Will Kiley

Will Kiley

Will Kiley, a participant in the Dadaab Theater Project, reflects on his experience.
My time in Kenya was polarizing. Throwing up moments before Ojullu and I wrote our poem together (easily on of the biggest high lights of my experience). Walking through Kangemi and then immediately through a gated community with Mercedes driving by. No second or aspect of the trip was neutral. I found myself swinging from exhilarated elation to exhausted anger and sadness in a moments notice. I could never stay angry or sad for long, it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about me. It was about being there, as present as I could and celebrating the opportunity we had with all of my heart. As vastly different as our backgrounds all were, for a few brief days we could live, create and share together as equals and although you would catch the occasional eyes glaze over with tears, no one dared let our time together go to waste. When we were down, we picked each other up and swung back to the heart of our project. In this, there could only be joy.

For a few days after our project ended I felt a level of resentment that was surprising and unsettling. It took a few days to label and understand and I am still working on understanding these feelings, but I am much closer now than I was initially.

History has unbelievable inertia. The effects of those that have come before us, good and bad, are momentous. There are deep rooted inequalities and injustices all over the world that were forming or formed way before I even began to think consciously about anything. It is as if I am taking over playing a Tetris game with most of the blocks already stacked almost to the top of the screen. I can scurry and play the best I can, but I will be lucky if I make a good dent into the already stacked levels. Although it is conceivable, my chances of being able to actually clear the entire screen are seemingly minuscule. The childhood hope and radical optimism in me that I love to cling to resented this realization wholeheartedly.

Then as days went by I made a realization that I predict will drastically change the way I move forward into the world and my maturation process as a man. I am not the only one playing Tetris and the screen doesn’t have a predetermined end. My job is not to clear the screen and mend all of the inequalities and injustices of history, but rather to do the best with the blocks currently coming at me. If I spend all my energy angry at what has already occurred I don’t have the energy to help with what is to come and celebrate what currently is.Just as when we were upset or discouraged we would swing back to the heart of why we were all in Kenya together I must also do this with why we are all on this planet together. These sound like bigger words than I would ever have felt comfortable owning before this trip, but now I can say them with pride and confidence. I know they may sound heavy winded to many, but that is why experiences like what we all had in Nairobi need to be shared with people all over the globe.

I learned that to do something extraordinary you often must dive into it before you are ready and before you are affirmed by others that it is ok. I learned that self expression can be nearly as vital if not just as vital as food, water and shelter. That to celebrate your life, your feelings and your ability to create is the fastest, purest road to hope. I learned that we share the ability to laugh together, dance together and cry together with every person on this planet no matter the language barrier or perceived chasm of cultural differences. I learned that the distance between any two people on this planet is undeniably collapsible.