Day 10: Rebirth

I come to this blog when the need to write and process outweighs the various blocks that get in the way: exhaustion, lack of clarity and sometimes, fear. Still, it remains one of the most honest outlets I have - because though I know that in the coming years my "reality" will continue to change and I may not always think/feel/believe what I do here - in the moment in which I write, it is my utter truth. I bring to this page honesty, and the attempt to document the larger truths that life removed from the world I once knew has brought about.

Often, in the past year, I have felt lost. I have been detached from the clarity of purpose that brought me here. I'm no longer a student, no longer a representative of a global organization, no longer new and that exquisite combination of naivety and total openness to truth. In the past week I have heard myself warn expats contemplating a move to Nairobi with the same callous and arrogant attitude I used to loathe in long-time development professionals. I cringed as I heard the words come out of my mouth.

This remains one of the most challenging parts of a life split between countries, and the general passing of time therein. In a moment, I can indulge in all that I have guarded against - and in another, experience the land and people here as if for the first time.

***
On Tuesday, I drove just 20 minutes from my office to Kiserian, one of many towns in Kenya whose name I've heard countless times, but had yet to visit. As I journeyed up a rock-strewn drive, the Ngong Hills reined on the horizon. The trip followed a few days of rain, and the earth around us had that renewed quality of life springing forth. I could not stop marveling at the view, and the visit got better when reaching our destination. I was visiting the workshop of one of our brass suppliers; a twenty-four year old named Emmanuel. I had not realized that Emmanuel's missing bottom teeth were symptomatic of his Maasai upbringing, nor that he employed a staff of Luo street boys - significant in a culture in which tribe continues to dictate a fair amount of business and community engagement. Emmanuel demonstrated the jerry-rigged furnace and system he and his brother Moses use to melt old brass fixtures in order to recycle them into jewelry. I filmed Emmanuel's hands as he sifted the sand and molasses he uses to cast metal into jewelry pieces - including the starfish his workshop is making for a special Mother's day order for Sasa Designs. Amidst the back drop of one of Kenya's most famous landscapes, a handful of people are making their way and creating the best quality brass pieces I've found here yet.

Before we left, Moses asked me if I have hiked the Ngong Hills - I told him I had years ago when my best friend visited. He is a well-known guide of the area, and he quickly ran inside to give me a copy of the wild flower book he provided consultation on for the hills, proud to point out his picture and name in the authors' listing. Like his brother, he exudes generosity - somehow sensing the poverty of spirit that can plague even those who represent wealth in this country still fighting the ravages of poverty.

One our way back from Kiserian, Emmanuel told me about his years as a moran, the time in which he lived in the forest with other Masai youth in order to learn how to be a warrior. Emmanuel is soft spoken and delicate, yet he came alive as he talked about how each of the youth had to hold the lion's tale before it was wounded, before they killed it. It is illegal for the Masai to kill a lion anymore as a right of passage, but as a group they participated in this ritual - also staring it in the face as part of the process. In a dusty and borrowed SUV, I dodged potholes and thought of the danger I am so frequently aware of in Kenya while listening to one who has looked a lion in the eyes and lived to tell the tale.

As we drove, my phone rang for the fifth time that day, flashing the name, "Daniel Doc." Daniel has been saved in my phone for years that way - the "doc" referencing the fact that when I met him he was recovering from being hit by a car, and asked for assistance in paying his medical bills for the leg surgery that was not healing correctly. Daniel has no hands.

***
The day before I met Daniel roughly four years ago, I had made an internal decision that it was time to learn to say "no." For the majority of my life in Kenya, I have received requests for assistance on a daily basis. When the phone doesn't ring, the silence is peppered with the small hands that greet my window and many of the intersections that any daily commute entails. When indirect, the request is still there in the faded folds of kangas draped around babies on the backs of mothers who trek into town to beg. As I hear in the U.S., "they only want to buy booze," here the talk is of women who make more in a day begging than they would at an honest day's work. Somehow the blank stares and the rare conjured smile belay this suggestion.

So I told myself I couldn't afford to keep saying yes - no matter how small the pittance I offered was. I was a student of Development after all, these small fixes were only perpetuating a culture of charity and reliance - they failed to honor or empower the people they were meant to help. A piece of me still strongly believes this.

But on the day I met Daniel, I felt as if my quiet identity as a believer was being shaken to its roots. For here stood a man with no hands, reaching out nonetheless, asking for help. In what world could I justify saying no?

Thus began years of raising money, identifying lawyers to help him plead his case, providing school fees (both via my Rotary club) to help him learn how to use a prosthetic provided by another supporter, and more recently, support for his daughter's college diploma fees. Throughout the experience I've grown weary of working with Daniel, impatient of his inability to look beyond the day's needs - wary of his insistence that he has a plan to have a farm and earn his own money if only I can give him what he needs today.

When his daughter, Dorothy, started asking for money something didn't sit well. Her requests were always urgent - always exceptionally pleading - and often, when I first responded with "I do not have anything to give right now," followed up by what became a common phrase, "I won't ask you again." All of these requests came in extremely crudely typed English, discouraging to someone who has made peace with the fact that I can't help everyone - but the brightest students deserve help the most.

In her last request I received the following text, amongst others:

"plz just save my future."

Does this not get to the root of the reality of poverty? Here I am spending years trying to learn how to say no in order to in some way compensate for a career path that invokes a fear of ending up penniless and alone - and this young girl is literally begging for the money to take her final exams.

There are no words to describe how much I loathe being in this situation. To represent wealth, to be a vehicle for wealth thanks to the generosity of family, friends and my extended community who entrust me with donations to dole out to those in need. Years ago I had the only proper fight I've had with one of my best friends about the merits of giving to homeless people on the street. I maintained that it wasn't about changing their lives - they may very well spend that $.50 on booze and cigarettes. But who am I to play God? Who am I to question in that moment of passing them how they'll spend the few coins I deign to offer? Now, these many years later, I question constantly - even those who I have known for years and count as my local family. The weight of holding these precious funds too small to go around is ever heavy on my heart.

***
Today, a colleague shared the following verse, and told me that I was on her heart when she read it.

"Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” Daniel 4:27

She told me that she sees me working to serve the poor, and she wanted to encourage me in this work. What an honor, and yet what further need to somehow document how hard this continues to be for me. And I cannot say how hard this is, as if it is definitive and universal. I truly believe there are saints on earth who find service to be far more natural, and far less complex, than my path has become. 

Yesterday, I finally picked up one of Daniel's calls. He asked how I was and told me the place he stayed in the slum had been damaged in the rains. He asked for help paying for a new place, and as my anxiety grew I told him I don't have anything to help him with. This is a half-truth. I do not have enough money to support this and get through the month based on my salary, but though my time in Africa has greatly dipped into my savings, I still have some left. While I am scrambling to figure out how to increase my income, the reality is if I needed to - I could give Daniel a little money. But where does it stop? And how do I create a life for myself alongside a life as the person who will always pick up the phone, even if I put it off - even if I don't talk nicely once I answer?

Many of these thoughts spilled out after my colleague shared Daniel 4:27 and Isaiah 58:10-11. Her moment of encouragement turned into that subtle scratch of only a thin-layer of surface skin, giving way to the anxiety and battle life in Kenya has become for me each time the request comes.

***
After we'd talked for awhile, she told me the story of a Kenyan friend of hers who was recently walking through downtown Nairobi and passed a mother begging with a crying child beside her. "Mama, why can't you take your baby out of the sun? Can't you see she is crying?" she asked. The mother moved the baby, but the crying continued. "Mama, are you hungry?" She walked to buy bread and milk, returning and giving them to the woman and her baby. The crying continued and the woman noticed that the baby had a very soiled diaper. Weary and starting to feel frustrated as she was in a rush, she still went to a local shop and bought diapers and baby wipes. Returning, she changed the child's diaper and said goodbye to the mother as she returned the baby to her arms.

As she walked away, a man tapped her arm and said to her, "It has been a long time since I have seen God. But I saw God today."

Day 11: Stillness

I spent today luxuriating in an empty and solitary house. I enjoyed every moment - which I mention only because I spend a large amount of energy avoiding this very scenario. I'm not someone who typically enjoys long periods of time alone. More often than not, I'd rather wrap my schedule around the workings of friends and family than start a day based solely on the demands of my own body and soul.

In the wake of yet another trip across the Atlantic, this weekend has been a welcome time to let my body and brain ease back into my ever-evolving Nairobi life. Last night as I sat in a taxi, skirting downtown Nairobi and climbing the newly finished road to Westlands, I felt like I was experiencing the city as a stranger does. Somehow the result of my pattern of movement between two continents and multiple homes has unsettled the sense I briefly had of "knowing" this place. Relationships aside, my surroundings feel strangely foreign and I find myself retreating indoors in a vague need to distance myself from the spectrum I know this town to be.

This afternoon I sat on the balcony reading in the locked-in warmth of late afternoon sun. My muscles tingled from doing laps as they gradually relaxed into stillness, and I felt for a moment like I was at my family cabin in the mountains (one of of the few places in which I know how to simply relax and let the day be). In the approaching twilight I realized my profound need to rest and gather myself against the raging competition of need that is infinitely presented by the outside world - different here than there, but existing, above all.

When I am exhausted or brave enough to let this stillness in, it almost always results in a need to write. Thus now I find myself comparing my pin-prick on the universe life to that of this grand country I have crept in and out of for the past five years.

For tomorrow, Kenya votes.

We, the people who live here (if not all who will actually cast a vote) have stocked our pantries and fridges, stored up on phone credit and cash and determined to stay home until word is given that all is well. We sense that the next few days are likely to be calm, but that the chance of a runoff means we will repeat this preparation a month from now as the two main candidates go head to head.

In the quiet simplicity of my last two days, I realize that this election is just like an individual life. It is full of earnest proclamations and damning critiques aimed at limbs dangling from the same gangly body. It is drenched in sound and energy, in the pulsing of the promise that victory will surely propel the body forward, away from its demons and into the next frontier. Perhaps such victories will ring true, but (as in most places) the most innovative thinkers don't seem to stand a chance. Surely, the status quo will reign - and as such, the whole country may erupt in havoc for a time.

While I hope this is not the case, I have to remember that should all hell break loose in this election cycle, it will inevitably find its way back to the stillness I stumbled upon this weekend. For in this moment I am reminded that the utter exuberance (and sometimes agonizing confusion) of my life between two countries boils down to a basic path of learning bit by bit what it means to be human. As an individual I need to understand this in order to know my role in the larger world. More often than not, I need it to simply make peace with the soul I wake up with and put to sleep each and day.

If Kenya is not yet ready to align with the best interests of its people, to unify as a nation and not as a collection of tribes - it surely will be someday. For just as any individual must recognize, there comes a time when whatever distractions or challenges set give way to basic need. The body must be nurtured, fed, rested and relaxed. It must learn to listen to its deepest longings and guard against the banter when it threatens to drown its unique cadence. There is true humanity and identity in this stillness. I pray that both Kenya, and I, can find it.

Evening comes, as does the dawn

When I returned to Kenya last week, a few people from my community sent notes reminding me to write...“Travel safe and keep writing!” I marvel at how gracious people are given my lack of posts in recent years - they still encourage me, and act as if writing is still something I do frequently.

The truth is, it is harder and harder to write. Often, it’s because there is not time. Perhaps more than that, it’s because there’s no brain space: no room for inspiration - just for rest in preparation for the next day and all that must be tackled.

Sometimes it’s utterly due to life in Kenya. Sometimes it’s not Kenya at all, it’s just me, my baggage, my journey. And sometimes it gets too personal, which is funny, because historically it had to be – it was the only damn way to tell the story honestly.

Mostly it’s just exhaustion that has no equal and no sense. What did I do today? I took an early taxi to work and cooked dinner for a friend and her family. But the day came full of tragic news from friends at home, sore knees from yesterday’s stumble and cockroaches hell bent on keeping my heart pounding. As simple a day as any, and yet each hint of a breeze or brush against a piece of string sent me leaping for certain a dirt-brown creature was upon me. That anxiety accompanied the day's ordinariness, so that tonight just five days in I’m exhausted. So strange after a rejuvenating dinner that the nightly crash from balancing the blend of inspiration and excitement and its counter of anxiety and fear of failure still comes.  

I’ve done enough work in the last year to know that no dream is realized without confronting this fear. I know that discomfort is the companion of opportunity and growth, that success can mean pushing through unbearable doubt and loneliness. So I’m doing it, and loving so many of the moments therein. I feel blessed and fulfilled so much of the time – and I share that in the small ways I can since I rarely can do so in longer thoughts on the page. But the personal, and the honesty and the damn-it-all remains. Tonight, I guess I need to share that here. Like the ache of muscles after a brilliant workout, the struggle is sweet - yet still a struggle.

In which I make a meager metaphor

It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one ever that this summer has been busy. Busy in the best of ways - new experiences, new people, new challenges. I have felt more in my element at times than I have in ages: healthy, energized, inspired and in awe of the world around me. The transition to life in LA was relatively seamless - I have dear friends here, I walked into an incredible fellowship right away and I landed in the most beautiful, vista-enshrouded home with amiable housemates and a mattress that didn't send my back into spasms (as moves often do). Perhaps most importantly, I have been living right next to downtown (where my office is) so of all the places in the world, LA has provided the easiest commute I've just about ever had.

Partially as a result of said absent commute, I haven't got my bearings yet with the freeways. Though I've talked "big talk" about relignquishing my reliance on Google Maps, I continue to enter my destination point each time I get in the car, and attempt to use it to navigate as I drive. Somehow, this tool is proving less and less helpful. In the last day I've missed approximately 7 exits (no exageration) and often found myself headed directly out of town as I attempt to get to the center of it.

At each of these moments, when I've managed to pry my eyes away from the road directly ahead or the tiny map I'm clinging to, I can often see where I'm meant to be going quite clearly (hard to miss a looming metropolis as it fills your left-hand window). When I manage to glance up and gather my bearings from the utterly obvious markers (ocean/mountains/city), I'm reminded that I know this place better than it feels like I do. I've also been here for long enough to have a sense of where I am the vast majority of the time - so why is it so hard to let go of the prescribed directions and trust my intuition?

ARE YOU GETTING MY METAPHOR!?!

Every glorious experience these days seems to remind me why letting go of the highlighted path in favor of one's growing knowledge of self, desires and strengths is the ONLY way to get where you actually need to be. I've spent over an hour in the last two days (days that started early on little sleep and ended late - in short, days in which I had no time or energy to spare) trying to follow prescribed paths that ultimately led me away from where I was going. These detours increased my frustration and fatigue while delaying the nourishment and rest that awaited me at home. Had I looked up (driving) or looked inward (life in general), I probably would have arrived much sooner and saved myself quite a bit of money (driving) and anxiety (life in general).

So there it is: a Google Maps take on GETTING THERE, whether by way of a Subaru station-wagon or, in the larger context, by those tugs of intuition that result from doing the work/exploration/growing that teach you what path you're on. Because really, there's no short cut to get where you're going - but you certainly don't have to drive in circles just for the hell of it.

Words + pictures + patience = story

I've started my summer fellowship, and as we gear up and share our history and leadership stories with our cohort, I've had some time to reflect on this journey.

If I could have presented my life as I'm currently living it to the "temporarily brave" me that left my job back in 2007, I never would have believed what was in store. How many people get to realize what was once a timid dream? I feel blessed, constantly.

At the same time (and perhaps even more so) the practice of being my best self has never been harder. The momentum of opportunity, the reality of doors opening can sometimes propel you forward while at the same time threaten to stretch and pull your limbs just a little too taught.

Yesterday, while listening to an 83 year-old former school district superintendent/Governor/flight instructor/John Deere salesman talk with passion about how to better educate children, I was reminded of a core identity I've discovered and taken solice in on this path.

I am a story teller.

So why has storytelling been so hard now that I am running a business that has such a profound story to tell? Oh how I've struggled to get the words out lately! I set goals, I set aside time - and yet the message is lost in the transatlantic flights, the hustle to pay the bills, the seemingly never-ending packing and unpacking of bags. I have been increasingly fearful that my words, my energy and my passion will be lost in the heartache of changing times and the growing feeling that I'm more of a permanent observer than a central character in the paradigm I come from.

But, as it often does, the dawn begins to break gently. In the past few days I've been reminded that perhaps the loneliness and often completely oppressive sense of belonging nowhere and everywhere at the same time might trace to my detachment from this core knowledge of who I'm meant to be. Once again, there is a trickle of hope that I'll find the voice and energy to get the words out.

Some of these words need to be committed to fundraising letters and raising support to make a return to Kenya a reality. Some of these words can begin to compliment the images that have flowed in their absence to keep some small piece of my storyteller going in the midst of defining these new roles and opportunities. Many of these words need to be shared for those who have no voice, for the women of Sasa Designs and the countless others they represent.

To all ends, as I sat down to write tonight I stumbled upon a neat way to share some of the photography I've snapped using instagram in the last year. Take a look, and perhaps consider ordering some cards or a print? I get a small portion from each purchase - and you can have a visual reminder of the journey I am so privileged to share with a truly international and utterly inspiring community.

Click here to see what I'm talking about - and please feel free to email me at meganmacdon AT gmail DOT com if you have any questions.

Asante sana for the space to share these thoughts and hopes for the continued support to tell the stories I am discovering along the way.

Did you know "sasa" also means "what's up?"

I suppose when you stop blogging regularly, it serves you right that your blog platform ups and changes itself - making the very process of writing a post wildly discombobulating. All that aside - I did do some writing recently - although as usual, it is somewhere else. For those who aren't on Facebook and availed to my numerous posts, please take a look at why the work we are doing at Sasa Designs by the Deaf is so important: The Roots of Sasa Designs. I continue to marvel at this winding path my life is on - it delivers the most INCREDIBLE opportunities to learn and serve, time and time again.

I must also take the opportunity to share another link, one that is not quite as easy to throw out there - but one by which this work is made possible. Yes folks, it is true - I am officially an economic development specialist in a missionary's clothing. I am still more tempted to call myself the "mission-not" - it just has such a nice ring to it... Still, the reality is, I'm doing this work because I feel called to do so, and I don't for a second doubt that God made this happen. My experience in Kenya, my renewed passion for empowering these amazing women and my propensity for living out of a suitcase with a swarm of june bugs to keep me company at night (wait, what?) compel me to this work. If you are able to help support my work, you will find the opportunity to do so right here. I'm working on a newsletter, but the reality is there aren't enough hours in the day to build this business and pursue my own support - I suppose that's where faith comes in!

I also want to mention that I will be working in the states this summer, thanks to a fellowship that I also hope will help raise funds for my work here. I'll share more about that once my placement is finalized - it's going to be a BUSY summer indeed!

Mom and I get our SASA on!

Stay tuned for a return to normal blog programming (as in highly sporadic, soul-searching observations about humanity) soon!

The start of my summit list

I took some time in Ghana to reflect on my life thus far as I began to chart next steps. One night I was thinking about all the beautiful moments I've had around the world, and how thankful I am for a collection of memories that surpass any photograph I could have taken. I started to write them down and I look forward to adding to this list as memories resurface and new experiences are had. I am calling this my "summit" list in tribute to the beautiful vista each of these moments offered.

• Cuban cigars on the coast of the Mediterranean with my brothers.
• Watching the 2010 world cup in Kenya.
• Starting alone, ending amongst friends hiking through Cappadocia.
• Singing in the Sistine Chapel (I have never been so certain of God’s presence).
• Watching my mom talk to sheep in the Scottish highlands with my Dad and nephew.
• Walking through a soft layer of snow in Red Square late at night after the ballet.
• Fireflies on the evacuation path during a tsunami warning in Vladivastok.
• Bioluminescence that looked like diamonds on a nighttime dhow ride in Lamu.
• Trekking the Routeburn with my siblings.
• Arriving at my destination after my first solo roadtrip in South Africa just as the sunset behind the mountains.
• My first salsa lesson in Costa Rica.
• Hiking in to my family cabin with my best friends in the middle of the night.
• Getting stuck behind an elephant in Amboseli.
• Arriving at sunset in Ithala.
• That first cold coke in Tanzania.
• Squid hunting in Corona del Mar.
• Pear icecream on a solo walk in Paris.
• Singing with my cousins in a Gondola at Christmas.
• My first leisurely walk through an African city at night in Accra.
• Laguna de Apoyo.
• Dancing at Mar y Sombre.
• Carmel beach at sunset with family.
• Running in Rongai.
• Bela's birth.
• Cracked crab at my grandparents table.
• Trying to leap over a rafter in Zurich.
• That moment when I held a baby, sat next to a teenager and comforted a dying child.
• Root beer floats in a half-built house in the Oakland hills.
• Stargazing in the middle of a high school football field.
• Yoga on the beach on Christmas day.
• Dancing with wild abandon in Accra.
• Watching the sun set from my surf board at Old Man’s.
• Napping with my nephew in Moscow.
• Walks with my nephew in Berkeley.
• A surprise birthday party in the middle of a ski hill.
• New years, champagne, a hot tub and friends.
• Ice skating through Gorky Park.
• Singing the national anthem as we landed after every choir tour.
• My dad's solo singing tribute to the MacDonalds at Glencoe.
• Snowball fights in Nkandla on the morning I left Sizanani center.