and happiness are my primary concerns.

I cannot control any of these fundamentals, but I contribute toward those that I can. I hoped that with this attempted bonding session, I was not alienating them from their peers, many of whom do not have sponsors, and thus they neither attend formal schools nor receive letters from the United States.

I could not interpret their shy smiles and soft tones, as they both looked mostly away from me, and appeared pained to answer my questions. It seemed they felt happy but awkward. Or maybe just happy. Or maybe just awkward.

Between the cultural divide and the emotionally loaded context, I found it impossible to know anything apart from my own feelings: Joy, combined with the misgivings of which I've written here.

I wrote and mailed them each a letter this week. I should receive their return letters in a few weeks - perhaps longer, if they do not reply right away. Two months back into my home routine, and I miss them terribly. I look forward to reading from them.

And maybe, if I'm lucky, their letters will contain clues as to how they feel.