To be a girl in Bosco Boys
When I was young I was a professional swimmer, meeting people from all over the world, joining world championship and big parties in different places, including luxurious casinos and hotels. Then I fell in love with a boy and we were going to get married but we broke up. Later I began working as a hotel manager, dealing with rich people, who had everything but never enough and who were never happy with their life. I loved travelling. Once I stayed in a Salesian mission in Ukraine. I remember, one day during the prayers I felt called to go to the mission. I heard the voice that I will never be happy unless I am in the place where God wants me to be. Today I can say that I had been in many places and had many experiences but I was never happy as I am in Bosco Boys.
Boys here complain about their life at Bosco Boys centre which is not acceptable. The boys who have their own rules on the street must follow certain rules now.
It seems sometimes that they are not interested in anything and ignoring many things, even God, but if you start listening to them properly you see how they care, about their lives, about the country, about God and people. Every day I learn something new from them.
There was a time when one of the volunteers was sick for a few days. The boys asked me how she was. One of the boys came to me and asked “why father does not give her communion?. You should go and ask father. We in Bosco Boys believe that God can heal her?”
There was another volunteer who was not baptised because in Europe many people grow up without knowing God. Since her arrival at Bosco Boys she was attending Mass daily and was thinking about baptism. When I told this to the boys they told me that now we are going to pray special rosary for her to be baptised.
I like to eat supper with the boys because it is the time when you talk at the table and always get some special care. Sometimes boys are not fair to each other in serving food, but I was always given too much. When I am walking to the dinning hall, often I am asked whether I have a plate and if I don’t have they make sure I get one. While serving food they make sure that the “mzungu” gets a big portion of food at the beginning itself.
Once before Christmas I was visiting the home of a boy and I told him that at home we always ate fish for Christmas, but this time I will miss it, because none of the volunteers wanted to eat fish. The boy who invited me home the day before Christmas told his mother to cook for me fish that I can have my Christmas meal here. When I was leaving it was raining so I was given trousers and a big jumper because my clothes were for summer and they didn’t want me to get wet. The boy told me that those trousers were bought by his mother for me.
One thing I like about the boys here is their spirit of sharing. The boys who do not have any one living in Nairobi, are invited by for holiday. If a boy is given a cake he shares it with his friend. If the boy is given chocolate on the way home he takes it so that his mother could taste it as well.
It’s somehow interesting to be a “mzungu” girl in this community because many of the boys here dream of marrying to a “mzungu” girl.
The street boys seem to have a lot of sexual experience but they do not seem to know much about love. They have not experienced real love. Once a boy told me, “You know I have this experience, but I still don’t no what to do with a girl.
Some times I ask them how it is possible that you talk to me so freely and they always answer me “you are different.....” When I tell them that love sometimes brings pain if the couple broke up, they ask me: Did he beat you? because that is mostly what they see at home.
As a computer teacher I am often told by other teachers that it is very difficult to teach these students, to get discipline from them. When I come to the class I find all of them paying attention.
They are very curious, if they see a new phone after a few minutes they know everything about it. They are just the same kids as others from Europe or other countries.
Often the boys talk about how their country is and they want to see a stable government free of corruption etc. which means they care a lot about their life.
If I ‘m in a bad mood they will tell me, “this moods just come and go... forgot the past and be happy“.... that’s what “wazungu” sometimes doesn’t know, to be happy all the time.
I see good managers and leaders among them.
The theme of the last camp we had at Bosco Boys was: “To be a good citizen and an honest leader”. And that is what they really could be, many of them are clever, many of them have very good heart and if they are lead with love they can help other boys from street in the future.
They need to be treated with love, because that is something they are confused with. They think they don’t need it, but on the other side they are thirsty for it.
To love them means, to be very careful in using certain words to them. Even when you are joking you can bring memories from the past. Once a boy told me, “you know there are guns on the street, there is shooting, they are just little things ...” but these words bring big pain to them.
That is my experience at Bosco Boys. Once I was told, “sometimes I feel we have the same blood”..... and I feel sometimes the same. It doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl, a mzungu or a black, all of us are children of God who brings us together to learn from each other.
Maria
