Midlothian man’s Kenya trip shows rewards of voluntourism

MOMBASA, Kenya

Matt Reinhardt didn't know what to do when his company asked him to take two weeks of unpaid vacation to cut costs. His first thought was to head to the beach. The Midlothian resident thought maybe he would travel to Mexico with his wife, Dina, twins Libby and Reed, 3, and son Owen, 4.

But this was an unexpected vacation, and Reinhardt wanted to do something meaningful. Through an organization called Koins for Kenya, run by his wife's former employer, Reinhardt found himself on a service vacation in a village in rural Africa for three weeks.

Koins for Kenya is a nonprofit organization based in the U.S. that helps Africans overcome obstacles that keep them in poverty, through financial help and expeditions with Americans to work in the Koins service area of villages surrounding the port city of Mombasa.

According to travel and tourism experts, voluntourism like Reinhardt's trip is on the rise with about 100,000 Americans a year paying to go on trips on which they do volunteer work rather than work on their tans or play golf.

After doing some initial research, Reinhardt discovered that water was one of the biggest issues for the villages in Kenya. Women would walk more than 12 miles to gather disease-infested water for their families, and children didn't have access to clean drinking water in the schools.

So before heading halfway around the world last month, Reinhardt vowed to raise more than $4,000 to construct two water cisterns for primary schools the Koins organization had helped build.

"The water that is available for the schools without the cisterns is from the river and because it is not clean, the children suffer from diarrhea and typhoid," said Anthony Yama, executive director of Koins for Kenya's in-country office. "The rainwater collected significantly reduces the cases of children suffering from waterborne diseases.

"These unclean sources of water are also far from the schools, so children walk miles just to get water when they could be spending the time studying."

Each cistern is a massive cement tank that can hold enough rainwater to provide clean drinking water for more than 1,000 primary school students in the villages of Majengo and Miyani during the course of the school year. The rain runs from gutters on the roofs into the cisterns, where it can be safely stored year-round.

"I sent out e-mails to my friends and family asking for donations," Reinhardt said. "I had been holding out on social networking, but I even got an account on Facebook to contact people. After six weeks, we had donations from 54 people and $5,400, enough money for the two cisterns."

On Aug. 4, he set off on the trip with no idea what to expect.

His daughter Libby cried when he left from Richmond International Airport, and Owen gave his father two Transformer toys to give to Kenyan boys. "Daddy, I want you to give Jazz and Bulkhead to boys in Africa. Bulkhead is an easy one, so you can give him to a little boy," Owen told his father.

It took two days to reach the village of Mnyenzeni, the central base for the Koins service area, 37 miles outside Mombasa. The water cisterns were nearly complete by the time Reinhardt arrived. What was left to do was paint the names of all the donors on the tanks. Children from the schools chipped in by putting their handprints onto the cement with green paint.

Reinhardt was surprised by the local people's dedication to improving their schools. Koins for Kenya demands accountability from the people it helps. If Koins gives 90 percent, the locals have to raise their 10 percent.

Women with babies strapped to their backs cleared the area around the schools of large rocks - some as heavy as 25 pounds - by carrying them from the site on their heads. The men dug a latrine hole more than 30 feet deep into the shale bedrock behind the building, a job that had taken two months to complete with the two pickaxes they had as tools.

Even though the cisterns were finished, there was plenty for Reinhardt to do. No day is the same in Kenya. One day, he found himself building benches for the local Methodist church; another he was building desks for the school; and another he was visiting a high school classroom to answer questions about math and science.

He was able to use his engineering background to teach the local construction team to build their cement blocks more efficiently and with 30 percent less cement.

"The downside of that was they started to believe I could fix anything, and I definitely can't," he said with a laugh.

Reinhardt quickly realized that the children in the village loved having their picture taken with his digital camera, so he went into town to buy a printer. To the delight of everyone in the village, he was able to print out pictures of children who had never even seen themselves in a mirror.

For Reinhardt, going to Kenya was more than just being able to help people; it was about bringing something back for his family. One afternoon as the sun was starting to set, he sat by a well in the village showing pictures of his daughter to Edwin, the 10-year-old son of the town schoolteacher. Reinhardt and Edwin bonded early in the trip over Edwin's love of American technology and insistent begging to borrow Reinhardt's camera.

"That's Libby," Reinhardt said to Edwin. "One day, I will bring her here to meet you." And he meant it. By the end of the week, Reinhardt gave Owen's Jazz Transformer to Edwin. The other Transformer went to a 2-year-old who was battling malaria.

"My family is very comfortable and my kids are growing up with things I never had myself, but I sometimes just worry about their outlook on life," Reinhardt explained about his motivation to make the trip. "I wanted to find a way to connect to an area and a people on a personal level so that I could bring my kids to see a part of this world that doesn't live anything like we do."

Reinhardt's work in Kenya isn't finished. As he was leaving the village, he met a mother with a 7-year-old albino girl with second-degree burns covering her body. He is working to get that child the sun protection she needs to survive so close to the equator.

And in the future, Reinhardt hopes to work on irrigation projects, secondary schools and a maternity hospital.

To get all that done, he may have to join Twitter.