Trying to do good in a Third World country, a young Kiwi was caught in political chaos.

Sarah McIlroy Ryan expected her African volunteering holiday to be a challenging and rewarding experience.

Instead, she was attacked, interrogated and caught up in political unrest that made her fear for her life.

The possibility of getting stranded amid violent riots was far from Sarah's mind when she contacted US organisation Village Volunteers and signed up to spend time in Africa.

The Masterton 20-year-old arranged to stay at three villages in Kenya over three months.

Sarah's first stop was a small fishing village called Kunya, a two-hour bus ride from Kenya's second largest city, Kisumu.

She spent her mornings at a medical centre, helping out by weighing babies, registering patients and counting medicine. In the afternoons, she held an informal playgroup for children at a daycare centre.

When election day came in late December, Sarah felt the locals' excitement.

‘Everybody wanted Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, to win,' she says. ‘They said they wanted change for Kenya and he was the man to bring it.'

One month into Sarah's journey, Raila's opponent was declared the election winner and protests began over what many Kenyans believed was a rigged presidential poll.

Sarah was travelling in a van to Kisumu when she and the other passengers saw pillars of smoke rising in the distance. They pressed onwards through a roadblock but soon realised they had made a big mistake.

‘Men were running around everywhere, lighting fires and carrying rocks or other weapons they had found,' Sarah says.

‘They chased our van down the road, shouting at us. At that point, our driver Onyango turned around and attempted to leave Kisumu.'

Heading back towards Kunya, they discovered more roadblocks had been set up.

‘As we attempted to get through, a mob of about 150 men surrounded our van shouting at us,' Sarah says.

When the volunteers refused to surrender their possessions, men smashed the van's side window with a metal pole.

‘I was facing away so my face was protected,' she says. ‘One other volunteer was not so lucky. She got cuts and bruises on her legs and arms, while I only received small cuts on my legs.'

They managed to escape and continued through the gauntlet of checkpoints towards the safety of Kunya.

Sarah says, ‘We were stopped and interrogated at least eight times about where we were going and why there were two white people in the van. I had never been conscious about my skin colour before, but now it was a big issue and was attracting us a lot of attention.'

When they reached Kunya, Sarah used a rented cellphone to call her parents and Village Volunteers, who were ‘horrified' by the situation and cancelled other planned volunteer trips to the East African country.

‘I was told to stay in the village until they could help me get out, but there wasn't much they could do,' she says. ‘I waited for more than two weeks, but no one was able to get transport in or out.'

Food supplies were dwindling fast and prices had skyrocketed.

‘I was beginning to feel I was in the way because I was just another mouth to feed. There was certainly no water during those last two weeks to bathe or wash clothes,' Sarah says.

Eventually, she paid Onyango 3000 Kenyan shillings - only $60, but a fortune in Kenya - for a ride to Kisumu to compensate for the dangerous trip and rising petrol prices.

When they reached Kisumu the streets were in disarray, but Sarah managed to get a flight to Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. There, she stayed with a coordinator who was working to get volunteers out.

But it still wasn't safe. Violence flared again, trapping Sarah and another volunteer.

‘We were inside a gift shop when a lot of people suddenly began to run past the window screaming. A few people ran inside the shop and slammed the door shut, hiding behind the shelves. We smelled tear gas and they told us that police were chasing protesters out of the city,' Sarah says.

‘One lady was hit on the head with a tear gas canister while she was holding a baby and trying to sell vegetables on the street.'

Unable to escape, Sarah and her fellow volunteer had to spend the night at a hotel, returning to the coordinator's house the next day.

After a harrowing week in Nairobi, Sarah began her journey back to New Zealand. After four stopovers and 40 hours, she arrived at Palmerston North Airport where she was met by her mother.

‘My friends and family were very relieved to see me again as they had seen Kenya on the news almost every night since the riots began,' Sarah says.

‘I was happy to be home, but I was still sad to have had to cut my trip short.' Now home in Masterton,
life has returned to normal for the Massey University student, who hopes to do more overseas volunteer work in the future.

The post-election violence in Kenya eventually claimed hundreds of lives and displaced up to 600,000 people.

Despite Sarah's distressing journey, Kenya still holds a place in her heart.

‘This experience left me shaken,' she says. ‘But it will not deter me from going back again one day.'

Volunteer safely
Volunteering opportunities are available in many countries. Most New Zealand organisations operate in Africa, Asia, South America and the Pacific Islands. Before choosing a country, find out where you can work in each area (eg schools, farms, hospitals) and think about your goals.

Research the location before making definite plans. Although you can't predict everything that will happen, there are health and safety risks that come with any overseas travel, regardless of where you go. Find a volunteer organisation to help arrange your trip, and make sure they are reputable and legitimate. You don't want to get off the plane and find the organisation doesn't exist.

The cost of volunteering will vary depending on where you want to go and how long you want to stay. Although volunteer organisations are usually not trying to make a profit from you, it's likely you will need to pay for administration charges, living costs, travel expenses and immunisations among other things. You may also need to pay for travel health insurance and visas if the volunteer organisation doesn't cover these.

To find out more information on volunteering, contact Volunteer Service Abroad on (04) 472 5759 or visit www.vsa.org.nz; Global Volunteer Network on (04) 569 9080, www.volunteer.org.nz; and Dev-Zone on (04) 472 9549, www.dev-zone.org.