The Daily O’Collegian

It’s hard to understand a third-world country until you’ve been to one.

Until you have crossed the borders of a third-world country, stereotypes mold your thoughts about what you will to see.

But members of the OSU student group Upendo Kwanza learned firsthand that stereotypes are not what should educate you on something you know nothing about.

What we as students saw was more than just starving children living in mud huts, images television shows us.

Kenya, Africa, is in many ways just like any place in America. It has poor people and rich people. It has homeless people begging in the streets, as well as people living in mansions and upscale condominiums.

While in Kenya, some members of Upendo Kwanza lived with people who had marble floors, while other members stayed with families who had only one bed and no running water.

In Juja, Kenya, the town in which OSU students stayed for most of their time, you could walk down the road and easily see both sides of the financial spectrum, living only a mile apart from each other.

Yes, Kenya is a third-world country, but its third-world status does not define Kenya. It’s not just what we see on TV or in newspapers.

It might seem contradictory to complain about the media because we are part of the media. But no self-respecting journalist applauds sensationalism, but we can’t deny all media are sometimes guilty of it.

Journalists should strive to report the good and the bad. Kenya is home to poverty, but we should recognize it for more than that.

In a developing country, hardships exist, but Kenya has more than struggles.

This isn’t an excuse to ignore or turn our backs to existing problems, such as its education system, but at least the door to education has been cracked; it’s now only a matter of time before that door will fully open.

After talking with some students in Kenya, we realized America isn’t alone with its stereotypes. Many Kenyans said they envision America as nothing but Beverly Hills filled with mansions.

If they could only see our freshman dorm rooms in Wilham North and Drummond, places we would hardly call “mansions.”

We recall sitting in our host families’ living rooms, watching “Scrubs” on their TVs one night. Some people might not think Africans have “real” houses, let alone TVs and surround-sound systems. But they do. Many Kenyans live just like you and me.

No one held any Upendo Kwanza members at gunpoint.

The only people we saw with guns were policemen and government officials. That’s not to say people didn’t have guns, but no one was walking with an assault rifle strapped to his or her back.

We didn’t have any madmen waving around machetes and threatening to sexually assault the women of the group try to attack us.

Fear wasn’t a factor in our trip to Kenya. In fact, everyone seemed more freaked out during our eight-hour layover when some of us decided to explore Amsterdam to satisfy our curiosity about the city.

There will be danger wherever you go, regardless of the continent. If everyone who visited Kenya was killed, you would read something about it in the news. Thousands visit Kenya each year to see “the big five:” lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards and the African buffalo.

The travel advisory the U.S. Department of State has issued didn’t really help or prepare us. It only freaked us out for a trip that was one of the calmest, most pleasant experiences of our lives.

Advisory is defined as “a report on existing or predicted conditions.” So here’s our Kenyan travel advisory, based on our existing condition: catch the next flight out of the U.S. to Kenya and get ready for the warmest welcome you’ll ever receive.

We must remember the color of one’s skin or the country of one’s origin does not define whether one is rich or poor or dangerous. Where there is mankind, there will exist poverty and hatred, no matter what corner of the world you’re in or how many travel advisories a country may issue about another. Whether it’s Stillwater or Juja, Kenya, one person’s situation is not a reflection of its entire population.

So the next time you’re watching “Scrubs,” just think: Someone in Kenya probably is watching it, too.