There she goes

The start of my summit list

2012-02-09T00:34:00.001-08:00

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.

Here and there

2012-02-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

I want to share some posts from a few sites I've had the pleasure of writing for recently. The first is a post prepared for Vittana about the research my colleague and I conducted leading up to the launch of Opportunity International's first micro-loan for higher education. I am still "high" on the experience of getting to dive into the education arena. As my work continues to evolve, I come back to education over and over. Sometimes, it's a step removed (as in my current work, which focuses on empowering women...who in turn ensure their children go to school), but it's always at the core. Development policy and practice is crazy complex to say the least - but if you measure your returns based on quality of life, opportunity and equality - there is no better priority than education at every level.

Read about a day in my life with Opportunity International Ghana and Vittana here.

The second set of posts are for Go Girl Magazine - a site I learned about after connecting with an amazing group of women following a bid for a spot as a blogger on a trip to Kenya with Vestergaard Frandsend last summer. I wasn't chosen for the trip, but the organizers put all the applicants in touch via a google group, which led me to Go Girl (coincidently, the founder/editor had recently started working at the Rotary Foundation - go figure!). Besides a monthly writing gig, the group also led to a new friend in Kenya named Georgia, who I got to meet in person back in October. Georgia works in PR and when we met for lunch in downtown Nairobi, I had my dear friend Maggie with me. Quick to recognize a promising young woman, Georgia has taken Maggie under her wing and even hired her to help with a few of her work events. Maggie finished high school last year, but does not have the funds to attend university, thus Georgia's mentorship and friendship has been that much more appreciated. All this to say that writing for Go Girl is just a piece of an ever-unfolding story and a reminder of how powerful online communities and connections can be.

You can see my posts for Go Girl here (start from the bottom). I write about my quest to find and embrace "home" wherever I am.

I will be resuming my 30 days of Asante posts soon - now that I am back in the land that reminds me to say THANK YOU every day, no matter what.

With each OPPORTUNITY, a new DOOR opens

2012-01-17T01:40:00.000-08:00

When I tell people about the last five years of my life, I always say that once I was brave enough to step away from my current reality and say out loud, "I want to go back to Africa," door after door flew open. All these years later, metaphor becomes reality. I recently began a 4-month contract with Door International, a mission-based organization that serves the deaf community around the world.

One of our artisans, Anna.

I have long been drawn to any service provided to people with physical disabilities in the developing world. The longer I live in this context, the more aware I am of people unfairly ascribed to lives of isolation, humiliation, dependency and general dehumanization as a result of some physical ailment outside of their control (often the result of poverty and the lack of immunizations or poor healthcare in general). A few weeks before I finished my fellowship with Vittana working at Opportunity International in Ghana, I received a job posting from a friend in Nairobi for a Business Manager position. Door had been looking at social business opportunities to provide jobs for the deaf and raise funds for their programs. Having worked with a jewelry consultant that specializes in helping non-profits start businesses, the program had been launched, but needed someone on the ground to develop a local supply chain, navigate shipping and customs issues, take over wholesale and retail responsibilities and oversee the artisans directly. I threw my hat in the ring, another in a long line of steps taken in faith that if it was meant to be, it would.

Winnie, one of our artisans wearing the "Her time to shine" Onyx Necklace.

A few weeks later - here I am! I'll be working with Sasa Designs and helping market our organic farm through the beginning of May, at which point we will review our progress and whether the business can support me working full time or if I am able to raise my own support (I tell you, I didn't see life as a prospective missionary coming - funny where God puts you!). For now, I'm diving in, getting up to speed and learning sign language as fast as I can. And yes, I'm still working on my thesis, which is of course directly tied to this work in the first place. A door opens and things come full circle once again...stay tuned!

One of our artisans, Rose.

All photos by my colleague Whitney Simons.

Sit back and take it all in

2011-12-03T03:00:00.000-08:00

Just a little reminder of how awesome this universe is.

World Aids Day: In Rememberance

2011-12-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on April 18, 2007 while living in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa:

“There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens the pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and child bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.”

-From Alan Paton's 'Cry the Beloved Country'

What is the meaning of a world where you welcome death for a child because it means the end of suffering - the end of knowing your mother has left you, of feeling too weak to play the games of the children around you, of finding the strength only to cry?

This is the face of AIDS in Africa. Of a child who came three weeks ago and whom I mistook for shy. A child who came in clean and pressed clothes and bright white tennis shoes that swallowed her stick-like legs.

“On admission to the center the child looked malnourished with very thin legs and arms and sunken eyes. According to the grandmother she does not like food, has diarrhea with blood, sweats at night and is restless.”

Her cries were the first I heard here – I went to investigate once when they seemed as though they’d never stop. And even with an arm around her bony back and her head on my knee, they continued. They were cries for which there could be no comfort.

On Saturday we invited her to hit the piñata, and gently took the bat when she broke into tears after one swing. The children shared their candy with her as she held back, as she always did, when they rushed forward to join the excitement.

Two days ago, she went to the hospital for the fifth time this year. She had no stuffed animal for comfort, it was insisted that anything of the sort provided would quickly be stolen in the night. Sister visited her and said she was worried. This morning the prognosis was better – she was smiling and talking to the nurse on duty. When Sister returned to see her after supper she was told she died in the afternoon. We learned her CD4 count this morning, it was 3.

I did not know her before I came here, nor any like her. She existed only in theory, in a far off land where the virus that killed her raged out of control. Then I came to Nkandla and I learned her name. I held her, I watched her, I worried after her and I got to know as much as I could of the shell that remained after three years of constant pain and illness.

Now I introduce her to you for this is all I can do – to offer a face and a name to that which we think we cannot know. This was Lindokuhle. From here on out, may this plague be considered a stranger no more.

In honor of World Aids Day, please consider contributing to The Africa Project, still hard at work with the Nardini Sisters in Nkandla.

Day 12: Tribe

2011-11-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

The West African Sankofa

"Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi."

"It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten"

I have never been the most patriotic of Americans. This has very little to do with what it means to be American, and more to do with how I see the world. I don't imagine I'd be any more gung-ho to be Canadian, British or Kenyan for that matter. To me, nationality is a crap shoot. Given the absence of my ink on the constitution, I don't feel a personal claim to what makes this country great/not great beyond my daily actions to support the good things therein. I cherish parts of our foundation and the subsequent (and continued) evolution of human rights that I hold dear - most notable among these, equality. But for me, the significance of country or citizenship is moot - we are born into a sliding scale of humanity, with some countries inevitably further along than others. I believe as individuals we are defined by our actions, not by our birth.

As a white, middle-class American growing up, I was often envious of friends whose culture or ethnicity offered prescribed values and practices that could be publicly acknowledged as such. Sometimes, such distinctions were painful, as when a friend told me at our 8th grade graduation she'd have to prioritize her Korean friends in high school out of respect for her family. Mostly, it was something that I felt a vague separation from - I just didn't have anything like ethnicity to identify with. What I did have was a close extended family with deep traditions tied to singing very specific family songs in treasured family spaces. As I grew, I came to identify these things as the unique culture I could claim as my own. Still, this was a small circle in comparison to the ethnic labels other communities could claim.

Over the years, such perspectives and experiences (coupled with a move from my child hood home and immersion into a variety of unfamiliar communities in high school and college), cultivated a deep sense of responsibility to be firmly independent. Not only did I want to avoid being a burden to anyone, I didn't want to need anyone: success meant being able to take care of myself. I vowed to never test whether I had the sort of safety net ethnicity and tribe can often provide in case, quite simply, it wasn't there (mind you this wasn't based on any lack of family support - my family is beyond generous).

When I talk about how my time in Africa has become a simple experience in humanity far more than a lesson in what's wrong with the countries that combine to make up this awe-inspiring continent, I mean it. Removing myself from my own communal framework and stepping away from this naive attempt to be "independent," helped me to see the value in identifying with a group. By stripping away years of politically correct conditioning and my personal feelings of exclusion, I started to understand (if not always totally agree with), how important it can be for someone to say with total confidence, "I am a [INSERT TRIBE/NATIONALITY/SELF-IDENTIFIER HERE]." While tribalism has many negative and potentially dangerous sides in any culture or context, I can now see how the gift of belonging can be critical to identity. Before, I felt any firm "I am" statement was laden with the potential to exclude or judge anyone else who might not be from the same "I am."

This Thanksgiving will be the fourth I have spent abroad, away from my tribe. In honor of this day, I'm resuming my "30 Days of Asante" posts and taking a moment to be thankful for learning that independence is often over-rated. I have been adopted by many cultures at this point, welcomed in and made to feel like I belong. I have also learned just how critical my sense of identity as an American...a Californian...a MacDonald or a Daniels, etc., is. While I'll never focus on the idea that one "I am" is any better than another "I am," I remain more and more thankful for my growing ability to identify in some way as a member of a larger group. Over the past year I have been overwhelmingly supported by my tribe of family and friends, all of whom have helped me let go of any presumption that I could exist, survive or thrive without the love, support and companionship of those who share my roots and history. Somehow, understanding this makes venturing out into the world in all its diversity, pain and splendor that much sweeter.

For this, I am thankful.

Here today...gone to Ghana!

2011-10-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

When I returned to the U.S. last year, I did so with a desire to promote access to education in the developing world. All my time abroad, all my studies and work experience to that point suggested that the fight against poverty is best served by getting kids into school - and more specifically, college.

In the developing world, most curriculum and pedagogy are based on wrote memorization. Students rise hours before dawn, drawing close to kerosene lamps to churn through unfathomable amounts of information. All this is done to reach an academic climax at the end of high school that determines whether they will be one of the fortunate few to gain access to government universities. Of the 300 thousand or so Kenyan students who sat exams last year, only the top 3% gained admission to the University of Nairobi system with a government bursary. An additional 3% or so will attend by paying their own fees, and another 3% or so will attend private universities. The rest? Their formal education and all the opportunities it might offer, end there. This situation and the staggering numbers of hardworking students it leaves behind is replicated across the developing world.

What this means is that many people in the developing world never get to engage or participate in an education that promotes critical thinking, problem solving or comprehensive analysis. American teachers struggle to do this in overfilled classrooms with limited resources - imagine what a rarely paid rural teacher faces with 60 students, no books and a small blackboard (often without any chalk?). Getting kids to college means they might learn how to think critically, to challenge the problems around them - to actively engage in changing their circumstances, both personally and in their community beyond.

I shared these thoughts last year from the Bay Area to Seattle with anyone and everyone I could, along with the ideas I was starting to mull over for addressing this challenge. Little did I know that a model similar to one I was dreaming up already existed – and in Seattle, no less! Which brings me to my current "geotag" in Accra, Ghana, and a 3-month fellowship with a non-profit called Vittana.

Vittana is based on the Kiva-popularized model of micro credit, often practiced with small business owners and entrepreneurs in the developing world. By providing access to previously unavailable capital, people from Bangladesh to Peru are moving beyond day-to-day, subsistence living and gradually breaking the shackles of poverty. There have been challenges, to be sure, but as my recent visit to a group of borrowers showed me, the “poor” can be reliable “investments” who are exceedingly capable of paying it forward in the form of education for their children and greater community involvement and economic engagement as a whle.

Vittana’s founder, Kushal Chakrabarti, realized this model could be used with students as well – providing access to funds to pay for school fees – especially when a lack of fees was threatening to force a student to drop out of college just a semester or two shy of a degree. Vittana was launched and in the past few months has gone from working in 8 countries to partnering with 19 local micro finance institutions (MFIs) in 12 countries.

Click here for an easy break down of how Vittana works. My role as a fellow in Ghana involves doing the market research that determines the feasibility and scope of a potential loan product, and then helping build and launch this new product with our partner. My fellow colleague and I are working with one of Ghana's largest MFIs to create a loan program that addresses student's needs in the Ghanaian context - a challenge given mandatory national service after college and high unemployment rates. It is a lot of work in a totally new country, but each time I meet a student and see the "hustle" they go through to get through university, I'm inspired.

I believe deeply in the interconnectedness of international communities, and ensuring citizens throughout one of the most booming continents (6 out of 10 of the fastest growing economies in the last decade are in sub-Saharan Africa) are equipped with the tools they need to support this growth. I am so excited by the idea of helping students stay in the programs they've worked so hard to access that I'm doing this work on an almost exclusively volunteer basis (fellows just get a small stipend to help with travel costs).

If you are interested in supporting Vittana's mission, please consider visiting the website and picking a student - it's that simple. Just think - with a few clicks you can cross "help someone go to college" off your bucket list and even get the money back when they're done. I'll let you know when our first Ghanaian students are on the site - until then, I hope you can find a student that shares an interest or a goal that might resonate with your own story.

It’s an honor and privilege to do this work – to sink my teeth into the arena that my studies and experiences show me is the most critical support we can provide to the developing world by working to increase access to education for future leaders. These are the people who will take responsibility for their communities. Please join me in supporting them.

Vittana borrower Hend Hamdan from Jordan
Studying to be an environmental engineer

Fun with instagram

2011-10-27T01:47:00.000-07:00

Though I have a novel of a post in the works, these days I regret I don't have as much time or bandwidth to blog properly. I am posting lots of pics to Facebook and Twitter - make sure to friend/follow me if these are your cup of tea. If not, here are a few of the pics I've posted via Instagram of life in Accra, as it passes by. Instagram is an iphone app that let's you easily enhance photos with various filters. It's fun to use and a quick way to share!

My morning commute (usually with a lot more traffic)

The building next door to my office

The shooting range near my colleague's house where army training occurs

Remnants of colonialism

The name says it all

Cape Coast drama

Shells to remember Ghana by

Here today, gone to Ghana...

2011-10-18T03:03:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to write for awhile and explain what the heck I'm doing in West Africa. I promise to soon - until then, enjoy a little glimpse of traditional life. This is how fufu (a mixture of ground cassava, yam and sometimes plantains) is traditionally made. I took this video just before I had my first fufu, which is sadly too spicy for my taste!

It certainly helps understand the mentality behind this billboard for instant fufu!

Apliiq + Rising + Bombolulu has launched!

2011-08-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

I know I introduced this project a couple posts back, but the formal collaboration has launched on Apliiq's site. While you can still design your own pieces, Apliiq has put together a "Rising Collection" and is sharing more about Rising and Bombolulu with their Apliiq community. Please visit the Apliiq site to learn more about the partnership, and then, get your shop on! Thank you for supporting two organizations near and dear to my heart.

From the horse's mouth

2011-07-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've never been close to a refugee camp or a major famine, but I've seen my share of distended bellies and red-tipped hair since 2007 and my time in Kwa Zulu Natal. It explains what anyone who has dined with me in recent years can attest to - a near neurotic attempts to skirt wasting food. I've always loved left overs, but these days it's harder and harder to justify the copious portions offered in so many American eateries when I've seen how quickly a bag of beans can go.

The truth is, there are children starving in Africa...moms, dads and lone survivors too. And while taking food home after a meal helps me assuage the guilt of always having too much - it does nothing to address this reality. Thankfully, there are things that can be done.

I've been posting links to the World Food Programme on Twitter and Facebook because it's the best thing I know how to do. Still, I sense that like me, many will resist donating at first - because aren't there always starving children in Africa? I mean there have been since our moms first started making us eat all our peas, right?

The answer is yes, and no. Yes, the continent remains plagued by food insecurity and many nations are especially drought-prone and under-developed. But as a far more practiced and insightful development blogger notes, these are no longer death sentences when the rains fail to come. As Owen points out, Ethiopia (perhaps the most famous of dinner-table references) is weathering this drought ok, thanks to infrastructure and a safety-net system set up by their government with international assistance.

So lest we be tempted to hold back support for fear that there's nothing we can do but accept that countries like Somalia just drew the short straw in the allocation of natural resources, we cannot. Right now, in the horror of a true humanitarian crisis, we can send money to feed people that are starving.

Please do. And if you're not going to take that leftover pasta home with you, I'll be happy to.

Global threads

2011-07-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

I've been involved with Rising International for a number of years. It's a group that buys artisan crafts from around the world and sells them in home party settings. Anyone who has been to a Rising party can tell you how magical they are. Often a woman from one of the countries where the crafts are made will speak about her experiences back home and what it's like to give birth, raise children or try to make a living in an underdeveloped and often poverty stricken country. With clarity and poise she will tell her story to a room full of strangers, and by the end she is amongst friends. Women empowering and educating each other - it's a beautiful mission.

A few months ago Rising partnered with Apliiq, a creative clothing company based in L.A. that lets buyers customize cozy sweatshirts, lightweight tops, dresses, hats and bags with amazing fabrics from around the world. A portion of sales from certain designs benefit various non-profits, including Rising. I worked with Rising to source these fabrics from one of the groups I worked with in Kenya and am so excited to see them on the site!

Bombolulu Workshops work with disabled people from around Kenya to provide jobs and skills training. Visit Apliiq's fabric section under the ethnic category and see three fabrics from Bombolulu's workshop in Mombasa:
Rising, Kenya Krew and Bombolulu Blast. You can customize a piece with any of these fabrics and know that Bombolulu and Rising will benefit from your purchase. I warn you - it's addicting!

Here's one I put together:

And a couple others for inspiration...

Seriously - the possibilities are endless! Treat yourself to a fun, ethically sourced and sweatshop free goodie and support Rising and Bombolulu along the way.* Remember - look for the fabrics Rising, Kenya Krew and Bombolulu Blast. Make sure to send me a picture of what you create - I'd love to see it!

*My inner copywriter can't help but make an appearance in this post.

When moments collide

2011-06-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

In today's gloaming hour I stepped outside a stranger's house and breathed in the scent of trusted northern Californian soil. The fragrance in the stillness of twilight was the same as the dirt and field and gravel that surrounds my home, and I paused in the comfort of such familiarity. A moment passed and I envisioned a future hour of soft and setting sun when I would stand a continent away and find resonance in the wind's same carried notes.

All my life I have packaged moments and memories in one of two ways - through scent or through sound. I have chronicled years of my life in curated soundtracks, able to return to an emotion or event with just a few notes. But it is smell that grounds me, scent that tells me whether I have truly opened my heart to a place.

Tonight I attended a fundraiser for a small non-profit whose founder, Kat, approached me last fall looking for a Kenyan organization to sponsor. She had already started raising money for children in need after visiting South Africa and Kenya in recent years, and was looking for a trusted organization to begin building a partnership with. I provided a list of about six groups I'd worked with or visited during my time in Kenya, and she selected The International Peace Initiative (IPI) in Meru after interviewing them all. IPI's founder and director, Dr. Karambu Ringera, started the home to demonstrate to her neighbors that AIDS orphans can be a resource to their community and deserve to be supported as such.

At least two years after I visited IPI in Meru to learn about a program designed to empower orphans, I shared about the place they call home with a group of people joined together tonight to raise support for these kids. The funds raised will help build a pig pen that will provide sustainable income for IPI, helping house more orphans and growing their impact in the community. One small project, by one small non-profit, based on one small trip over two years ago.

So there I stood, grounded in the scent of home while the evening's event wove it together with the far off soils of a place that also claims me. These are the moments in which I trust my path explicitly. Mungu yu nami.

To read more about IPI's vision, take a look at this article by founder Dr. Karambu Ringera in World Pulse Magazine. I am helping Solid Ground for Africa plan a visit to the project next summer - let me know if you'd like to join!

Hunger

2011-04-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time these days trying to find peace...peace with personal choices, peace with other's choices, peace at the point of decision, peace as I reflect on the past. I have enough flux in my own life to sometimes feel peace is infinitely out of reach, and thus the lack of peace in the lives of those I love is sometimes beyond my ability to address. When my own plate is too full to take on the weight of another's, I try instead to send positive energy in their direction by investing good will, time and hope for change wherever I can. This approach led me to spend some time getting to know an organization in Seattle called Recovery Cafe over the past couple of months. Recovery Cafe is a "refuge for healing and transformation," existing to serve people dealing with homelessness, addiction and mental illness. The following piece was shared at an event celebrating the 1 year anniversary of their new space where strength and dignity are found in expertly prepared lattes and volunteer-led art and yoga classes (all of which complement recovery groups and other more traditional programs). It is one of the most beautiful things I've read in quite some time and I post it here as part of this chronicle of my journey to explore humanity and what it means to help and be helped.

Sonnet, with Pride

In 2003, during the Iraq War, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid.

Confused, injured, unexpectedly free, the lions roamed the streets searching for food and safety.

For just a moment, imagine yourself as an Iraqi living in Baghdad. You are running for cover as the bombers, like metal pterodactyls, roar overhead. You are running for cover as some of your fellow citzens, armed and angry, fire rifles, rocket launchers, and mortars into the sky. You are running for cover as people are dying all around you. It’s war, war, war. And imagine yourself as a lion that has never been on a hunt. That has never walked outside of a cage. That has been coddled and fed all its life. And now your world is exploding all around you. It’s war, war, war. And then you turn a corner and see a pride of tanks advancing on you.

It’s ok to laugh. It’s always ok to laugh at tragedy. If lions are capable of laughter, then I’m positive those Baghdad lions were laughing at their predicament. As they watched the city burn and collapse, I’m sure a lioness turned to a lion and said, “So do you still think you’re the King of the Jungle?”

I don’t know if the lions killed anybody as they roamed through the streets.

But I’d guess they were too afraid. I’m sure they could only see humans as zookeepers, not food.

In any case, the starving lions were eventually shot and killed by U.S. soliders on patrol.

It’s a sad and terrible story, yes, but that is war. And war is everywhere. And everywhere, there are prides of starving lions wandering the streets. There are rides of starving lions wandering inside your hearts.

You might also think that I’m using starving lions as a metaphor for homeless folks, but I’m not. Homeless folks have been used as metaphors far too often. I’m using those starving lions as a simple metaphor for hunger. All of our hunger.

Food-hunger. Love-hunger. Faith-hunger. Soul-Hunger.

Who among us has been not hungry? Who among us has not been vulnerable? Who among us has not been a starving lion? Who among us has not been a prey animal? Who among us has not been a predator?

They say God created humans in God’s image. But what if God also created lions in God’s image? What if God created hunger in God’s image? What if God is hunger? Tell me, how do you pray to hunger? How do you ask for hunger’s blessing? How will hunger teach you to forgive? How will hunger teach you how to love?

Look out the window. It’s all hunger and war. Hunger and war. Hunger and war. And the endless pride of lions. The endless pride of lions. Are you going to feed the lions? Are you going to feed the lions? Are you going to feed the lions? Are you going to feed the lions?

- Sherman Alexie, April 14th 2011, Recovery Café Capital Campaign Public Launch Event

It comes around

2011-04-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

On February 11 last year I came home around 10 at night and was grabbing a snack before heading up to bed. Suddenly Maureen came into the kitchen with wide eyes saying, "I think my water just broke." I burst into a fit of nervous giggles before rounding up my housemates and jumping into the car for the two block ride to Nairobi Women's Hospital. Thankfully, Maureen was staying with us for just this reason - a late night drive into Kawangware would have been too dangerous and taxis don't really operate in the area.

I remember the distinct honor I felt to be driving this young woman to the hospital and the great sense of responsibility as we prepared for an event I had no personal experience with. I'll never forget the nurses a few hours later asking me and my housemates how many children we had as we held hands and focused Maureen on breathing through the pain. "None," we said.

Yet there we were, witnesses to a beautiful birth full of strength, faith, friendship and humility. Out of a forceful crime came this perfect little child, born to a girl who became a woman right before our eyes.

On Christabell's first birthday while friends celebrated in Nairobi eating Ethiopian food and cake with the birthday girl, I said a prayer of thankfulness for this experience and continued friendship.

Look at our growing girl - in a dress I wore myself as a baby sent with love from her auntie far away.

Breaking writer's block isn't always pretty...

2011-03-06T14:01:00.001-08:00

I haven't gone this long without writing for quite sometime. For months I've turned words over in my head, jotted notes and ideas for posts and then sequestered them away as life's changing tides polished them into pebbled handfuls too fragmented or outdated to share.

I'm in Seattle now where the cloud cover isn't as bad as I was cautioned when I started sharing my intention to move here. Still, on a sunny day like today I realize how the weather these past two months has forced a fair amount of inside time, urging Seattle-ites (so many transplants like myself) to hibernate in the comfort of hot tea, cozy couches and if lucky, the care of a loved one or treasured friend. I'm halfway through an internship with Rwanda Partners (www.RwandaPartners.org), enjoying having a hand in a variety of projects and witnessing the grass roots devotion that the team puts into services for thousands of Rwandans in need of jobs, education and deliverance from the tragedies of their past.

As I learn about Rwanda's history I realize how much I've resisted engaging with the reality of the genocide and similar global atrocities that have occurred during my lifetime. While part of my desire to go abroad and immerse myself in the challenges facing the developing world is the need to bear witness, my ability to find faith in the face of evil has always been supported by a devout commitment to focusing on the good. As I allow myself to confront the atrocities of the genocide I am reminded that true faith requires an understanding of evil's existence - that this is where the choice to forgive and choose good becomes most profound. So many individuals in Rwanda have embodied this time and time again in forgiving the people who killed their family members (often neighbors and former friends) and it is humbling to be a part of an organization that gives voice to these incredible examples of faith and forgiveness.

These insights accompany near constant attempts in my daily life to turn over my own experiences, especially in the past three years abroad, and understand how they will inform my next steps. Most of this is messy and unpleasant, enshrouded in failed expectations, shaky dreams and a fair amount of guilt at not having a clear cut understanding of what I'm doing or knowing exactly how to put my energy to the best use. So I've stayed quiet (at least in the blogosphere) and shared these things in more personal spaces in the hopes that I could purge them and move forward into whatever comes next with confidence.

I think I'm getting there - each spoken word, shared conversation and idea helps me re-frame what could or should come next. I am revisited by a deep desire to focus on education and promote scholarship opportunities for Kenyan students. This stems in part from my own scholarship and the relationships it fostered but perhaps moreso frm my still evolving understanding of where economic development is rooted and what must be in place in order to move a country forward. At this point I'm not sure if I'll be able to focus on this professionally or not - but I know it is part of my story and will continue to be (and I've got 5 college-ready kids without school fees in Kenya who will hold me to it if I falter!).

As so much of this journey has simply been about evolving as a person I find things I once feared now resonate amongst some of my deepest desires. The open road still calls but I'm more responsive right now to the idea of shorter stints, craving above all the moment when the momentum of recent years stops bearing such weight and I can say with confidence I am where I am meant to be, putting down roots and simply living life to the best of my ability.

Day 13: Resilience

2010-12-14T13:10:00.000-08:00

(This post was written on an airplane returning from Michigan two weeks ago.)

I am reading 'The War of Art' in an attempt to remove myself from the somewhat expected but no less devastating place of "what's next?" We all have our demons, or as the author Steven Pressfield calls them, Resistance. Mine is a fight for confidence and focus marked by victories big and small on the road to a life of meaning.

My return to Africa in 2007, the ensuing scholarship and the plethora of people and projects these experiences exposed me to made me feel alive. I had near daily opportunities to create links between communities and individuals, expanding the reach of a story and a reality bit by bit. All this was focused on experience - on gleaning from the trenches of a developing country where real changes were possible to enhance relationships on a global level and improve livelihoods for all. My two year odyssey came to an end while my understanding was yet beginning, though the call to base from my homeland grew stronger. So I returned and plunged into a place I thought I'd left behind, a place full of "What really matters?" "What am I really good at?" "How do I support myself and do the work I feel called to do?" The greatest of Resistance crept stealthily in until I found myself paralyzed in old fears, worn excuses and shallow professions of "it's just not to be."

Alongside this time I continued to meditate on my 30 days of Asante - a self-assigned desire to pinpoint the gratitude embedded in the last two years and the home I found in Kenya. And as I talk, read, pray and sometimes plead myself out of this dark place of self doubt and unknown corners I rest upon the resilience of my community and friends in Kenya and here at home.

I don't like to trivialize, capitalize or sensationalize other people's stories - but I do learn from them, and whether simple or severe my life these past two years was colored by the stories of children of the streets, women running shoe-string childrens homes, a brave survivor of rape, a number of post election violence survivors, former street boys trying to take responsibility for themselves and others like them, a woman starting an NGO, a recovering alcoholic, a displaced and abused mother and countless business people who started small, worked their butts off and now have the means to give big. All this alongside my family and friends at home, some getting degrees, other starting families, still others losing loved ones or facing the devastating impact of the recession.

Resilience continues to overcome Resistance in these lives, and I'm determined that as I confront my own doubts and downfalls I will find my own resilience and move forward with the strength, humility and focus to step through whichever doors God opens to claim my individual role in this global village - however big or small that role might be.

Day 14: Growing old gracefully

2010-11-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

(This post was originally written three days before I left Kenya).

It's Sunday night (well, Monday morning) and I'm rounding off a a weekend of goodbyes that feel both perfect and out of place. Kenya has become a true home, and how can one ever say a firm goodbye to such a place?

Friday night I had a simple night out with friends in preparation for a Saturday at the Nairobi Arboretum for a family friendly picnic. The sun showed up as did some of my favorite Kenyan food and it was all that I had hoped - relaxing and full of people who have colored these two years with personality and friendship beyond what I could have hoped for.

Afterward my friend Anthony graciously drove a few of us home and we prepared for a night out with my Rotary club at a local restaurant. In a small room some of the people I have admired and fellowship-ed with in Rotary gathered to send me off in true style. I floated above it all trying to soak in the reality of departure, the understanding that this life I have built is somehow shifting to a new dimension. I am starting to understand.

Starting to understand that as I know returning to the U.S. and the opportunity to be closer to family and lifelong friends is exactly what I am meant to do, the reality that Kenya is now home stands firm. There is a version of me that I am able to embrace here that I have never quite embodied anywhere else, it feels tied to that arrival 20 years ago, when as a child I first opened my eyes to this land. I remember the smells, the people, the roads as we traveled. The small boy with a crutch by his side who smiled so brightly as we passed in our mzungu vehicle. And now 20 years later this place is home - those memories replaced by the reality of walking these streets, breathing this air, becoming the person who feels at home in this once foreign place. And the people - those friends who have swept me up when I couldn't make sense of myself, of my living here, of the choices that led to this path. Of the relationships that transcend being abroad and instead have taught me what it means to identify myself as a friend, a community member, a daughter, a sister or an aunt.

Last night my voice cracked as I tried to explain to my community here that this has not been about living in Africa for me - but about somehow learning those most basic realities of life and humanity and community that immersion in my own culture had kept me from. My desire to help, to make a difference - I understand now that if I were to limit this to the "African" context it would be without value on the cosmic scale - because we are all people, we all face the same struggles albeit in different scopes and different scales. These two years have not been about Africa, they have been about humanity - about understanding myself in relation to the world around me, and how that world calls me to be a part of it.

And so tonight I return home from a night out with my favorite guys - 4 men who have brought joy and friendship and support into my life this year especially. And as I walk into the room I see Cristabel's baby bag at the foot of my bed, left by Maureen today because she had too much to carry. And I think that when I add it all up, two years here in Kenya, it amounts to the most perfect of sums. It amounts to the reality of relationships, of new friendships alongside those richly held back at home. It has been a time of experiences that I still can't comprehend.

Just over seven months ago I welcomed this precious child into the world while I held the hand of her mother. Ever since I have watched the growth of this duo - the love of a mother and the blank slate of a child dependent on her parent. I realize I am just the same - a child of God gradually writing and rewriting my slate as I learn what it means to live and love fully, no matter where I am.

Day 15: An open table

2010-11-25T09:18:00.001-08:00

On one of my last weekends in Nairobi I had plans to meet my friend Kevin at an open house for a local charity run by a Rotarian. Kevin was working so he had his brother pick me up with a plan to drop off some other relatives and then pick Kevin to continue to the event around 2 p.m. BUT, t.i.K...(this is Kenya) and at 7:00 p.m. I found myself still at the first stop (having already had tea, chips, sausage and cake) about to sit down to a prodigious feast. I didn't really understand until after we left at around 9:00 p.m. (mind you, without Kevin - who was still at work - even though he was my only connection to this group) what this visit was all about. It turns out that Kevin's aunt was visiting her granddaughter who was born shortly before her son was killed. The girl had just turned four and it was a day for her grandparents to come together, pray for strength as they raised their grand kids and celebrate the legacy of a life lost (and another, the mother, who lived far away in search of a better job in Singapore). I was a random visitor invited and encouraged because I simply happened to be there. I was welcomed in.

My mom hosts Thanksgiving every year in our family. I treasure this day because we celebrate an open table policy as well - each year there is always a person or two who is traveling through or finds they are at an overladen Thanksgiving table in our house for the first time. There are also the oldest and truest of family friends who share this holiday with us, and there are always a few spots where someone is missing (in recent years it has been me among others). This year I will relish in the warmth of a love-filled house and having many of my nearest and dearest within arms reach. I will also be soberly aware of those who are not with us for one reason or another and say a prayer that someday the following will ring true for all, "Forever on Thanksgiving day the heart will find the pathway home."

Day 16: Simple Gifts

2010-10-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

Two years ago on my first full day in Kenya I walked a couple of blocks from the YMCA to get a sim card for my phone. I knew to look for a Zain sign (one of the largest cell networks in Kenya) based on recommendations from friends. The first one I saw was on Koinange street and within minutes I was in the expert care of Sanjay. Two years later I still have the phone number he set me up with.

Sanjay quickly became my go-to guy for all sorts of things - DVDs, Mirrors for my room, saffron for my brother's Christmas present (I'd heard it was much cheaper in Kenya). I passed his shop most days coming to or from school and I'd stop by for a quick chat or sometimes bring by sodas or icecream to say thanks for a variety of small favors during my first weeks and months in Nairobi.

On one of my very first visits Sanjay gave me a Philip Presio watch - a steal by American standards but pricey for Nairobi's downtown. I couldn't understand why he'd give me something when he barely knew me and all I had done was buy a sim card and some phone credit from him. Still, as he did, I realized to refuse the watch would be horribly impolite. I also recognized that if I were to accept it, I had to do so in the spirit of giving, and not with an expectation that I owed a favor or something else to this new acquaintance who I really didn't know that well.

For months, each time I saw Sanjay I expected some request to counter the gift of the watch. Would he someday ask me for money or a loan? Would he eventually cross a line and hit on me? None of these things ever happened. Instead, he invited me to meet his wife and two small girls who lived in a small lower-class Indian enclave on the road out of town. Over the next year he would call to check in if I hadn't stopped in in awhile, always asking if I was o.k. or if I needed anything.

This last year Sanjay's shop had moved and I never got to see him. He called me a few times to say hi, giving me an update on his family and checking in. I continued to wear the watch which was extremely helpful in Nairobi where you risked staring at an empty palm if you checked your phone on bustling streets.

Tonight I arrived in Orlando to visit my brother Todd and his family. Shortly after getting off the plane I stopped by the restroom and in a quick flash watched as Sanjay's gift flew off my wrist and into the forceful flush of the airport toilet. It happened in an instant due to a loose clasp and suddenly this trusty little time piece was gone.

It was a simple gift from a fleeting friendship that helped me feel at home in a far off land. It was generous, without strings, and useful - everything a gift should be. I will miss it.

Day 17: D.I.Y.

2010-10-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

I want to finish my '30 Days of Asante' posts now that I'm starting to get back in the swing of things. That said, life is far from fluid and I'm still about 12 days out from being able to unpack my suitcases and settle down for a bit. I leave Orange County tomorrow and I've loved visiting with old friends and even newer friends from Kenya who happen to be in town. I've also tried to give myself some downtime so I haven't seen everyone I wanted to - I've needed the days to get organized and put out feelers for work while I begin to get back into school-mode so I can continue working on my project.

As I've unwound in the borrowed spaces of treasured friends I've noticed moments of silence and stillness that suddenly ring with profound appreciation for beauty in the everyday. I come across articles, songs and stories describing tender moments and suddenly my eyes are leaking. It's like the semi-hardness that I developed trying to deal with my own inadequacies in the face of need has started to melt away, and I'm finally able to process the beauty and pain of reality just as it is.

The lovely ladies behind Raven+Lily shared this article today and I had to pass it on. Personally, I've always been drawn to international issues, motivated by the global citizen identity that so much of my upbringing, activities and education has fostered. I have had the flexibility of being young and single, and the time and savings to explore how international development is practiced and what is and isn't working. Having the freedom and drive to do so has set me on a path that has been absolutely critical in the evolution of my understanding not just of global development issues, but of humanity (and our commonality) as a whole.

My time in Kenya has yet to result in a specific mission or organization that I felt a need to start in order to elevate these lessons. I think I am better suited to raising awareness about existing organizations I believe in like Rotary - which empowers everyday people to join forces while promoting strong standards, partnership, and an empowerment mentality. I think this statement from the article summarizes what the organizations and individuals I am drawn to hope to address: "The challenge is to cultivate an ideology of altruism, to spread a culture of social engagement — and then to figure out what people can do at a practical level."

When I talk to people who are in careers that are either low paying or extremely demanding time wise, I often hear a sense of powerlessness in the face of inequality and need. But take a look at the article and how inspiring the individuals who are practicing D.I.Y. foreign aid are (and for those whose passion lies in addressing more local needs, these models can be applied to domestic challenges as well). I especially love this organization, One Day's Wages, because it recognizes that none of us are so limited that we can't make a profound difference in someone's life. I hope that as I adjust back to life in the U.S. I don't forget this.

Very few of us will ever be such change agents that we stand as individuals behind the innovations or inventions that revolutionize life for the masses. If we are lucky, we will touch a few lives profoundly and know that this is enough. As the first organization that took me to Africa recognized, if we all are willing to make a difference where we can - that collective difference adds up. Every time a person, article, story or moment reminds me of this I am moved to tears with the brilliant simplicity that in such acts, we can find the deepest of meaning.

Blog Action Day - Water

2010-10-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

My family is a family of singers. Over the years at family gatherings with wine flowing and the dusk moving into night we have raised voices in harmony to sing songs taught by my grandparents, aunts and uncles. Some are silly, some desperately sad - others act as virtual history lessons. I equate different songs to different people, and one of the most beautiful is a song my grandmother sang called 'Water.' The lyrics go like this:

All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,
Cool water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water,
Cool water.

Keep a movin' Dan, don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil not a man
and he spreads the burnin' sand with water.
Dan can't you see that big green tree where the waters runnin' free
and it's waiting there for me and you.
Water, cool water.

The shadows sway and seem to say tonight we pray for water,
Cool water.
And way up there He'll hear our prayer and show us where there's water,
Cool Water.

Dan's feet are sore he's yearning for just one thing more than water,
Cool water.
Like me, I guess, he'd like to rest where there's no quest for water,
Cool water.

These aren't the exact lyrics my family sings, but you get the idea. It's a song that manages to capture the desperation of a thirst I've certainly never known, but which continues to plague people around the world for lack of this most fundamental need.

Kenya is no exception, with tribes in the north and villages in especially dry regions more prone to the ill effects tied to lack of clean drinking water - including a variety of water-borne diseases. My rotary club (and many others) have made this a special priority in their projects, and blog action day is a great opportunity to highlight the continued needs for deep wells, affordable filtration systems and additional education for all about the importance of preserving this precious resource.

Tonight I'll take a moment to count my blessings for being back where water is readily available (and easily taken advantage of - I need to work on this!) while I close my eyes and try and hear my grandmother's voice singing about this cool, clear life support to us all.

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Need help?

2010-09-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post I am looking for short term/part time work opportunities this fall as I catch up with friends and family and begin writing my thesis. I am interested primarily in remote-access work (i.e. online writing/special projects) OR opportunities from November 1st onward in or around Monterey. For very short term gigs (i.e. special events etc.) I am available for travel - especially in/around the SF Bay Area.

If you have any needs in your personal or professional life or know of any opportunities, please keep me in mind for the following. I am happy to provide references that can affirm my ability to jump in at a moment's notice and get the job done.

Skills:

Writing/Editing: Copy, features, newsletters, website content, resumes, cover letters etc.
Special Projects Coordination and Project Management
Social Media Strategy/Consulting
Events Organizing/Customer Service/Sales
Personal Assistance (i.e. anyone with any special needs that a willing helper can take care of)
Photography

Finding some work to stay afloat over the next few months would really help me complete this journey more comfortably while preparing for next steps (which I hope include 1-3 months of finalizing my M.A. work in Kenya before embarking on my full-time job search in the Pacific Northwest).

Many thanks!

Oh, hello there

2010-09-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Hi friends. You know when things are about to get crazy and you sit yourself down and have a little talk about how it's about to get crazy and you're going to handle it smashingly, stay on top of your correspondence, make a daily call list? Well I'm still in stage one of the chaos and so far the new iphone is helping to read emails, but I'm not doing so great at responding. And I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off but I still haven't even called some of my best friends or family members! Suffice it to say, I'm back in the U.S., and it's going to be like this for awhile. To my friends in Kenya - you are in my thoughts! To my friends here - I will see you soon!

Recap of Week 1: 1 night in Bay Area, 3 nights in Yosemite for a wedding, 3 nights in Monterey and 2 nights back in the Bay Area.

Week 2: Drive to Seattle, overnight in Portland, 1.5 weeks exploring Seattle, visiting Rotary Clubs, networking, visiting ROOTS (Simon's Church), drinking coffee etc. etc. Data review/analysis from my research during the days.

Week 3: 3-4 nights in L.A. followed by 4-6 nights in Orange County. Meeting the newest gaggle of babies from my college friends. Visiting my nephews. Starting aggressive short-term job outreach (see next post). Oktoberfest! Surfing!

Week 4: Back to the Bay - celebrating Cat's 30th, starting some short term work, continuing to write, visiting Todd and Julia in Florida (if I can swing it).

Week 5+: Monterey to WRITE and work where I can. That's my plan for the fall!

I will return to the 30 days of Asante as soon as possible. Cheers!

Day 18: Prayer

2010-09-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

When I first returned to Africa in 2007 I found myself in an area with the highest HIV/Aids infection rates in the continent. Kwa Zulu Natal is the land of South Africa’s greatest and fiercest warriors, whose descendents have been crippled by a disease against which spears have no effect. A hardened development professional I met with after my return was quick to point out I’d never walked the rows of a children’s Aids' ward in west Africa where babies lay listless and ready to die. But I found the experience of living with Lindokuhle in the days before her death alongside the knowledge (confirmed two years later) that Noluvo’s lungs would someday give out was sufficient to drive home the devastation of this epidemic and the undeserved affliction of the youngest generation.

During that time I struggled to understand the seeming chaos of such inequality and powerlessness. While my nephews and nieces at home were thriving these children were covered in sores, abandoned by parents or surviving family members, scarred by abuse at the hands of impoverished caretakers. But each morning I would awake to laughter, singing and the sound of prayer over breakfast. And each afternoon as uniformed little bodies returned from school the yard would erupt in vibrant activity and the energetic throng of children’s energy. And eventually I understood, that as each of these growing beings had already faced challenges far beyond my comprehension, they remained children – not yet whole as individuals. There was room for hope that with the love and support of this home and the people that had taken them in they would triumph over scarred pasts. Such hope gave way to a bigger hope, that this region would begin to respond to the outreach of the health workers, to the growing awareness and education about how to protect itself from this disease. And this, in turn, gave way to hope that the global community would take greater notice, would make better choices holding this country accountable to the reality of the epidemic, using what capitol we could to encourage education, treatment and equal access to opportunity. And so I left with the understanding that in the deepest and darkest recesses of humanity, there is always room for hope.

Last night I returned from a visit to the boys’ homes in Nakuru. It was a delightful weekend although the same challenges continue to plague one group especially – how do you break boys who have been on the streets fending for themselves of the habit of doing the same when their needs are being provided for? I found myself worrying over the little boys who are, like all kids, vulnerable to the world around them. Growing in response to external forces, being moulded into people who can survive the world they are a part of. Here I was hoping for them to remain soft and innocent – and yet such traits would likely lead to their great disadvantage in the long term.

So I returned home and as I lay in bed last night I began to pray. I let go of any anxiety built up over the days as I acknowledged my role as a witness and a participant rather than an engineer. I asked for patience, for grace, for guidance, for faith. I prayed for these boys, for relationships, for humanity. And I found hope, and peace.

Please forgive the delays in posting - the internet is not cooperating with my 1 post per day plan!

Day 19: Old Friends

2010-09-04T01:58:00.000-07:00

Planning multi-country travel from rural South Africa in 2007 proved fairly challenging. The result was a total change in plans that had me flying to Kenya by myself as my travel companions would still be in Mozambique. With no real plans and worry that I'd be a bit shell shocked trying to navigate the city on my own, I reached out to a professor at my alma mater who I'd met at a couple of Africa-focused dinners before my departure. She provided my first window into Kenyan hospitality by putting me in touch with her brother Daniel, who sight unseen picked me up from the airport. I am not even sure how we figured out who each other were, but that first greeting gave way to 4 days of total immersion into the Nairobi social scene. We did lots of tourist stuff, lots of craft market shopping (I mean this is me, right?) and lots of raising our bottles of Tusker. I met a handful of his friends who became my first friends in this country. They picked me up at the airport over a year later when I returned, and have provided some of my most fun (and crazy!) memories to date with camping trips and nights on the town. I saw a couple of them last night for the first time in ages and I gotta say, no matter how much time goes by I just love these people.

I haven't traveled widely in Africa but the countries and towns I've been to have all presented a similar reality when it comes to the passage of time. Relationships here do not depend on constant contact to survive. There is an understanding and an appreciation for the ebb and flow - and time ends up flying without the perception that it has passed at all. I love that the result is friendships and relationships that can be rekindled at the top of an evening and are always there to remind you of your roots.

Day 20: My global village

2010-09-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the airport picking up my roomie from last year. It's been over a year and I can't tell you how good it is to have her back! As I started to tell her about my year in the car I realized that just like last year it has been full of friends coming in and out from all over the world. I have three new friends from Germany (Lars, Michael and Judi), Frederique from France and Angeline from Ireland. I have friends I keep in touch with in Ethiopia, Lamu and Zanzibar, South Africa and a host of other destinations. My friend Jeff from Canada has written me over the past two years after we met and cycled together to the Cape of Good Hope in 2007. Jeff went with another Zambian girl we met on that trip, Ronnie, to climb Kili last year - and I heard from her recently asking for Kenyan coastal vacation suggestions. These are just a handful of the people who have made the last few years that much more colorful during my time abroad (not to mention many of my own country mates who I've bonded with as expats in Kenya). All this simply enriches my community of local Kenyans - many of whom have global villages of their own. This is an international city and I love that when I leave I'll be able to share memories of this time wherever I end up going in the world with friends I met along the way.

Day 21: Sleep

2010-08-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

Three weeks from now I will board a plane late in the evening. I will think about sleeping but the call of in flight movies will prove a perfect match for being over tired and overwhelmed at this first flight of departure from life being fully lived in Kenya.

I am fast planning the next few months, scheduling visits and blissful time with friends and family seen too little these last two years. I do this in part to help stem the ache that is sure to settle when I settle and the knowledge that even as good things unfold to keep me grounded here I will never be truly in two places at once.

So I will begin to build the next phase of my life, to lay what further ground work I can so that I may always return and feel at home and part of the community I so cherish here in Nairobi. And each night I will lay down and pray as I have learned to pray a prayer of thanks for all that the day has held, all the lessons learned, all that has been left undone. I will travel to the dream land in which my many worlds collide, letting me be all places as my body rests and gets ready for whatever roads must be walked the following day.

Day 22: Perspective

2010-08-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today I got the call - my proposal is finally ready to present. Tonight I'm to make a few revisions, go to school first thing in the morning, collect signatures and send it out in advance of Thursday's presentation date.

I got home about fifteen minutes ago, sat down to revise and the power went out. Of course it did. Here here for mobile modems!

(This short post brought to you courtesy of my failing battery and short candles).

Day 23: Everybody move to the back of the bus

2010-08-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I've ever felt more empowered then I did while driving through the Kenyan country side with my windows down and savannah air blowing in my face. I've had some of my favorite moments out on the road here. Moments in which I realize that twenty years after I first met this land I found my way back. What a dream.

Alas, the car is now sold and I'm doing a lot more walking, bus and matatu riding. I'm actually enjoying this because it gets me out in the community in a way that having a car shielded me from for a time. I'm reminded more and more of my first weeks and months here when every corner turned was new and a simple bus ride felt like an adventure.

Now the bus is just a bus, but the past year has seen the advent of various improvements in the public transport scene in Nairobi. While matatus used to be the only entertainment-laden vehicles around, a selection of the larger (and more formal) KBS buses are now equipped with t.v. screens at the front. These screens play ads, public service announcements (today I learned it is illegal to cross the street as a pedestrian while talking on the phone) and videos. Tonight's video took some googling to figure out. But if you were me taking the bus home tonight, here's what you would have seen:

Now who wouldn't be thankful for such absurdity? Hopping vampires and baboon ghosts...whoever picks the entertainment for route 46 gets an A+ in my book.

Day 24: If you can walk you can dance

2010-08-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I think every human is born with an innate desire to dance. I've watched babies around the world flail tiny fists in response to the first few notes of a song. I've danced around the room with nephews and nieces and recorded elaborate music videos as a child myself with my girlfriends. But where I come from, by about the age of ten you know if someone is a real dancer or not - and if you're not, you turn your extra curricular activity focus elsewhere and start working on your go-to move for all future dance opportunities. If you're me, you come up with a ridiculous dance face to hide your fear that you're making a fool of yourself each time the beat gets going, even as that inborn desire to move with the music has never left you.

In Kenya people never learn to be self conscious of their dancing ability. It wouldn't occur to someone here to put themselves in a "good" or "bad" dancing category. Because dancing is simply an extension of the self - an automatic reflex to good music and good times that refrains from demanding optimal circumstances, a perfect partner or any validation from those around you. I love being at a local bar and seeing a table of people with one person who just can't stand it anymore and has to get up and dance in place. They don't dance to seduce, they don't dance because they're sick of talking or because they're trying to get someone's attention (as with any rule, there are exceptions). Most people I see dancing here simply dance because they must - there body moves and at some point they can't sit still.

Last night I went out with some friends and I danced like no one was watching. I gave in to the reality that if I were to let my self consciousness hold me back I'd be alone in such silliness. I felt at home in my skin and unaware that anything set me aside from those around me who never learned to question why their body must move when music calls it to.

Day 25: Making History

2010-08-27T01:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I sit glued to my t.v. as a new dawn rises in Kenya. Outside the final clouds of our coldest season blanket our city while throngs gather at Uhuru Park for the promulgation of the new constitution. Dressed in all manner of regalia, entertained by dancers from around the country, Kenya’s leadership oversees this day. They sit with solemn faces, breaking occasionally into smile as the celebration peaks in song or dance or the simple joy of hope. For them, changes loom large. Positions will change, voting should have more meaning, progress should be harder to stall in the name of special interests. And yet, somehow, it passed. The country unified with a resounding “yes” – its original dictator doing great service to the yes camp by being so strongly in the no camp.

Now I am watching as my friend Caroline Nderitu (a member of my Rotary Club and a former Poet Laureate of Kenya) shares a poem she has written for this day:

“…For we have come, where we have been going,

the platform for transformation.

It is time for a new brand of a brand new Kenya.

It is time.”

A gospel singer follows Caroline. One man in the rows of dignitaries stands amidst his more solemn counterparts, waving his hands with the rhythm, echoing the scores of the common people more willing to give in to the joy of this occasion.

They are all standing now. I am crying now. This is a day bigger than I can understand but even I know it is a beginning.

Tonight the sun sets on Kenya’s second republic.

Day 26: Opening doors

2010-08-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

Coming to Kenya was the manifestation of a variety of doors that had opened for me in the previous year or two. I think the only role I played was being willing to say out loud, "I want something more than this from and for myself." I started to articulate what I was dreaming about, where I envisioned myself and then I put those things into words. Words found their way into conversations, conversations gave way to contacts, contacts became friends and partners. Eventually my scholarship with Rotary came through and here I am looking back on it all with awe.

Rotary has been a huge part of my life in recent years and has offered me the chance to become the person holding the handle at gateways for others. One such person is Lian Kariuki, a young Kenyan I met earlier this year who in the interim between high school and college has decided to use her talents and passions to help empower disadvantaged youth here in Kenya. I love meeting people like Lian who recognize that change starts here, and who see no boundaries reflected in their age or personal limitations. While I haven't been able to provide financial support to Lian, I did share with her an application for OXFAM's International Youth Partnership a while back after a classmate shared it with me. To our mutual delight Lian was chosen as one of 300 youth from 98 countries around the world to become an OIYP Youth Partner.

This is such a great opportunity for someone with vision and passion like Lian. As part of the program she gets to attend a gathering of all the YP's in India this fall. Scholarships were limited, however, so now she's trying to get there. As Lian doesn't lack creativity - she's put together a fundraiser with products her project, Adopted Dreams, create with local youth. For each donation you make I will personally deliver (or mail!) one of their products (Lian will pay for the cost of the product out of the donation). Please take a look and consider supporting Lian in her first year as an OIYP Youth Partner. I promise - this won't be the last that you see of her!

$30 Donation - Receive a handmade Kanga shopping bag (colors vary) for eco-friendly shopping with a global twist :)

$50 Donation - Receive a handmade travel pillow in Kikoy or Kanga print (the outside is removable for washing).

Patterns vary but please feel free to specify a preferred color. You can donate via my paypal link at the right of this blog.

Asante Sana to all!

Day 27: Burnt Meat

2010-08-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Last December I joined a friend from my local pub for a goat boil near my house. As we ate, I remember thinking, "It doesn't get any better then this! Meat? Check! Potatoes? Check! Beer? Check!" The following day I visited Red Rose school and on the way home realized I was having trouble walking. When I got to my house I got in bed and didn't get out (except for nature's calls) for four days. Suffice it to say, I didn't have much taste for meat for MONTHS after that experience.

After a summer at home I came back to Kenya and found I'd really missed local food. It's like my stomach had finally transitioned and suddenly the stewed meats and vegetables that I'd gotten hopelessly sick of during the second half of my first year were all I wanted. Perhaps I was becoming a Kenyan? All I know is that nothing tastes as 'sweet' (Kenyan for DELICIOUS) as nyama choma these days. The literal translation is 'burnt meat' - and as an American whose been raised to relish a perfectly rare steak, this took some getting used to.

Now, give me some piping hot roast mbuzi, a small pile of salt and a block of ugali - add some sukuma on the side and top it off with a cold Tusker - it's heaven on a plate.

Day 28: Alex

2010-08-22T10:48:00.001-07:00

In Nairobi, everyone has a shortlist of trusted taxi drivers that can be called at a moment's notice. Such a list is born of strong recommendations or exceptional service after that one time you were forced to head to the queue and trust your luck. My current list numbers 13, but my first call is always to Alex.

In Kenya taxis wait at specific spots. I think they actually pay association dues based on their location. Alex queues across from my old house so he's always been nearby when I needed him. His car is to put it mildly, falling apart - not ideal for a taxi in Nairobi where the quality of your car can quite literally mean life or death if it leaves you stranded on the wrong road at the wrong time. But Alex is a mechanic so I have faith in the car staying in working order, regardless of the sounds it makes (and right now, the passenger side door does threaten daily to fall off).

Alex and I have slightly different political views but our friendship is steadfast. He's seen me head to school with my bag over packed and the sleep still in my eye, and collected friends and I in the wee hours of the morning after concerts or dancing on the town. He never fails to greet me with a "Hello Megan! How are we today? Long time!" even if I've seen him just a couple days before.

When my parents came to Kenya I made sure they met Alex and that he provided as much of our Nairobi transport as possible (this was before I had my car, which I had Alex take a look at before buying - I needed his seal of approval). I love that when I see him he askes how Mama and Daddy are, and that one day I got to meet his kids when he picked me from the airport before taking them to school.

It is simple relationships like this that I treasure here. Knowing that there is someone who provides good service but also friendship to accompany my comings and goings. When I next return to Kenya it is likely Alex who will greet me at the airport, hopefully in a newer car he his working is butt off to import and expand his business with. I for one will be giving him a token tip towards this effort on our last ride together for now.

Day 29: Makina Market

2010-08-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Makina last year when long-subdued creative juices were manifesting in the trash-laden road running into Kibera. My friend Sandra first took me there when my questions about where to go for various craft supplies wouldn't stop. She figured she might as well lead the horse to water instead of quenching its thirst by the thimble-full. I have never seen another mzungu in the market or even at the stage where you alight from the Matatu at inner Toi. This leaves me feeling like I've discovered a secret source of those things that are four times as much at each of the well known tourist markets. A place where those sandals that seemed cute but not so comfy can be customized to a pair I already own and in the color of my choice.

I mostly go to Makina with Sandra to see how her various orders are coming (she designs wonderful laptop and messenger bags) but have been back recently to have my favorite faux bag (well loved and falling apart at the seems) remade in leather. It took a year and a half to find the right color, but the craftsman, Ofula, finally found it and is making it now. I went to finalize the order yesterday and enjoyed walking silently through the uneven rows of pint-sized tailoring and fabric shops. I loved when some mending I took in warranted a 70 bob repair fee (less than $1) - proof that I am known here as a local, not a mzungu for which the prices could be quoted a whole lot higher.

I am always amazed at Makina and the sites that stay the same time after time. The men in front of Ofula's shop crouch in the dust pounding out long strips of copper which will be bent into braided bracelets to be sold to bleary-eyed tourists across the country. I can never fathom that a market for such quantity exists, but at my old house the copper bracelet seller was there every day - so somehow he must have enough buyers to keep him going.

I spoke with Ofula at length yesterday about the quality of his pieces, asking him why he didn't have an apprentice, why wasn't he expanding? "I tried to teach my nephew, but he left," he told me. He looked discouraged as he spoke of young people and the wealthy people they aspire to be who look down on artisans as uneducated and lacking promise. This conversation took place just three days after a staff member from the Ministry of Youth shared at my Rotary meeting her vision for encouraging leather production in Kenya - noting that when our cattle die, we bury them where they lay - skin and all. Then, we import leather from India and China.

Makina reminds me that the best learning experiences I've had here are taking moments to step out of my role as visitor, as mzungu, as student or as buyer. To simply enter into conversation with the people working this country from the ground up. To hear the voice of blistered hands and aching backs bent over beautifully crafted pieces, or at the steering wheel of a beat up taxi. But that is for tomorrow's post.

This month I'll also be posting favorite pictures from my time here with each post. Sometimes they'll be related, sometimes not (like today).

Day 30: Maggie

2010-08-22T00:29:00.001-07:00

It took me awhile to get used to the number of people coming in and out of my old house. For starters, in my first year I was frequently exhausted by the time I got home - both physically from walking my feet off and navigating Nairobi rush hour and emotionally from new situations and cultural realities on a daily basis. Because of Rotary I was also constantly meeting rooms full of people and I've long had the sense walking around town or entering parties that there are plenty of people I'm passing that I've met before, if only I could place the face.

My last house was home to an organization with roughly 12 staff members but on top of those common faces at school breaks we'd have a variety of students that my housemate Megan supported show up for visits, work (for school fees or pocket money) or to stay and study. Maggie was one of these students who I met a couple times last year but didn't get to know until this year when she came to stay for a few weeks. I've written about the ordeal she went through trying to get her birth certificate and ID card in order to meet the new regulation that no child can be enrolled in school without them. She was sitting next to me watching a movie when our neighbor was murdered, and we got to spend a lot of time together during that time which was personally stressful for her and unsettling for our household as a whole.

Maggie has become a friend and a bit of a teacher to me. She has told me of her experience during the post election violence, about growing up in a combination of Mathare slum and the HCI children's home. Of being sidelined by pneumonia during her upper class years in high school, and then again this year as she prepared for the coming exams that will determine her academic fate. Her performance will dictate whether she gets a treasured spot in the public University system with fees paid - but less than 10% do.

Sometimes when we're together I find myself studying the contours of her face to see if I can find marks of the life she's lived. She is a teenager and a woman, a child and a teacher, a friend and a dependent.

Maggie came over for a sleepover on Friday night and yesterday when we parted I realized it was my first goodbye. She goes back to school tonight and will be there through her exams in October. I will see her when I return in the Spring (and she'll be a graduate!) but I won't see her before I leave.

Late last night as I tossed and turned I got a text from Maggie on a borrowed phone saying goodbye and thanking me for my friendship. Like so many things I have learned here this relationship has deepened my persective of friendship, my understanding of how to give someone love that needs it, and how to receive love when I need it. I'm so thankful for this beautiful young woman and the time we spent building a friendship this year.

30 days of Asante

2010-08-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up to the realization that I have one month left living life as I currently know it in Kenya. While I hope to return in the Spring for a short time to finish my project and perhaps do an internship, this chapter is coming to a close. Fall on the west coast, holidays with my family, and milestones for dear friends in the coming months beckon and thrill me. But when I am still, when my heart is not racing with anxiety for being behind or coming out of a period of months where I turned off some pieces of myself in an effort to focus (I advise against this by the way!) I catch a glimpse of the sorrow this farewell will bring. In an effort to prepare myself and to document some of the things that have made this experience spectacularly life affirming I'm going to share something each day that I am thankful for about my time here, the people I've come to treasure, the land that feels ancestral to me and the knowledge I have that Kenya is one of my homes and always will be.

August and everything after

2010-08-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

This year is well beyond half over, and truthfully, I'm not sure where it went! How can it be August? How can I have already extended my time in Kenya, but have 45 short days left to live my life here? And, given such a time line, how can I get out of my perpetual school rut and get back into the awareness and immersion that this experience has been so ripe with throughout.

I had great meetings with my supervisors before a short two week trip home (from which I just returned) and thought I'd hit the ground running when I got back, finally getting to the point where I can present and move forward with my research. But, in my truest of academic fashions, I've hit the skids and have spent the last three days staring blankly at my computer, listlessly making my way through print outs, feeling vaguely aware that there is a plethora of information through which I must sort and coherently put together and whew, that makes me want to take a nap (jet lag doesn't help). I think today I've realized I need to detach from my macbook, go for a walk, chat over coffee and give myself a break from myself. Because I can't say I'm taking a break from work, because I haven't really been getting anything done. But here's hoping tomorrow that changes.

That said, life looms large ahead with a September 21st departure from Kenya fixed. And it's unlikely I will be "done" and I'm ok with that if I could just get anywhere but here with my project. And the exciting thing is I get to look forward to breaking from academia and back into reality - back to shared work spaces and dreams of that perfect job coming through. It may not, but I'm excited to get back into the vision stage, because this stage, well this stage is not so good for the psyche. But give me people, give me ideas, give me vision - and I'll be back on track in no time.

Inspiration

2010-07-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Watch this, and then tomorrow night watch this. Then, you can understand one of the only truths I've come to terms with after almost two years here. Education is where it's at. We can all make a difference, it doesn't take much. Every child has potential. There is always hope.

For the archives

2010-06-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

(I started this post weeks ago and it was written over a period of time but I'm posting it now, after the fact, for memories sake as this blog serves as a chronicle of my time here, and this was a major time period in my second year).

In the last week my work/life balance in Nairobi took a precarious turn for the totally ridiculous. It is no real secret that I am woefully behind on my research project (though to be fair, most of my classmates are on the same timetable). It should be noted that a great deal of this is because of an inability to sit, focus and process information that has plagued me as a student for as long as I can remember. The problem is that the challenge doesn’t stop there – in fact life in Nairobi lately has been sort of a cosmic jokester determined to defeat my weaknesses as a student once and for all.

Remember my post right after I returned from Ethiopia? It wasn’t that long ago – and didn’t it just ring of the promise of focus and knuckling down? I wrote that on a Monday night, and it took until Friday (and a sobbing mess of a Thursday in which I hit the proverbial bottom) to have a solid day of getting work done (thanks to a dear friend who has lent me a desk at his office so I can get away from the chaos of my house). I’d spent Thursday night processing the stern advice of my advisors that an end of July departure (as planned and booked with a non-exchangeable miles ticket) would be a nail in the coffin of my M.A., and I should revise my plans to stay until the end of September in order to ensure a completed project and a December 2010 graduation. I’m still planning and processing how to make this work, though the idea that it actually provides enough time offers a fair amount of consolation to the inevitable stretch to finances and the additional time spent away from friends and family. By Friday I felt like I was ready to make this work and I stayed in Friday night finalizing some pieces of my introduction and keeping a young girl who was staying with us company.* We watched a movie, let the dog out and went to bed somewhere around 3:00 a.m.

The next morning we learned some terrifying news – the first house in our compound of 3 had been broken into early Saturday morning, and the 55-year old French woman who lived there had been killed. It is estimated to have happened at around 2:30 a.m., so we were home, awake and in and out of our house with the dog at that time. I won’t go into details but it was a targeted attack and nothing was stolen (thus minimizing the threat to our home), but it has shaken my housemate and I as I write this I do so from a friend’s couch, as I didn’t want to stay home alone tonight just a week after the fact.

By Sunday we’d started to recover from the shock of Friday’s events and Maggie, housemate Jana and Mukuria (boyfriend of Megan who is currently in the states, he acted as our de-facto security the first few nights after the murder) were all at the house. At approximately 9:30 p.m., the flood I posted about previously rushed through our house, and three hours later we were still emptying out water. A retaining wall had crumbled and unlike the flood at Christmas (2 hours before my Christmas party) this gave way to an actual current even after the rains had subsided.

By Tuesday life felt more or less back to normal, or as normal as can be with the knowledge that an assailant crept through your backyard a few days before and brutally killed your neighbor. Tuesday and Wednesday were fairly uneventful, and then Thursday afternoon I returned home to learn that the woman who washes our clothes two days a week had gone missing. It was puzzling given her shoes, purse and jacket were in the house, but less so when we realized she’d crawled UNDER my bed after coming to work drunk and being afraid of anyone finding out. We found her passed out with our dog Leo curled up beside her, and as I told Megan in an update – it would have been comical if it wasn’t so sad.

(note some time passed between the first part of this post and the next part)

When I returned from South Africa I found that a new security breach had been detected in our back yard where three cement blocks had been carefully sawed out in what we presume was someone’s preparations to enter the compound. As the parameter was very carefully inspected after the murder we can only imagine this was a new development, and my fear that our compound would be seen as an “easy” target had come to fruition. My impending move was put into fast forward and I write this from a lovely new apartment where I can already sense the potential for a bit more peace and a little less chaos in my remaining months in Kenya.

The majority of this post was written about a week and a half ago, and life has certainly calmed down since. But in the spirit of total absurdity one of today’s events managed to remind me that I need to be willing to roll with just about anything right now. Yesterday I had my radiator fixed after overheating and breaking down last Wednesday at rush hour (note: this is to be avoided at all costs in Nairobi and it was TOTALLY my fault as my mechanic had warned me to check my water levels daily. With all the chaos of recent weeks that had flown in one ear and right out the other). Today I remembered while getting gas that I was still supposed to check my water levels for a couple days and asked the attendant to do so. We quickly realized the car was still too hot to take the cap off, but he tried anyway and before making the final turn warned us to “run away very fast.” A geyser quickly manifested and as it did he lost hold of the cap, which promptly ricocheted off the hood and into the abyss of my engine. I looked at my friend who I’d just collected from the airport and we had a moment of acknowledgement, knowing full well a) rush hour was about to start and we were on one of the most traffic-laden roads and b) there was no way we were going to find this thing easily. 45 minutes later we were proven right on both counts.

*Maggie is in Form 4 – the equivalent of Senior year in Kenya. This is when students take the exams that in many ways determine their future and which schools and funding they will be eligible for. Maggie is very bright but has already had her schooling interrupted by the post election violence when she was displaced a couple of years ago. Now, like many students in Kenya, she is up against a new rule that requires all students produce their birth certificate before they can sit for exams. Maggie’s school has taken it a step further by sending all students without a birth certificate home – not only preventing them from doing the mock exams so essential for practice and placement for the exams this fall, but also interrupting their study schedule. I’m happy to report that Maggie FINALLY found a sympathetic soul at a local government office who didn’t require a bribe, and I sent her off yesterday to return to school and resume her studies.

Take that Cat: A Rebuttal

2010-06-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Let’s get this straight people, the idea of shopping for “self” is a term I coined to address Cat’s particularly challenging opposition to shopping. As in shopping, period. Now you don’t have to love wandering sprawling markets or finding killer deals like me, but as an adult I do think it’s important to be willing to spruce things up every once in awhile. I am working myself on the idea of “investment” pieces because I don’t like trends or spending money on things that won’t last (though I usually return anything that would fall into that category because I feel guilty about the cost). Cat has actually always been a good example of this, and every five years or so she splurges on a sweater, bag or pair of boots that look fantastic. The rest of the time, however, she pulls earrings out of dumpsters (true story!) and dons the worst Laura Ashley dress from her Freshman year on the east coast. I THINK SHE HAS WORN THIS DRESS ON A DATE IN HER LATE 20’s. I'm pretty sure I donned my last Laura Ashley when I was 12.

So while I have learned from Cat that shopping is about finding things you truly love, I hope she has learned from me that every once in awhile, ESPECIALLY when you’re presented with opportunities to spruce up your winter wardrobe for anywhere between 7 cents and four bucks, why not?

That said, let me amend the various interactions Cat recounted below for the sake of our friendship, her wardrobe and my credibility:

At Toi Market (This place has bargains so good it makes the Goodwill look like Bloomingdales)

Toi Market is one of the mitumba markets you’ll find throughout the continent. It is full of first world cast-offs that reflect a throw-away culture in which trends change by the minute. You would not believe the quality or labels you can find at Toi – and yes, sometimes for as little as a nickel. Now, would I rather encourage a friend to buy a top that supports re-use and extends its life RATHER than buy a 1-off top at a big-box store that will end up in one of these very piles sooner rather than later? You betcha.

We’re looking at bracelets (yet again):
Megan: “You’ve wanted one of those for so long”

I SWEAR SHE SAID MULTIPLE TIMES SHE WANTED A HORN BRACELET…though Cat’s dyslexia sometimes transcends words and moves into materials and she kept calling them bone bracelets.

Megan also has a vision for each item; loose waists can be belted, awkward sleeves can be cropped, if a shirt doesn’t have the right form or fashion a blazer or necklace can right the situation. In any case “it” should be purchased. Toi Market purchases and their subsequent tailoring is truly Megan in her element.

Am I right or am I right? That there is a 7 cent top bringing out the sass!

Another favorite:
Me: “but this ring doesn’t fit”
Megan: “that is because you have been walking around; your fingers are swollen”
Me: pause
Megan: “It is 50 cents; when I got my first horn ring I wore it for almost a year”
I make the purchase.

Here I’m just not interested in spending any more time debating spending LESS than 50 cents – though I do stand by my swollen statement.

We are in a silversmiths shop in Lamu:
Megan: “But you don’t have anything else like that”. . .
My thought: I probably have over 40 necklaces AND THIS IS A NECKLACE

Like I said people, earrings from a dumpster!!!

At Kitangela Glass:
Me: “But Megan I don’t need Champagne flutes”
Megan: “You can’t get crummy ones half off at Ross for less and these are one of a kind”
Me: A look that says you've got to be kidding me
Megan: “Plus you love Champagne”

Now let me be honest, what I’m really saying is that I love champagne, but drinking it out of coffee mugs at Cat's studio takes away a little of the pizazz.

Ahem. Allow me a moment to climb atop my soap box for a final thought on the Masai ladies, who will really drive you crazy if you let them. I DO think it’s important to support them – and it IS their only independent income as women. As a tourist I’ve come in, created a demand that has commandeered their land and I’m paying upwards of $100 a night to experience what was once theirs and only theirs. $2 for something that I’ll wear or hang in my room, that provides some money for the things they can no longer get off the land AND will always remind me no matter where I go or am of this moment in time is no sweat off my back. Plus, I don’t like to buy in Nairobi because things have changed hands so many times you’re almost certain the artisan isn’t getting any of the profit.

That said...

Cat did fail to mention that on our way back to Nairobi I almost stopped for some Masai ladies who looked like they needed a ride. Cat's face reflected immediate panic and she blurted out, “Oh my God Megan no! If they drive with us to Nairobi I’ll be climbing out the window and you’ll have so many bracelets on you won’t be able to bend your arms to drive!”

With that, I suppose Cat gets the final point here.

Apart

2010-05-31T07:16:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned since I focused more on living abroad than traveling, is the simple reality that every life you become a part of is not always one that you can stay involved with. This is especially true with children in the foster or orphaned system – unless you are permanently setting up a home or joining as a staff member, you must resign yourself as a volunteer to reality that you are but a blip in the life of a child, trying to have faith that the time you spend with them will somehow be more important than the act of leaving, or the inability to keep track of them once one of you has moved. It is unfair, especially to them, and yet somehow you know that it is better to provide those solitary walks and talks while you can - rather than leave them undone in the first place.

When I was staying at Sizanani center in 2007 a 15 year old boy named Fanele had just arrived after having been removed from his mother’s home. I never got his story in full, no one really seemed to have all the pieces and yet here he was on our door step. He was one of the oldest of the kids at the center, and for most of the time I was there he wasn’t yet in school. This left us with a lot of time together and in general he was very helpful watching after the two toddlers and baby that stayed at the center each day as well. Still, it was clear that Fanele had discipline problems and while we bonded very early, he rubbed almost all other adults the wrong way. He quickly befriended one of the other older boys and between the two of them the little kids ended up in tears quite frequently from nasty jabs, taunts or simply exclusion. When I left I had the sense that Fanele’s days at the center were numbered, and I pleaded him to be more respectful and to do what he could to stay in school. He is a bright kid who has honed is smarts on the streets, and that tends to be a lethal combination in childrens' homes which try and protect the little kids who haven’t yet been hardened in such ways (having their own traumatic histories from which the home provides a respit).

It has been hard to get full updates from the home in the past three years – everyone there is so busy and overworked and I don't want to take away from their daily schedules. I did get word at some point that Fanele had ultimately left or been sent from the center, thought I never found out where he ended up.

After I left in 2007 another volunteer from Germany came within days of my departure. She has since returned three times and is currently on the 9th month of an 18 month stay. She also knew Fanele well and while in town a couple weeks ago heard someone calling her name. When she located the voice it was a dirty and hungry Fanele in dire need of help. She shepherded him back to her apartment, got him a shower and some dinner and started working on a place for him to stay. By the time I arrived in Nkandla last week he had been re-enrolled in school and was staying with one of the local priests. I was overjoyed to see him and receive a huge hug from someone I have often thought about and wondered of his path.

He is now 18 and I can see a certain hollowness in his eyes that reflects all the realities of life on the streets in an urban African center (he’s spent some time in Durban). But beyond that I saw the same soft-hearted boy whose story I won’t ever really know but who I continue to hope and pray will find a way to fight his demons and make use of the head and the heart that could do so much for himself and those around him.

We went for a short walk into town, I gave him my camera to take pictures and we chatted about what we could, striking up the same banter and camaraderie of three years prior. I didn’t get to seem him the following day when I left as he was in school, but as I said goodbye on Sunday I once again implored him to stay in school, to study hard and to be good.

These are empty words coming from someone who has only been there for him two months and one afternoon of his 18 years. All I can hope is that he heard in them what I could not figure out how to say and somehow he doesn’t understand yet from the world.

I love you Fanele and I’m sorry I can't be there for you. I believe in you.

Saturday, 22nd of May, 2010. Nkandla

2010-05-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Three years ago I sat on this bed in moments of stolen calm listening to the sounds of little voices echoing in the hallway. This became a sacred space in which I caught my breath, distracted myself and created some order with what little possessions I had. How funny to be back here these years later seeking calm so soon after my arrival. The sites, the sounds the energy is virtually the same. But there are more systems in place, there is more structure that makes it easier to step away in order to rearrange hair left frantic by tiny hands and carefully stow the camera or ipod responsible for thirty minutes of ecstatic entertainment.

I know these faces so well. I stared at them, worried over them and captured them on film for the time in which I would be elsewhere. Their limbs are longer and their baby fat may be gone, but I see unmistakably Funeka or Paga or Lindilani. Some haven’t grown much, certainly not to the stature expected by their age. But one whose legs may be short and whose belly may still be too big speaks perfect English, the result of a private school scholarship that has him bilingual at six – a rarity in rural S.A. What a revelation to be able to speak in a shared tongue with these kids for whom a hug or a song or a craft used to be the only way I could give them love.

I’m only a quasi-celebrity this time around. My name is shouted and spoken but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m recognized or because I’m a visitor. Nosumo grabs my hand and gravitates to me just like she did when she was little– is that recognition or is that simply the chemistry of our body heat drawing each other together for swinging hands and hugs? Zinhle is the only child at the center with serious physical and mental impairments. She is blind and cannot speak, though she understands most Zulu and some words in English and German. When she was younger she was brutalized by male family members in unspeakable ways and it’s hard to know whether her ailments trace back to this or they simply made her more vulnerable to attack. I arbitrarily decided she was 17 when I was here before – only to realize she’s only 14 now.

When I first came to Sizanani in 2007 I tried to set aside a few minutes a day to give Zinhle some one-on-one attention and one of the few things I came up with in an attempt to keep her stimulated was variations on paddy cake. Mostly we just ended up slapping hands repeatedly but sometimes I could create very basic patterns and eventually get her to follow. Today as I walked down to greet the children who had stayed behind at the center* I saw Zinhle for the first time seated next to a beautiful play structure (this was in the works while I was here and a friend of the center had finally managed to make it happen). I approached her and one of the mamas asked her if she remembered Megan, and she immediately grabbed my hands, placed them out in front of me and started slapping them with her own.

When the opportunity to visit here cropped up the idea refused to die, regardless of logistics and funds. I think I am seeking to arouse some muscle memory from the time in which I blindly boarded a plane and arrived laden with craft supplies and good intentions, only to discover how little I understood about the nature of this work. In the years since I have peeled away my expectations as I began to prepare myself for the start of my career in the development sector – now I fear I’ve peeled myself a bit raw and know precisely nothing as I try and finish my degree and prepare to launch my job search.

What can I glean from these few days back where this journey began? What shall I take away for the sake of building my confidence moving forward, of being reminded of the certainty in which God whispered this path in my ear until I heard it and believed it?

Here in Nkandla there are a few new buildings, fresh looking paint and a list of continued improvements to be made as the funding comes in. I treasure the care that is evident in this my temporary of homes that is now the only one known to these kids. After two short days I am reminded of the hope I found here after I confronted the absurdity of poverty and disease and its littlest victims. I hope I can get to that same point back in Kenya where I struggle more and more to make sense of an aid structure that seems to further empower the wealthy while robbing the poor of the faith in themselves to change what’s going on in their country.

How I hope to find that peace in hope itself.

* The other children had gone to a football match and returned proudly sporting World Cup t-shirts provided by President Zuma, who is from the region – thus Nkandla has finally made it into the modern lexicon of South Africans countrywide.

If you are so moved, please consider making a tax-free donation to the sisters’ work in Nkandla via The Africa Project.

Ukubuyela

2010-05-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

In 9 hours I fly to Capetown with a ticket my dear friend jasmine helped me buy to see her on African soil. By Friday I’ll be on a flight to Durban where I’ll rent a car and drive 3.5 hours to Nkandla where I started this journey three years ago. I’ll take pictures with an SLR my father bought for me before I came to Kenya and visit the projects that dear friend Joy’s donations have helped support (along with many initial contributions from family and friends when I first joined The Africa Project). I mention these things because they remind me that this incredible journey that has ushered me out of my twenties and helped me grow and get ready for next steps has taught me one thing above all – the role that community plays in each of our lives. I’ve been supported in my own endeavors and in my efforts to support the people I’ve come across. I’ve received phone calls and emails and letters and donations so full of love that they bring me to tears. I’ve had a group of strangers in a service club in Orange County become friends and facilitate an experience abroad that transcends anything I could have hoped for. I’ve had what feel like divine work opportunities that helped me stretch this experience into two full years. I’m reminded daily that in this final push it will all be worth it for the doors it hopefully opens for work moving forward. But perhaps more importantly it has been worth it simply for the journey it has been as I delved deeper into my understanding of humanity and community at home and abroad (sometimes facing the crystal clear reality that not all can be known). And I know this now more than ever - there really isn't any difference between here and there after all. Different stages, different distractions, different gifts, different blessings. But as people - we are the same. As countries - we are the same, imperfect collections of humanity with pockets of brilliance and truth just above torn knees needing repair.

I may not have taken the leap to book this trip to South Africa if I’d realized I would be here until September (original plans had me flying back to the U.S. end of July). The timing is horrible and I can’t afford it. But my community helped make it possible – both with financial support and with a reminder that this is about my time here coming full circle. As soon as the seed was planted what could I do? The thought of seeing the kids, of seeing the hills, of re-familiarizing myself with the zulu click – it brings back a rush of emotion I have stored away for three years. The sisters in Nkandla bid me warm welcome when I told them I might visit, and I can’t wait to turn up those dusty roads, to see all that has grown and changed in three years. But mostly to know that under it all is a vein of truth that remains the same – that constant companion of faith and trust when steps taken in response to a call are made. This is a place in which I learned more than I can ever encapsulate in words, and I can’t wait to see how that continues as I return a slightly wiser (only in my knowledge of how little I truly know) and hopefully more humble version of the self that visited there three years ago.

The flood gates opened on Sunday

2010-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

All the kings horses

2010-05-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

I'm often struck a bit dumb by the reality of the last few years in my life. Most often by the blessings and the experiences, sometimes by a level of overwhelmed I can't really even convey. Last week I took advantage of a crazy cheap ticket to have an extended time in Addis Ababa during our District 9200 Rotary Conference. I saved $300 by flying at 4:30 a.m. last Sunday and coming back at 12:30 a.m. this morning. It meant I had almost 9 days in a totally fascinating city and country - 9 days of which I planned to be working consistently on my project while seeing some sites during the day. That plan was scratched at approximately 9:00 p.m. on the 24th when I spilled an entire glass of milk onto my laptop right as I sat down to finally synthesize my notes into a long-overdue and long-promised draft proposal. Remedy? Box your comp up in rice and say a prayer that it dries out over the next nine days (this post is evidence that it worked!). What that meant was my travels to Ethiopia suddenly turned into more of a vacation than a work trip. "Let the impending guilt begin," I thought as the plane took off early last Sunday morning.

Well.

Turns out I needed a vacation. And not because I don't get to take amazing trips or see amazing sites all the time here - I do! If you take the projects and groups I've gotten to know and throw in visits by two of my best friends, this year has been especially full of incredible experiences and sites. But it has also been full of a lot of packing and unpacking, sweaty clothing, bumpy roads and a mixture of beauty and poverty that I'll never fully wrap my head around.

Ethiopia had the latter, but none of the former. I was hosted by a friend of a friend of a friend in a lovely four bedroom apartment with an incredible DVD collection. The apartment was insanely quiet. Quiet in a way I had no idea I needed or missed. My house in Nairobi never has less than three people in it (even at night) and during the day it averages around 6 and up to around 13. It is not conducive to any sort of quiet workspace, and if you mix in my predisposition to multi-tasking (or should I just call it A.D.D?) it's a recipe for disaster in relation to getting my work done. What I do get done is everything else. Rotary? Check. Boy's home in Nakuru? Check. Daniel's new hand? Check. Visit from my favorite baby Christabel? Check. Proposal? Ummm....

So I spent some time in Addis feeling guilty. Wondering why I could think so clearly (and why I needed so much sleep) and then realizing that my phone wasn't ringing with situations that make me panic. And my house wasn't full of people who knew exactly when I woke up or went to sleep, when I got something to eat or left the house (and all the parents out there say BIG DEAL). I wasn't being woken up by slamming doors or fits of giggles or someone asking me for money to go buy soap or milk or bread or matches. A full house is definitely not a bad thing - especially when you love the people that are in it (and when half of them are there to take care of it!). But I don't think I've ever fully conceptualized just how much I miss having space to myself. This past summer I took advantage of amazingly generous and flexible friends and family to couch hop and house sit my way through three months at home. The logistics were insane - I think I drove at least seven cars (and 1 bike!), carried at least one bag of cat-pee stained clothes on the eBay shuttle to work one day, and had weekends where I slept in three different beds over three different nights. So personal space and an unfettered schedule has been in short supply over the last two years.

I'm feeling pretty great after this break, after some "me" time combined with some wonderful new friends in Addis and some additional perspective into the challenges facing East Africa. I'm also clearly home, as by 11:00 today I had:
a) heard from Daniel twice asking for money for his next month of training
b) received an email from a friend involved in one of the craft projects I support about how his life is being threatened as a result of some pretty horrific post-election events he was dragged into
c) received an unexpected visit from the manager of the Kipsongo Project I visited last month to pick up the Lifestraws donated last year (which upon opening we discovered had exploded and are all ruined - SO SAD)

So I'm definitely home. And I'm definitely up against the same things that remind me why I'm here, but also pose a serious challenge to finding the space (both physically and mentally) to get my work done. It seems so simple - go to the library, shut off your phone, knuckle down. I know this is what I need to do. But I find so much value in the relationships I've created here, they feel like why I came - and I just don't know how to make them a second priority. But I have to, and I'm hoping that the time and space of the last week will remind me that life goes on whether I'm in it or not, and being able to build on these relationships, experiences and the small opportunities to help people in need that I have found (and have been so incredibly supported in by my community) requires me to finish this degree and package myself in a more complete and effective way that I'm currently living being pulled in so many different directions. I think I make progress every day in setting boundaries and focusing my efforts, but at the end of the day I have a really important proposal to write and I need a little bit more of my Addis Ababa life and a little bit less of my Nairobi life in order to get it done.

Cat's FINAL Guest Post: Shopping for Self

2010-04-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Megan is good at encouraging “shopping for self” as she puts it. She has a knack for justifying purchases like no one else. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was getting a commission on cow horn bracelets, glass bead necklaces and an assortment of gorgeous fabrics.

Here is an excerpt:

At Toi Market (This place has bargains so good it makes the Goodwill look like Bloomingdales)
Me: “Do you think this will fit?”
Megan: “That top is 5 bop [seven cents], of course you’re going to get it.”
I purchased that shirt for 7 cents. It had a tag from the GOODWILL with a purchase price of $1.49.

We’re looking at bracelets (yet again):
Megan: “You might only be here once”
Or
Megan: “You’ve wanted one of those for so long”
My thought: “have I?”

Megan also has a vision for each item; loose waists can be belted, awkward sleeves can be cropped, if a shirt doesn’t have the right form or fashion a blazer or necklace can right the situation. In any case “it” should be purchased. Toi Market purchases and their subsequent tailoring is truly Megan in her element.

Another favorite:
Me: “but this ring doesn’t fit”
Megan: “that is because you have been walking around; your fingers are swollen”
Me: pause
Megan: “It is 50 cents; when I got my first horn ring I wore it for almost a year”
I make the purchase.

We are in a silversmiths shop in Lamu:
Megan: “But you don’t have anything else like that”. . .
My thought: I probably have over 40 necklaces AND THIS IS A NECKLACE

At Kitangela Glass:
Me: “But Megan I don’t need Champagne flutes”
Megan: “You can’t get crummy ones half off at Ross for less and these are one of a kind”
Me: A look that says you've got to be kidding me
Megan: “Plus you love Champagne”
Me: “Ok, I can always give them away as gifts if I feel really guilty”
I made the purchase.

If she is not appealing to the part of your brain that will go for great deals and “good investment pieces” (mind you, I was not raised to consider a retail purchase an investment) then she switches modes with no decrease in effectiveness. Megan is on a mission to save the world one accessory at a time. . . as if I needed to tell you, she is succeeding.

The Masai are a tribe known for their beautiful beaded jewelry. A swarm of “sales people” are stationed at every border, safari stop and tourist trap. You hear the phrase “looking is free” more than if you spoke it into a feedback machine and mixed it. In week two when they were trying to sell us our 10,000th bracelet:
Megan, “this is the only way for women in this community to have any independent earnings.”
I was getting fed up and had a I’ll-scratch-my-way-out-of-here-I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-this kind of attitude. Let’s just say we dealt with a lot of hard sells. Megan meanwhile seems happy to entertain every offer. I’m not sure if its respect, patience or another redeeming quality I’m lacking, but there is clearly SOMETHING . . . hmmm. . . its not a bracelet. So anyway, “looking is free” but buying numerous brick-a-brack African dust covered trinkets is not.

At one point Megan was hoping to find a goat skin rug . . . instead she got two sheep skin rugs to which she is allergic.

We pull into a turn out on the highway that overlooks the Great Rift Valley. We’re just stopping for a quick bathroom break but there are little shacks with items for sale.
Me: I’m out of patience.
Megan: “Get a little something. In all likelihood no one has bought anything here all day”
Me: “That is because they are selling crap Megs”

Let me be clear, I trust Megan and although I generally don’t enjoy shopping I enjoy shopping with her. She has never steered me wrong or encouraged a purchase I didn’t end up using and enjoying.

Although I would not be one to encourage impulse buying, I was amused when Megan purchased a Barack Obama Scrabble board (it was either that or Jesus). She even got me to play, which is no small feat (I have extreme difficulty with spelling and abhor the shame and anguish a game of scrabble indefinitely brings). Megan proved her persuasive powers extend beyond shopping for self. . . hopefully the purchases she encouraged did some good and will come in handy . . .

Cat Hawley Post #7: My Limited Impressions of the United Nations

2010-04-22T08:40:00.002-07:00

Megan and I were fortunate enough to be graciously invited to the home of Svante and Leah for a marvelous dinner. This excited me on many fronts: 1. We have a wonderful mutual friend (Phil Homer) 2. They have a darling new baby (Dexter) 3. Who would turn down a home cooked meal consisting of Swedish meatballs stuffed with figs, salad (my only one on this trip – stuck to cooked vegetables in an effort not to get sick) and decadent chocolate cake.

Several friends had been invited and we are introduced. The conversation followed a predictable course until the topic of the Chillean earthquake brought definitive comments from a French lady who works at UNEP (UN Environmental Protection). From here on out I’ll refer to her as “U.N.” U.N. told us there will be a large earthquake in the next three years in San Francisco. I contended that although earthquake preparedness is an important part of living in the Bay Area (I have most of the items in a “72 hour” kit) I am skeptical that earthquakes can be predicted with such accuracy. She went on to state that people are leaving the state for fear of the impending “big one” and I contest that, no, if anything, people are leaving the state because of high taxes (and Megan chimed in due to the rising cost of living!).

The conversation normalized. Svante recounted a trip to Sweden and we got updates on eight month old Dexter. Megan was next up and she explained that, “I have been involved in the life of a young women who recently had a baby as the result of rape. We had tea with her yesterday and dropped off baby gear brought over from the states. She just got her own place not far from her Mom's in Kawangware (one of Nairobi’s many slums) and she and the adorable little baby are doing well.”

U.N. nearly let out a shriek. She is shocked that Megan goes to the slums and asked in a perfectly posh French accent “You drive your car there? Do you fear for your safety?” Megan diplomatically explained that it isn’t safe to visit at night but that she has made several uneventful visits during the day. What I find shocking is not that Megan has been to a slum but that someone who has lived in Nairobi for 13 years could have such complete isolation from a critical part of the population. This woman is supposed to have a knowledge base to give helpful advice on local matters.

I’d had a little beer so the edge was taken off and I was in a compliant and relaxed state for the moment. The conversation turns to the Chinese and U.N. unequivocally stated that when they smile they are cajoling you and will use this tactic to manipulate almost any situation. Megan asks, “Cat did you experience this when you lived in Hong Kong?” I give a flat, “No.”

We wrap up the evening as I had to sort gear for a climb I was leaving for the next morning. Megan offered to give a friend of Svante’s a ride home and U.N. and her helper as well. U.N. doesn’t drive at night and, yes, she had full-time help with her (I don't think she likes living alone). I was sandwiched in the back seat with U.N. on my right. Megan turned on the wipers and defroster and we backed out. U.N. starts frantically rolling her window down and barking at Megan that she has the “wrong icon” on (due to the slow defrost and the admittedly uncomfortable hot air) about three times in rapid succession. U.N. was getting a bit frantic, it seems she thought Megan could’t drive. While I’ve shared this sentiment on previous occasions, in this instance Megan had complete control of the situation.

U.N. was relentless in her expressions of discomfort. It’s as if her very life depended on the windshield defrosting at the rate of jet propulsion. She told Megan to turn off the windshield wipers . . . the rain let up for a nanosecond then came down again in sheets. I proclaimed, “We have a back seat driver on our hands.” She told Megan her brakes are useless as her car is so old. Megan took it all in stride, handling the situation with her usual maturity and grace. I’m not so poised and began to giggle (as much to myself as possible). U.N. exclaimed she is too hot and I was noticeably giggling at that point. When you insist on maximum defrost on a wet night in a crowded vehicle things are bound to get warm. This is not a secret of physics, it is basic common sense, which is clearly lacking. I swallowed my giggles and collected myself. For the sake of friends involved I summon everything I had not to be rude or comment further.

We turn onto Muthaiga Road where U.N. lives. I momentarily wondered if Megan turned left into a porthole that emptied in Beverly Hills. We found ourselves on pristine light pavement with manicured gardens that would make Kew Garden's greener with envy. U.N. explains that her neighbor, whose estate we are passing, is the sultan of blah blah blah and the “he receives his weight in gold each year.” I’m not doubting this guy is extremely wealthy but a this point I’m beginning to question the factuality of her little tidbits. The askari (guard) opens the gate to her chateau. A guard is actually typical in Kenya but you are getting the picture. . . this is no ordinary Kenyan existence this lady is living. We are invited in for wine but respectfully decline citing the long day of travel ahead. U.N. says we can do it another time and promises to invite Megan to a lawn party.

The helper and U.N. exit our vehicle and I immediately express my astonishment in my typical boisterous fashion that Megan is well accustomed to. “Did you hear the same things I was hearing? Please tell me you think that was as unbelievable and ridiculous as I do?” Svante’s friend concurs that this woman is a little off. My giggling has turned to fits of laughter as I recount the comments of the evening. Megan has joined in my astonished glee. I encourage Megan to attend the lawn party and drink as much of U.N.’s free booze as possible.

Svante’s friend explains that the last time she went to dinner at the house she had an escort car in front and in back of her. This seems outlandish seeing as they live in a middle class neighborhood a mere fifteen minutes from her house. It’s not like she is driving through a SLUM to get there . . . oh the horror!

More recollections of the evening bring amusement and I go back and forth between giddy befuddlement and dismay. Once the absurdity wore off I was left to make sense of the experience. The United Nations has a reputation of being out of touch and the microcosm of my exposure did nothing to dispute this stereotype. I couldn’t help but be concerned that someone so removed is giving opinions and making policies that effect the lives of locals. Is the United Nation’s role just another form of colonialism? I feel momentary guilt for passing so much judgment. After all, I live a comfortable life in San Francisco and this woman left her home presumably to help others. Still, it wasn’t clear that good intentions were helping anyone. I had run out of empathy for another over paid bureaucrat.

Cat Hawley Post #6: Rotary Sunshine Rally

2010-04-22T08:40:00.001-07:00

Megs wrote about this event a year ago but now you get it from my perspective . . .

Megan is an active member in the Hurlingham chapter of Rotary in Nairobi. Every year the whole of Nairobi Rotary clubs host an event at the Nairobi fair grounds. Hundreds of disabled kids convene in one place for a day of celebration, food and entertainment. Megan warned me that the retarded kids from Kenya would have more rhythm than I do. Even with this cautionary word it was humbling to see proof when she was right.

A group of Jains coordinates the food distribution. Hundreds of young Rotarians distributed snacks, juice, lunch, fruit, milk and candy. It was a literal Thanksgiving. Music was playing on stage and the DJ was keeping the large crowd engaged. Then it came time for the BMX bike races. There were little kids on bikes from Kenya’s junior team here to entertain their less able-bodied peers. They went all out and the kids were smiling and cheering. The kids needed to be kept off the field for safety and every now and then you would get an enthusiastic fan running after the bikes, flailing and sprinting with astounding energy. A Rotarian would go tearing after the child to keep them out of harms way.

As the bikes were whizzing around, a very young boy wanted to go across the field. I couldn’t let him but followed him at the edge of the crowd to be sure he stayed safe. I held his hand and affably made small talk but he didn’t respond. It turns out he just needed to make his way to the porta-potties. I told him I would wait off to the side for him (no response). As I waited four boys in wheel chairs with missing limbs rolled up (by the way these kids also have better rhythm than I do). I was totally unequipped to help these kids and was asking them if they had a teacher who could assist them. I was a bit distracted trying to round up someone who could assist with the bathroom needs of these kids and I realized I might have lost the little guy I’d brought over first.

Shortly thereafter I found him signing to another kid. It turns out I’d been yakking to a deaf kid for the last 10 minutes. I got him back to his group and there were plenty of hugs and high fives along the way. For all my fumbles I couldn’t top Megan. She asked a group of kids (including several blind kids) if they would like to “see” the digital image of the picture she had just taken. Thankfully, we didn’t dampen any spirits and the day was a success.

It rained in the afternoon but that didn’t stop the fun. We just kept handing out food and then Kenya’s most popular rapper took the stage. The kids wanted hugs, handshakes and to dance. At one point a kid asked me to dance and in what struck me as a formal way. He said something like, “It would be my pleasure if you would dance with me now” and held out his hand. Just as I reached out to hold it, a teacher rushed up and said, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”

It was a pleasure to see these kids in an environment where they were praised and the day would be filled with positive memories. These kids are facing stark challenges on many levels and it was glorious to see them spend some time away from their worries.

Cat Hawley Post #5: Post Election Violence

2010-04-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

Driving from the boys home in Mangu we saw a lady holding a baby waiting for a Matatu. Megan stopped so we could give her a ride into town. She was very grateful. We chatted and she handed me her baby who fell asleep in my arms. Respa (the mom – who you were introduced to earlier in this post by Megan) explained she also has a six-year-old boy and had recently moved to Mangu. During the post election violence her husband’s family disowned her because she is from another tribe. She turned to her own family and her mother and sister sent her away. Respa was wiping away tears. It was incomprehensible that her own mother would disown her and the children. Her family had originally accepted the marriage but tensions of the country changed that.

Respa has a sweet disposition and a sincerity that was undeniable. Megan and I got the sense she hadn’t opened up about this much, if at all. She explained she is now starting her life over on her own with her children. It is hard to imagine being in her situation; mourning the loss of your family and having the responsibility of two children and all this in a volatile political situation that might turn on you again.

She asked for Megan’s phone number. We pulled over to drop her off, I handed her the sleeping child and we said goodbye. As we pulled away Megan explained that it would be normal and acceptable for her to ask for money (but we were pleased she didn’t at that time). It would also be acceptable for us to say no. Megan explained that it can be hard to simply be empathetic for worry that the money question is forthcoming. That evening we received a text: “I hope you got home safe. Thank you for the ride.”

Respa’s story is more common that I would have originally guessed. Although the riots took place in early 2008 the country still has divisions that clearly aren’t mended. There are some that think violence will flair up again. They are worried about what the future holds and not much confidence is bestowed on the government to mend the situation.

Other less severe stories are equally surprising. Sandra, a friend of Megan’s graciously took me to the bead wholesalers of Nairobi. She is an attractive, creative and quick-witted fashion designer. She explained to me that the coalition government is holding together but is basically ineffective. As we walked she pointed out brand new police housing that will be torn down to build a road. Sadly, this is the tip of the iceberg in poor planning and corruption. I ask her about her experience during the post election violence.

Sandra explained it was worst in the slums and that she stayed home and ate what she had in the house because she was cooped up for days on end. Her cousin was not so lucky. He had been married less than a month to a woman who is not from his tribe. He received threats that his house would be burned down and that he and his wife would not be safe unless they left. The wife fled to her family for fear she would be killed. The house was burned and they were left with nothing. Only recently were they reunited but now Sandra’s family is responsible for helping him get back on his feet. This is a hardship in a country where means are already spread so thin.

Note from Megan: I also wrote about Respa's situation here - though I spelled her name wrong! Due to a generous donation from Joy Nelson I hope to be able to send Respa to secretarial school in the hopes that it will put her and her children on a new path towards independence and safety.

Cat Hawley Post #4: Things Megan Has Not Told You About Her Life in Kenya

2010-04-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

1. Everyone drives with their brights on at night. No one turns down the high beams for oncoming traffic. This is particularly confounding to me because another thing you notice in Nairobi are numerous driving school vehicles. It seems a number of people are attending driving school but what they are learning is a bit of a mystery.

2. “Flash me” is commonly said but it doesn’t mean “show me some
flesh”. It has a different connotation and basically means “ring me
and hang up.” The cell phone system is different than in the States;
you don’t buy a plan, instead you purchase credit. So if you know you
are low on credit this comes in handy and you flash your friend and
they call you back (you can receive calls if you are out of credit but
you can’t make outgoing calls). The credit phenomenon creates a
culture of hanging up with out saying goodbye (your credit is by the
second). Sometimes someone will call, get and answer to their
question and hang up. It can be baffling and seem rude when you are
accustomed to western communication norms.

3. Short ties are laughably short. Driving around the central
business district one will notice respectably dressed men in suits
with their tie extending no lower than 4th button of their shirt, in
other words embarrassingly short. It is unclear to Megan and myself
how such a fashion “no no” was ever introduced, propagated and
accepted.

4. Swahili is a melodious language. It is absolutely captivating to listen to even if your vocabulary is limited to phrases from The Lion
King. Lala Salam means good night and there seems to be an
onomatopoetic sensation communicated by its sound.

5. Weather on the equator is not necessarily sweltering.

6. Megan knows her mechanic intimately. He meets her at home and at school or where ever she has car trouble. She trusts him with her life in a fairly literal sense (see numbers 7 and 8). So when she
noticed what seemed to be yellow liquid leaking from her front tires
she called him. He asked her if she had a dog. She said yes. He
didn’t charge her.

7. Car accidents are rampant. We saw three in one day (not including
minor fender benders.)

8. Drinking and driving is common practice.

9. Littering is common practice.

Cat Hawley Post #3: Safari with the Boys from Nakuru

2010-04-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Megan and I took five little boys from the Joseph Waweru Boys Home on safari in Nakuru National Park with us. We arrived at the park gate early in the morning. Megan and I paid for our tickets while the kids tried to coax a monkey into our van with their
breakfast. The pop-top to the safari van was open and the monkey was basically ready to jump in. In a panic, we explained that it wasn’t appropriate to feed the animals. We thought our guide was aware of the situation, which he wasn’t, so we mentioned it to him. He turned around with a look on his face that said “that is not good.” The monkey is close to Megan’s head and she is understandably flustered: we don’t need a monkey in our van with kids holding swipable edibles. In this moment of concern Megan announced “no food until lunch.” All ended well, our guide intervened; the monkey was shooed away and the kids got a snack before noon.

Look Out!
Peaceful Moment Near Waterfall
Lunch Time

Easter procession

2010-04-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

We passed a group of villagers following a priest carrying a wooden cross on Easter Friday. At first we were tempted to write the scene off as any number of small-town revivals marked by scratchy loud speakers and fervent calls to repentance. Rather, it was a peacefully quiet crowd of all ages kneeling in prayer facing the cross, their backs silhouetted against the brightly colored facade of the town’s few kiosks bordering the dusty road we traveled on.

Further on we stopped for a bathroom break and realized we had created a barrier of sorts with our parked car to the worshipers, now forming a procession and coming our way. We giggled nervously as we faced the stoically approaching wall of people. But it took only a moment to remember the cross that they followed, to see the peace on their faces, the hands held between generations - all in their Sunday best. I asked if I should move our car so that we didn’t get in the way of their march, realizing as I did that such a barrier could do nothing to stop such a group. Their faith, their journey, their very existence reflected the perfect synchronicity of grief and hope that Easter celebrates. To this crowd of believers the road was wide open; such obstacles were only to circumvent.

Daniel

2010-04-06T00:31:00.000-07:00

For those who doubt in miracles.

How cool is this!?

I had nothing to do with this hand, by the way - just enjoying bearing witness to a new range of opportunities for Daniel. My Rotary club here in Nairobi has raised some money to get a lift for his leg (he was hit by a car last year) and for part of the school fees to help his daughter finish Form 4 - senior year).

I would like to try and raise around $60 to help Daniel pay for his living costs while he attends three months of training in Busia to learn how to use his hand. This could transform his life from one of begging to one in which he can make a living of his own.

He was just glowing.

Songs from up country

2010-04-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

I left last Wednesday to drive north to the town of Kitale. On the border is a slum of unfathomable conditions given it's proximity to a town and the lush vegetation that surrounds it. The people of Kipsongo welcomed us with songs and dance passed down through generations of Turkana people. Though they left their ancestral land 40 years ago their traditions run deep. Amidst serious poverty and challenges to health, sanitation and education this is yet another moment of pure, blissful celebration that I've been fortunate to witness.

Check out the work to create sustainable change in this community that is being led by an incredible family with the support of their church and local Rotary in Michigan: http://www.kipsongoproject.com/

Point zero

2010-03-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve stumbled upon a concept, and I’ve given it a name. Point zero. This would be the title of my book if I were to write one, and it is the perfect summation of my own personal tipping point. I have considered the last three and a half years a special kind of journey. I took some chances on believing in myself, asked for some help and verification of my strengths to do so, managed to break free of an incredibly pragmatic approach to work that dictated a good and secure job should be enough. Once those first steps were taken it’s as if a celestial wind blew down my unseen (or self-constructed) barriers and opened doors I had no faith existed. It has been a journey of total immersion – in my strengths, in my weaknesses, in my relationships and in the homes I’ve made along the way. I have experienced some of the greatest pain and frustration of my life along the way, along with moments of absolute and utter bliss in which I repeat Anne Lammot’s simple praise to God, “thank you thank you thank you thank you.” I feel like I have scratched the tip of what it means to grow up. I grew up pretty easily in terms of the basics of caring for my basic needs and myself – I think I’m on a slightly slower trajectory to understanding the complexity of life, relationships, sacrifice and love. I’m getting there. And much of what I’m learning here has nothing to do with the fact that I’m in Africa, but that I’m in a place, both personally and socially that strips away some of the distractions that kept me feeling somehow detached from the base level of life and humanity in the past.

The most impacting part of this journey is the realization that the more time goes by, the more I understand how little I know and that while there are aspects of ourselves that are absolutely imperative to honor for what they are and how they feed our soul, there are also plenty of beliefs and attitudes we take on as a factor of our circumstance, our culture and our experiences. The longer I live my life in Kenya – in some ways so isolated and in others so much more entrenched in the reality of life than I’ve ever felt in the U.S. – the more I realize that my take on the world, in all its cultural relativity and sensitivity, is the smallest of sand grains in a much bigger picture. It’s as if every day I strip away a piece of knowing and receive a reminder to once again look outward for a new understanding of life. Not to reinvent my philosophy or my faith, but to constantly invite in the awing magnitude of life on this earth, in all its wonder and diversity.

I think this is point zero for me. This line I find myself walking where I can recognize how far I’ve come, but at the same time how much more there lays ahead. Where I can walk with a bounce in my step and a twinkle of potential in my eye, while at the same time feeling my throat close and that guttural feeling of discouragement about the state of things and my inability to do anything about them. It lets me believe 100% that whatever it takes to finish this time is worth it, while at the same time acknowledging a state of disenfranchisement that makes me feel like savings don’t matter anyway. It’s a place I both want to move past, but never stray too far from. It is, I imagine, exactly why that wind blew, those doors were opened, and this time was given.

Beautiful Day

2010-03-21T13:19:00.001-07:00

Respit

2010-03-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

Catherine is en route home and many more posts from her time here are yet to come. In the meantime, I interrupt fun travel posts to process a bit and try and reroute my day so that I can better embrace the energy I had yesterday after sending her off.

I need to be writing and reading pretty much constantly right now. Both things I love to do, but for which I have a really, really hard time setting aside the time and space needed to do them well. My project proposal is due in two weeks and I should be ready to present in class on Wednesday on my progress (of which thankfully, I've made - but have not yet written up). Yesterday I had a great day of getting organized, catching up on correspondence and work, getting a bit of exercise and generally feeling excited about the next few months. This morning, the first text message I received sent me careening in another direction.

When Catherine was here we gave a ride into Nakuru town from Mangu (where the boy's home is - it's about 20 minutes out of town) to a young woman and her 18 month old daughter. On the way, she told us about how she'd come to Mangu following the post election violence of '07-08 because she and her husband were from different tribes and both their families had turned on her. She started crying when she talked about how she could, in a way, understand his family's rejection. It was being denounced by her own mother and sister that she never expected (especially since they had supported the marriage until that point). I've faced this sort of rejection from my own sister so I shared a moment of profound understanding with her, and perhaps it is moments like that that somehow take these brief experiences and translate them into something more for me. We exchanged numbers, I promised to visit on my next trip and I remarked to Catherine that it was nice to be able to connect with her on such a human level, and not just from the stand point of being asked for money - which as a mzungu is exceptionally common and almost expected here when in rural or especially impoverished areas.

Rispin, the mom, keeps in touch sending me a text message every few days letting me know how she and her kids (she has a son in elementary school along with the baby, Brittany) are doing. I sense that she is lonely and frustrated with her situation - living in a new area, working to make just enough to eat and pay rent with a little vegetable stand, and little prospects for further opportunities. She did ask me once for help going to a secretarial training course, but it's much more money than I have or feel I could confidently raise at this point unfortunately.

This morning, I woke to a text message from Rispin saying she was on the way to the hospital, that her husband had found and "ambushed" them. My heart dropped, my subsequent dreams took the situation to all sorts of levels and by the time I got out of bed I was completely out of sorts. If I were in the U.S., I'd know what to do in this situation: call the police, try and find a pro-bono attorney, work on a restraining order. Here I am limited both by my own lack of knowledge of how the system works, the system itself, and the ever-present haze of communication that leaves me certain I never have the full story.

It is so strange to be in a country in which most people speak the same language as me, but as a result of the education system, the tribal makeup, and the residual arbitrary boundaries of colonialism, they do so at all different levels. Because the handful of projects and people that I've created relationships with (in an effort to build their resources and skills through my own and my networks, especially Rotary) tend to come from the lower-economic rungs of society or rural areas (often synonymous), language becomes that much more of a challenge in navigating each unique situation. I am constantly trying to sort out which questions I've left unasked or where someone might have left off a piece of information that could greatly influence how I react. I never know if I've got the full story, or even the most important parts of the story. I get so anxious feeling like I'm missing something that would make the situation easier to address - or perhaps easier to remove my sense of responsibility from. But I never can - I have this sense that these people find me for a reason, that it is part of my growth to learn how to help them - if it means learning how to ask for help, how to make my own sacrifices, how to set boundaries or limits or any other number of things.

Today's message from Rispin, calls from Daniel (a local man with no hands who is desperate to have me raise school fees for his daughter) and documents from the older boys in Nakuru awaiting my review have me feeling heavy in my inadequacy, and totally overwhelmed. I don't have the funds needed, there remain a few debts from Maureen's pregnancy and above all, I just don't know how to set boundaries when people's health and well being are on the line for the sake of getting my work done. This blog serves as my journal, and sometimes I worry it is too honest or personal, but I process things by putting them "out there" and blogging has always felt like a natural fit for me in this way. I remain so thankful for the positives even when I get the wind knocked out of me like this. The small boys home in Nakuru is doing great with three working computers and software thanks to donors and an influx of donations as a result of Nicole and Catherine's visits (these women have absolutely floored me with their generosity, support and love for these kids and for me). I know I'm learning, I know I will get through this next phase and that opportunities lay ahead, and I won't always feel this helpless when confronted with things like this. But in these moments I really do struggle to sort through it all and know how to stay as productive as I need to when I'm so discouraged by the limitations that we all face.

Cat Hawley Post #2: Nukuru

2010-02-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

A stretch of the road from Nairobi to Nakuru overlooks the Great Rift Valley. We passed men transporting coal on bikes with bags stacked well over their heads. Most the scenery consists of small verdant farms.

Our destination is a home for street boys just outside of town. When we arrive the rain is coming down and the sky flashes purple and red with lightning. We enter the kitchen and the tin roof makes the big drops ring and we talk above the roar as Megan introduces me to Bev. She founded the house 14 years ago and is a retired teacher from Maine with a big heart and plenty of energy.

Once word gets out that Megan has arrived the boys pile into the kitchen. They crowd around a bench with us and we teach them thumb wars. Soon I’m playing two kids at once with both hands. Everyone is having fun and they want to play again and again.

The boys are darling but it’s hard to imagine all the challenges this shoestring operation faces. Nearly all the kids (there are 13 at the home – a few are at boarding high schools) have been on the streets. A recent arrival has a distended belly due to malnourishment, one boy in the home has Aids, others have learning disabilities that the Kenyan public school system is not equipped to address. The ones that have beaten the odds and excelled in school or have the ability to attend university won’t get the chance unless funds become available. Sometimes behavior problems are an issue and the older boys will beat up the little ones, or have been caught selling donated clothes.

Despite these harsh realities, real good is done here. The boys have four adults who care about them and provide shelter and fresh food from the shamba (garden). There is a goat that produces 3 liters of milk a day, chickens for eggs, and the children are clean and smiling. Somehow, there is order in the chaos. Last night they were crowded around the dining room table watching a documentary on boys who competed in a traditional dance competition in Uganda. Tonight they will hold an informal dance competition of their own.

This is a vast improvement from the alternative; sniffing glue on the streets of Nakuru. On the way to the market, Megan and I were approached by two little kids maybe as young as three and their seven(?) year old caretaker. They were in tatters and had little bottles of glue with them. Although the conditions at the boys home might not meet western standards the kids are offered a childhood and dignity. Megan has given thoughtful time, energy and resources to the boy’s home and as someone who has this bond with the children and she can’t help but constantly seek to make improvements. I’m hoping this visit was also a reminder of the tremendous impact she has already had on these young individuals.

(If you are interested in learning more about any of these kids, please visit here.)

Guest Blogger: Cat Hawley

2010-02-22T00:51:00.000-08:00

Cat arrived early Saturday morning for 3 glorious weeks in Kenya. As one of our shared loves is writing - she'll be guest blogging here during her stay.

Megan and I have literally followed each other around the world. She went to Vladivostok with her children’s choir, then I went on a good will tennis exchange. I went to Beijing and her trip came a few ears later. Megan studied abroad in Costa Rika and I joined my family the following December. I moved to Hong Kong and Megan visited. She went to Italy and then I got my chance. I lived in Ireland for two summers and she has been too. Although I'm well, traveled I'm a bit intimidated by Africa but couldn't be more pleased to follow Megan.

Kenya is a myriad of curiosities both in a personal and social, political and economic sense. On one level I miss Megs and I've been wondering what she is up to? I look forward to sharing in the rich context of her daily experience. Sights, sounds, smells and characters who I have heard much about but don't have much of a sense of how these things come together to make up her routine. I'm still wondering what its like to get from point A to B on a Matatu, visit a university with no set calendar and meet a variety of people and organizations that Megan has reached out to and grown to love. I'm curious to see Megan living the experience she took chances to have and in which she deeply believes. Threw our friendship I've seen her gracefully fill many roles, as daughter, student, girlfriend, auntie, friend, sibling, coworker, etc. I look forward to seeing Megan in new roles she has created in Kenya that I trust she is filling just as gracefully.

Then there is the larger marvel of Africa. In a weak attempt to gain some understanding, I read a " Biography of the Continent" by John Reader. It is comprehensive but did little to connect the dots in my head. A few years back I was attending a presentation titled "global investment update" or something to that extent. A world map was displaced that there were dots everywhere except Africa... not one dot? The lecture was not about Africa but in my mind that was the strongest statement. It has stuck with me along with various other associations: diamonds, AIDS, the great migration, female circumcision, and of course a certain song by Toto that won a 1982 Grammy. I don't know how any of that translates to the feeling, pace, attitude and sensations of being there . . . Megs and I will keep you posted. . .

The pictures in this come from our visit to the Mt. Olive Academy for girls where we helped deliver some tables as part of a joint Rotary project between Newport Sunrise and Megan's club in Hurlingham. In small world occurences, Fr. Henry is good friends with one of my college team mates father's, Terry Donahue - go fig!).

Light at the end of the tunnel

2010-02-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

In the last seven days, a run down of the numbers:

# of births attended: 1
# of hours slept: 30
# of exams taken: 4
# of visits to the hospital: 8
# of times I misplaced my phone: 20
# of times said phone was right where it should be: 19
# of times I almost left house wearing mismatched shoes with one on wrong foot: 1
# of times I spilled an entire water bottle over my partially completed exam: 1
# of semesters completed for my coursework: 3
# of semesters left: 1 (it's all research now!)
# of dear friends arriving in the middle of the night tonight: 1
# of celebratory goats to be eating this weekend: undetermined.

A birth story

2010-02-12T23:11:00.000-08:00

This past week marked two events that will stay with me and impact the rest of my life. The first was my induction into the Rotary Club of Hurlingham, my host club here in Kenya, and the place I have chosen to make my Rotary home for now. The great thing about joining Rotary is the knowledge that no matter where I go in the world, I know exactly where to start in finding people who share my goals and values of promoting equity, access to opportunity and service above self. I am honored to have found my path in life coincide with the Rotary mission and I hope as a member I can give to others the incredible gifts my fellowship gave to me.

The second event started last night at approximately 10:03 p.m., when after a late study session I came screaming into the house needing to make some quick dinner and then jump on an skype chat with my eBay boss. Egg thrown in frying pan, juice poured, computer on, internet up. Maureen appears in the doorway, looking slightly dazed saying, “I think my water is breaking.” My reaction? Giggles. Partially because it took my brain awhile to translate “water breaking” into what I expected to hear, which was “water broke.” More so because I couldn’t believe the day was finally here, that one of the very last nights in which I could afford to sacrifice sleep and let the unknown steer us (exams start on Tuesday) was before us and a real live baby was about to join our funny family.

I grabbed housemate Judi, a sixth year medical student from Germany and we headed a couple blocks away to the hospital we had chosen for the birth. I have been impressed with the hospital thus far – Maureen likes the doctor we’ve seen for her antenatal visits and we made the choice together to pay for a package with a midwife birth – much less expensive than having her private doctor come in or even one of the on-call doctors at the hospital. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with that option if I didn’t believe in the facilities and their reputation for serving victims of violence and rape. That said, our check-in was one of the least professional and utterly frustrating things I’ve experienced. They misread Maureen’s I.D. card, continued to ask us to pay (even though I’d paid the bill 3 weeks prior), and generally acted disinterested and bored as Judi grew impatient knowing that once the water breaks the baby could come any minute, and we needed to get a basic exam to see her progress. I kept my cool while maneuvering the baby bag, my backpack, my purse and both Maureen’s and my wallets (you know those funny commercials with the dad trying to take the house with them to the hospital when it’s time? That was me). Long-term living in Kenya has its perks (or perhaps I should restate: lack of medical training has its perks), one of them being an ability to not freak out when a dear friend is literally leaving puddles behind her and the staff is more interested in watching the t.v. in the waiting room.

I can’t go into details about certain aspects of the night because they are simply too personal to the nature of the birth and those involved, but we eventually ended up in the communal labor room with the support team of Judi, myself and Megan White in place. I officially lost my cool when they told us that no one was allowed to be in the room when they did the initial exam – having asked this expressly during our initial visits and assuming the role of partner/spouse/father or more importantly, chief hand holder. Megan and Judi did a much better job of approaching the situation diplomatically, I felt incredibly resentful that as is so often the case in Kenya, “procedure” trumped all. After explaining a bit to the nurses and midwifes they conceded to let Judi stay with Maureen as she understood the procedure taking place, and I must say that Judi did an incredible job of asking informed questions but conceding authority to the medical professionals on hand.

Once the exam was done we began a series of rotations (they wanted no more than one person with Maureen at a time as there were two other women in the room, though neither appeared to be in labor – one snored consistently) to hand hold, give back rubs and accommodate the immediate onset of active labor. Maureen was incredible in sharing her wishes, telling us what she needed and what she didn’t want. As anyone who has gone through a labor knows, you see all sides of a person. What I can say is that through it all, the pain and the hurt and the fear, Maureen remained a woman of pureness in a way that makes the whole situation that much more awe-inspiring. We were a funny trio of child-less mzungus doing whatever we could to provide comfort and encouragement as the birth approached. From 10:30 to 3:45 we labored, and when she was at 9 cm they wheeled her to the delivery room, wherein bureaucracy resumed its trump.

Maureen just needed a hand to hold; she said any of us could come in (the other two could hover at the door) so we let Megan go as she has known Maureen since she was 8 years old and is the one in the group sure to call Kenya home the longest. Judi and I stood at the door, speaking words of encouragement and anxiously awaiting those first yelps that would tell us the baby had arrived. Maureen says there were no more than three major pushes and the baby was here. The chord was around her neck so she didn’t cry immediately, but Judi and I lucked out in standing right next to the warming bed that awaited. We watched as the nurses cleaned her up, rubbed her skin and brought forth those first pensive cries. We watched as she drew her eyes open wide, blinked in the new world around her and stretched her tiny limbs. When the nurse had finished she wrapped her up and handed her to me to take over to her mother to meet her face to face.

I don’t know what else to say other than this birth was a community effort, led at the helm by an incredibly strong young woman who has embraced what has been set before her and is on her way to becoming a wonderful mom. Mama Maureen (grandma to baby Mukoya) came this morning to celebrate her daughter’s strength. She was surprised and overjoyed by it.

Maureen had kept quiet on the name, though she told us she had one in mind. Many people were hoping for a namesake in this baby, and any number of people would deserve the honor for the friendship and support they extended. But Maureen chose a name that represented her understanding of this time and the daughter she was welcoming: Christabell Andola Mukoya. The ‘Christ’ is Maureen’s way of recognizing that through all of this, the trauma and the journey and the hope, Christ has been with her. The ‘bell’ is for the beautiful daughter now before us, and the ‘Andola’ is in honor of her mother. I believe she will be known by many as Bella.

I haven’t been as good at sharing the nature of my time here as I feel I was in South Africa. The saturation is different – I’m not immersed in the struggles of humanity in the same way, nor am I so far from my comfort zone and the world I know. Nairobi is a modern city, my social life is pretty comparable to home, I take a hot shower every morning. The developing world has its challenges, but the longer I’m here the more I learn what it is to simply be human, to be a friend, to be a family member. This time with Maureen and sharing the birth of Christabell is enough to make it all make sense. If I came here for only one thing, this would be enough. To witness this journey, to learn from the people involved and most especially Maureen what it is to do the very best with what life throws at you. To understand so clearly that some things are beyond our control, that no matter what order we try and approach our life with, we can at any time be asked to deal with something from left field. To learn how to do this with grace and honesty from such a young woman, and at the end of it all find such joy. Such faith.

Dumb Sunday

2010-02-07T08:48:00.001-08:00

Nairobi's hot streak finally gave way to scattered (and sometimes strangely heavy) showers this last week which has made for days of infrequent bouts of glorious sun. Though today presented a multitude of opportunities in which to enjoy said sun (from climbing, to football to live music), I took the high road in the hopes of savoring a productive day at home. That was dumb. I sat at home, glued to my computer, willing myself to work, and then doing just the opposite. One of the residual lessons I am learning in my time here is to seize the day (a favorite mantra of my father, though it once came through in an email as "sneeze the day" - somewhat fitting if you know him). And yet today I broke my own rule to take advantage of friendship and fun opportunities, because the work load is extreme right now, and I've had so little time to catch up on sleep, get my affairs in order and get stuff done at home. Lesson learned: school work at the library, paid work at home in the evenings - use the day to seek the sun and the people that make your heart sing (or might, if you got to know them better!).

As I think about next steps (which I do, often), it's days like this that throw me for a loop. By the end of it, I wanted to jump on a plane tomorrow, take the first job offer I've had and settle back into a life in which I am known and comfortable. To be able to have those Sunday afternoons with family and friends that simply fall into place, that don't require great plans or trade offs by nature of their flexibility. And yet had I done any of the things I could have today, I know I would have been in high spirits, caught in the feeling of wonder that smacks me upside the head so often here with a simple statement of "look what you get to do/be/see/know here." The world of my heart and my history is so far away, but the world of my hands and my mind is all around - ready to be made into something of purpose. It makes knowing what comes next, or what should come next, so incredibly difficult. And yet even in the down times, the undercurrent of blessings remains, giving some comfort to all the decisions that lie ahead.

(On the topic of blessings, it's all coming up babies these days...welcome to the world Maggie Charlize Obrist and Shaifali Rose Nagase! Maureen is due in a week and a half - on the third day of my exams, in fact. Keep her (and me!) in your prayers).

words

2010-01-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

I hate how long it's been since I've updated this space. It's not for lack of things to share, nor for a lack of time necessarily, but rather for lack of an ability to sift through all that I'm experiencing and filter out what might be interesting or beneficial to share. So much of the reality of my experience in recent years revolves around words - reading and writing for class, writing for work, choosing each phrase so carefully according to whatever medium I'm in. I put on one hat for my academic writing (which sadly has been almost non-existent this semester), another for work and professional blogging, and yet another for emails and correspondence with those at home. In the past two months or so I've had a lot of trouble identifying and segmenting each of these voices, and I've struggled to live up to the opportunities on all fronts that I've been blessed with. I offer this by way of an explanation of why this page remains out of date, and perhaps a request for prayers/encouragement that I might tap into both the analytical and creative regions of my brain that I need access to in order to finish off the semester and continue the professional work that is financially supporting my time here.

That said, let me provide a brief update of what's been going on and a promise for the posting of some awesome pictures (both mine and those taken by my dear friend Nicole on her recent trip here) soon. First off, I'm in the final three weeks of classes, then go into exams which will complete my coursework for my degree here. I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty darn behind and really struggling to keep my nose in the books and not out in the world around me. But I know if I can get through these final weeks, the next phase will be very exciting as I move into my project paper full time. I am hoping to do a case study of an ethical wholesale manufacturing business in Kampala, Uganda - but right now am not hearing back from them (or finding the right contact) to move forward - so could use some prayers in that regard as well! I'm gaining energy and encouragement from continued involvement with the boys home in Nakuru, as well as the older boys who are "SO MUCH MORE THAN EXCITED" (direct quote) that the three computers Shirley McNiel of Imprinted Memories and a member of my sponsor Rotary Club of Orange, have finally arrived here in Kenya. I'll be meeting with them tomorrow to make the delivery, along with some great tutorial software that family friend Jo-L Hendrickson of Individual Software sent. Though she doesn't know it yet, I'm hoping my friend Catherine Hawley will share some of her financial planning wisdom with these boys in helping them set up a business and fundraising plan while she's here next month (note my progress on New Year's resolution #54, do not over-commit myself, delegate instead :).

I will also be speaking at the Karen Rotary Club in a week and a half to share how local clubs here in Kenya can start to take advantage of the Ambassadorial Scholarship for local students, as well as an idea for a larger scholarship fund/program I am hoping to start with a dear friend (and local Rotarian), Kevin Mududa. I'm hoping I graduate first - but I like having the opportunity to share my ideas to help get the ball rolling on the project.

Perhaps most importantly, I'm spending lots of time with Maureen as she prepares for her due date next month. A number of the most important women in my life have been sending funds and collecting donations of all sorts to help me help Maureen get ready for her baby. Talk about a fish out of water - I have no experience with pregnancy or motherhood and yet I find myself trying to counsel Maureen on what to expect in this final month. She is stronger than she knows, and as scared as she might be I know her daughter is going to be a lucky little girl to call her mama. I am humbled by this opportunity to walk with her during this time, and beyond grateful for the many people who are helping as well.

Signing off for now with the people of Haiti in my thoughts and prayers...

October/November Pictures

2009-11-29T07:48:00.001-08:00

*NOTE* Pictures do not format well when I link from smugmug - please click on the image to see the full picture. Thanks!

I'm finally starting to feel a tad organized, a bit more inspired to get some long-put-off projects underway, might even attempt to catch up on email! In the meantime, enjoy some pics of the projects and people that have been keeping me busy!

With Dan and Zeph (Zeph in hat, Dan seated next to Dennis, with lollipop). These are two former street boys who have taken some younger kids off the street and though they have very little to give/share, they have managed to enroll them in school and keep them with them. I love Dennis - he is a smart kid and quite endearing. When I chided him for eating his lollipop and how bad it was for his teeth, he joked, "but they're all ready rotten!" Sadly true, but that's not gonna get him down!

At the Joseph Waweru boy's home in Nakuru for my first visit of the year. I took 2 of the 3 computers my friend Jason donated (I'm using the 3rd one while my mac gets shipped to S. Africa for repairs!) and confirmed they'll have a secure set up to ensure the computers are protected from misuse and theft. The boys were very excited! I'd love to raise $200 to purchase a copy of encarta for kids for each center. If you can contribute $5, $10 or $25 towards this I would greatly appreciate it. The rest of their software needs, especially in terms of typing tutors, excel and Microsoft tutors, are being donated by my dad's good friend Jo-L Hendrickson of Individual Software. Thanks so much Jo-L, Jason, Shirley and the Orange Rotarians for making these opportunities possible for these kids!

Earlier in the month my roommate Katie and I joined Hurlingham Rotarian Ken Idwasi for a trip to his rural home near Kakamega Forest. Along the way we stumbled on a fundraising for a local church, and then visited a local school Ken's family has been supporting in honor of his late mother.

About a year ago, the current standard 8 students (8th graders) were all failing their national exam practice tests. With Ken and his family's help (in the form of salary support for a new teacher, provisions of sanitary pads and education to keep girls in school all month and a variety of other assistance) the students are now virtually all passing their practice tests. We attended a prayer meeting held the day before the actual national exam, met the proud parents of each student and treated them to a big lunch after the meeting.

Katie also led an empowerment workshop with the girls and we both discussed with them some of the changes they can expect in high school, the realities of the issues that until now they've only heard about but have yet to confront (drugs, alcohol etc.). They seem prepared and we were really impressed with the amount of sex-ed and STD-prevention they had already received.

This weekend I started with a Friday visit to a group of crafters I know in Thika. I'm working on connecting them to some groups in the U.S., and it was fun to be back in my element - talking production, talking prices - finding out the stories behind each piece.

Finally, yesterday some Hurlingham Rotarians and I visited the Mt. Olive Girls Academy in Athi River - a school that a group of Newport Rotarians have raised support for. We've been helping identify wholesale supplies including bedding and linens and furniture. So fun to see the new building and think of the girl's lives who will be fortunate to attend there! Huge thanks to Ken and President Remmy for all the help coordinating - and kudos to Kimberly and Sylvia in Orange County for all their work helping the school!

Blankets and towels and sheets oh my!

Tonight's Thanksgiving celebration was postponed until tomorrow due to a power outage this afternoon - but those pics will be here shortly!

It's a girl!

2009-11-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry for being so out of touch. Between my computer going haywire, spending entirely too much time trying to find a car* and keeping up with a LOT more work for school, posting and uploading pictures keeps getting pushed off. However, I miss sharing my life here, and I'm thankful that people continue to mention this blog to me - it means so much that you are reading.

I'll share a bit more when I get back up and running with my own computer (FedExed to South Africa for repairs today!), but in the meantime I want to share about one of the women who works at our house every day and who I know could benefit from some support from home (my native home, that is).

This is Maureen - a gal whose smile and laugh are the sort that can turn a bad mood around in no time - they're just utterly infectious. She works with my roommate's organization, ZanaA, and until recently was a junior field officer (one of the high school grads that are working with their younger peers doing empowerment groups and helping distribute sanitary pads). I was used to seeing her on Tuesdays and Fridays when they had group meetings and so I didn't know her very well until I returned this year and learned she was nearly 4 months pregnant (and now working in the office while she prepares to welcome her baby). I don't think it's my place to share the details of her pregnancy, but suffice it to say it was not planned, and Maureen was not responsible for it. Like the other junior field officers, her focus has been entirely on taking advantage of the opportunity her job with ZanaA has offered, and the hope that in breaking out of the poverty of the Nairobi slums, university lay ahead. Now, she worries constantly that having a baby will interfere with that hope, but I see her daily choose to focus on the positive of her health and her support network here to face the future as bravely as possible.

So why am I sharing this? Though Maureen has younger siblings, she's spent very little time with babies, but has taken on her impending motherhood with a level head and total responsibility. She's made a list of the things she needs to care for her child (a girl!) and hopefully accommodate her attending school, because she's not ready to give up on that dream yet. At the top of her list are the usual baby items - onesies, socks, receiving blankets, diapers, a crib etc. Because they don't have water in Kibera where she lives, cloth diapers aren't super feasible - but she would like some (and protectors) for when she has enough access, or when she simply can't get disposables. I thought that my Bay Area community might be especially helpful in this regard, along with seeking 1-2 portable breast pumps so she doesn't have to give up nursing if funding for university does come through. She's done some internet research and has also become aware of the various ailments nursing can cause - and would love any of the breast pads or creams that you moms out there have found to be especially helpful.

I have a friend coming to visit in February shortly after Maureen's baby will be born who has agreed to set aside a suitcase to help bring her any donations I can collect. Please share this with anyone you know who might be able to help (and financial donations are also very welcome via my paypal account - we are trying to raise at least a year's worth of rent in a larger house as her family currently shares one room, as well). If you can help with any of these items - shoot me an email at meganmacdon AT gmail DOT com and I will connect you with my friend who will carry the items over.

Thanks so much, and more from me soon (contingent on FedEx, that is!).

*It's done! A 1996 Rav4 is parked outside and carried me happily through the sort of errands and activities that would have taken twice as long with out it today :)

A moment of profound thanks

2009-11-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I had a frustrating afternoon. And more than anything, I wanted to come home and blog about it - because what had happened was the sort of thing that makes me feel like SUCH a foreigner here, and sharing it with my extended community helps me to feel less like an other while I process whatever has happened. Thankfully, tonight my mood got flung to the far end of the spectrum with a number of emails that reminded me of the much larger picture of this journey, and how it continues to evolve and change in ways I can't imagine.

Almost three years ago I gave notice at my job and began planning a volunteer trip to South Africa in the hopes of exploring an international career. What I found when I arrived was an utterly tragic rural situation with too many children facing far too much on their own - be it their own illness or the loss of those that should care for them. These kids became my playmates, my pupils (as I attempted to overcome my fear of teaching in basic tutoring sessions) and my inspiration as I submitted my application for the Rotary Scholarship that would ultimately bring me to Kenya. When I applied, it was with the hope that I would end up in South Africa, and be able to continue building a relationship with these children, who had said goodbye to far too many people in their lives, and whose tears when I left broke my heart in such a way that I can barely think about them for fear of the guilt of leaving creeping in.

Such is to say that while many think that this whole experience has been one hell of an exciting ride (and believe me, it has!), it has not been without a large amount of anxiety, fear, sadness and hopelessness along the way. I don't know of anyone who can immerse themselves in such communities and not face moments of pure despair from time to time. Seeing the situation in Nkandla firsthand, reading the case histories and joining the life cycle there for that short time is one of the most incredible things I will ever do - and yet not being able to go back or support them since has been very hard, and made this whole process feel very selfish at times.

Tonight, I received an update from The Africa Project, the group that continues to raise money and support these kids, with pictures from this past summer. I am sometimes afraid to ask how certain kids are doing for fear of hearing bad news, and these pictures reminded me of their incredible spirits and the ongoing work of so many that I was fortunate to be a part of for that short while, and that in so many ways launched me on this path. I was also told that a large donation given by a dear family friend, Joy Nelson, was used in part to take the children on Safari and camping this summer. Though they live near some of the best game parks in the world, many of these kids never have the chance to see them. What a true blessing to know that after 2.5 years, somehow my time there has continued to play a role in their life by way of the generosity of someone in my community.

I was talking to one of my best friends recently and he mentioned that because I often blog about my struggles to understand this experience and all that I see around me, he didn't think that I'd changed that much having taken the steps that I have. It was hurtful to read that comment, but at the same time easy to dismiss. However much I might struggle with who I am in relation to my surroundings, or how exactly I am to go about creating the change I hope to see here or maximizing my contribution in honor of the opportunities I've been given, I am in no way the same scared, overly logical girl who lacked the confidence to take risks and live life to the utmost that I at some point became. Though I have much yet to learn, this journey has opened my eyes and my heart to so many realities of life that I just wasn't getting where I was at. Having moved quite a bit growing up, I now feel like I have the most incredible community at home - though it's spread out around California, the U.S. and now the world. Just today I got an email from a Newport Beach Rotarian who is working with my host club here, a friend from Monterey my parents met at the fair last year who connected me to the weaving and spinning group I've worked with, and two members of The Africa Project - one of whom is anxious to learn more about Kenya and opportunities to get involved. I talked to two young men in Nakuru who will receive the Orange Rotary Club's computer donations, and finalized plans for the Kakamega trip this weekend. I have learned how simple it can be to ask for help - whether for others, or even for myself - and the profound necessity for being a storyteller when I come across things that need to be shared. I have learned to better value work and opportunities, freedom and health, family and friends in entirely new ways. I have begun to understand what sacrifice is all about, what it means to hold out for what is right and how to communicate across cultures, across understandings of right and wrong. It is hard to share life primarily through the internet, but I hope that every once in awhile I do justice to this experience, to the incredible payoff to any risk taken, to the people who have been a part of it and continue to help me weave a path of inter connectivity that I am in absolute awe of. At the very least, I promise I'll keep trying.

Things are looking up

2009-10-30T01:52:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that if the rumor mill is true, my classmates and I have officially passed our first year! I know that doesn't sound horribly impressive - but considering our statistics class last semester, there was a bit of concern! I also think I've found a car that I can afford and meets the safety criteria for Nairobi roads. Please say a prayer that it comes through - the alternative is a teeny tiny toyota or a corolla without a working horn (not ideal for coming up against matatu drivers!).

I will head to Nakuru next week to deliver the first round of laptops, and then to Kakamega Forest with a rotarian to distribute sanitary pads to a school in his home town. I'm going to take the ZanaA intern and we will hopefully do an empowerment workshop with the girl's there. I'm also excited about an upcoming training opportunity with the beading group that I provided a loan for via the excess funds raised by my rotary club in Orange to get their website up and running. They ended up using the funds to hold a series of trainings on quality control with their beaders, and now they want me to come and present on style and designs - how fun! It has been great to reconnect and to have a creative outlet moving forward. I will keep you posted!

Oh - lastly, my classes this semester are really interesting! Last year we were fairly mired in theory and history - now we're getting into the more tangible side of development and its relation to business, which is where my interests rest. My classes include Entrepreneurship, Economics of African Agriculture, Industrialization and Rural Societies and Change. I'm excited to see where the year takes us.

Happy weekend to all!

In which I attempt to cover a lot of bases and wrap them up into a coherent blog post

2009-10-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

My first two weeks back in Nairobi have been much like the rest of my time here - a mess of contradictions, struggles to balance needs versus wants versus the needs and wants of others, and finally the reminder of what a funny role I play here. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I'm not sure I've ever adequately conveyed how much I struggle not fitting into any of the social boxes that that I think we're all used to in some form or another. They might be slightly different here, but who doesn't (however much they may hate to admit it) appreciate identifying with some sort of group/class/culture etc.? I can't really fit myself into one of those yet - though I am constantly confronted by others who assume I fall into the role that many who look like me or come from where I come from do (like the ex-pat friend who heard I was looking for a car, and sent me a notice for a great toyota at what he must have assumed was the reasonable price of $28,000).*

The thing is, I don't think it's that big of a deal to feel like an outsider to a group you're either used to being in or expected to be a part of, provided you've identified a new group on which to hang your hat. But I'm not even your typical starving student here - I have far "more" resources than many classmates or others on my campus - not to mention some of my young professional friends who can't seem to make the leap to the next salary range - which might be only $500/month (great by Kenyan standards when compared to the masses but a far cry from the earnings of many from the elite, well-educated class). I'm both a have, and to a far lesser extent (but often obvious), a have-not - and I'm living and making life decisions daily in a place where the color of my skin, my background, or my home country will constantly decry this fact. It's a simple reality, but it means I spend far more time than I should explaining why I can't afford a car that is considered a deal even by local standards, or why I want to live in a certain area, or how to balance the poverty that I see daily with planning a fabulous trip for my best friends when they come to visit. I sit and I stew because in the midst of living my life here and figuring all these things out, I can pass a little boy on the street begging, learn his name, see how vastly different our struggles are - watch my internal dialogue come to a screeching halt when I stop to consider what his must be: "There's a rich mzungu. She looks nice, I bet she's got some money to spare, now I just have to figure out what words to say to get her to veer off her path and take me to buy some bread and milk...yep, she's wavering, I can tell I've got her now!" This reality, both of the world around me, and how it perceives me, is never far from my mind - and it creates the craziest duality of resenting the label I'm given, the lack of a clear cut label to apply instead, and the guilt of worrying about such things in the first place, given the more profound reality of a small child in worn out shoes forced to walk from a far-off slum to try and find food for the day.

I guess all this goes to say that I'm learning that much of feeling grounded is being able to identify within some sort of a community (duh, right?) - be it socially, economically or philosophically. Part of being abroad for me this time has been removing myself from pretty much all of the identifying groups I'm used to, and at the same time trying to process the realities of my new home and how I relate to them. I have been introduced to so many fascinating microcosms of these things - pockets of people and groups that I am fortunate to be exposed to, but can never quite fit myself completely into.

I wonder how my perspective on this might change over the course of the next year. In the meantime it's somehow therapeutic to write about it, to at least try and explain why my sensitivity level is so heightened here.

*For many foreigners who work for embassies, the UN or high profiled Development agencies or businesses, that is a steal - they've got most of their basic needs covered through work (housing, moving costs, security etc.) so they just buy the biggest car considered safe and convenient for Nairobi driving.

Semi-charmed kind of life...

2009-10-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

I like to joke sometimes about how charmed my life seems - because in the past three years (starting in fall of 2006) things have really fallen into place at times so perfectly I can't quite fathom my luck. Of course life is life - ups, downs and all-arounds regardless, but every once in awhile I'm reminded by things that seem almost absurdly charmed to be thankful for this time, and this life. One such recent reminder? That given how much I adore my littlest nephew, Dexter, God saw fit to put another one in my life here in Kenya:

Dexter Ness, born July 5, 2009 (might have been morning of the 6th now that I think of it...)

Blog Action Day, 2009

2009-10-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

I like to participate in Blog Action Day, but I am doing so too late in the game to add any original thoughts to this year's topic of climate change. I can say that Kenya is experiencing its own microcosm of the issue (if the environment of an entire country can be considered as such!) with the destruction of the Mau Forest and the ensuing environmental degradation that is causing (or at least contributing to) the raging drought. Aside from that, I include a quote (and a link to the original post from whence it came) that touches on the fact that the issue of climate change has become like so many other indescribably important things - fodder for debate, rather than an impetus for change.

"Our silence is not the lack of words, it is the absence of an essence in urgent human relationships, an essence with power to break the bonds of unthinkable thoughts:

Passion."

Back

2009-10-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

Day 4 in Nairobi and I'm starting to settle in. I admit that while breaking the trip up always helps (who wouldn't want to acclimate to the time difference in a glorious place like Turkey!?) it also made returning to the ever-developing world a bit harder than I had expected. While fellow travelers in Turkey remarked upon air quality and trash, compared to parts of Nairobi I found it impeccably clean, and I had an incredibly inspiring and exciting week exploring on my own and with new friends. Cappadocia was quite simply everything I had hoped it would be and more - and I was reluctant to leave, to be sure.

But as the days go on, and I take advantage of being in my own bed for the first time in 3 months, with bags fully unpacked and a few final days to awake naturally (before school requires an alarm), I rediscover all that makes Kenya feel like home. Reconnecting with old friends, seeing the familiar faces on my corner, meeting new people who welcome me so warmly, though we've just met. There is hustle and bustle in our house - one of Zanna's Junior Field Officers is pregnant and a new American volunteer named Katie who has taken my old room keeps her busy with pre-natal exercises. We were excited to find out after a healthy ultrasound she is expecting a baby girl.

School starts next week, and I'm taking advantage of these days to catch up on long overdue work, as well as put a few things in place in extension of the incredible generosity of friends and Rotarians this summer. 3 beautiful laptops donated by my friend Jason Pierce have already arrived, and another 4 or 5 are on their way from my sponsor Rotary club in Orange (thanks to Shirley for all she's done in this regard!). Some will go to the boys' home in Nakuru, and others will hopefully be used to help establish a small training center in Nakuru center with some former street boys who have taken in a number of other kids and are attempting to raise them. Like so many things such efforts will take a village. Thankfully, having spent the summer in the U.S. I am reminded that mine is always bigger than I think, and no matter how far apart we all are - the global village is what we make it.

More of my Cappadocia pictures here - slow internet means Istanbul will have to wait :)

Back in the OC

2009-09-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to present my "final" presentation to the Rotary Club who made this past year possible for me. I am so thankful for this club - for the encouragement they provide, the amazing energy the members have, the various projects they are doing on their own throughout our local community and Africa as a whole, and the support they have given me and are likely to continue for my own work. Here are the comments I offered this club - along with my profound thanks for fulfilling last year's Rotary of "Making Dreams Real" - the sure made mine! I'll post more pics when I get them - the pic above is with club member Ron Lacey who along with a handful of other Rotarians made my scholarship year that much more personal.

August 27, 2009 Rotary Presentation

Somewhere around a year ago I had the opportunity to visit you all and share my history and my hopes for my scholarship year. I shared the recent process I’d gone through to reorient my path and pursue work in the international arena, and how for me this translates to the collecting of stories and experiences that must be shared in pursuit of the goal that this scholarship embodies – to foster a global community and enhance international understanding.

Your club has played a paramount role in allowing me to take that many more steps along this path, and for that I must first offer my profound and deepest thanks. Your support, example and enthusiasm for the goodwill of Rotary and the opportunities it has extended to us all has been an inspiration and encouragement to me throughout. I have especially appreciated the opportunity to get to know a few individual Rotarians (some of whom I did not meet in person until today!) including Bob McCauley, Char Martin, Ron Lacey, Dr. Stephenson, Bill Courdes and of course Mike and Jean Abdalla who all provided special support throughout the year.

So let me tell you about it!

I know a number of people in this room have been to Africa – has anyone been to Kenya? It’s a fascinating place, one in which you are likely to have had some very different experiences depending on the point in history in which you were there. I recently met a gentleman who visited in the 70’s, who talked about how impressive the country was – so modern, so on the up and up. As I learned and lived as a student of development studies, sadly, the 80’s painted a very different story for Kenya – in part due to the international oil crisis of the 70’s, in part due to the expansion of international trade and lop-sided trade statutes, and perhaps most significantly due to the massive loans our country led the way in offering – loans that came with conditions that effectively halted the social progress Kenya had been making to that point. It has been humbling to learn the specifics of the role my country has played in suppressing the development of another (and this, by no means, is the sole reason for which Kenya continues to struggle, but it is a prominent one), and it made it that much more significant to be serving as a Rotary scholar – as an ambassador for the U.S. to share my joint hopes and dreams for the country to get itself back on track.

Let me first say that because I hoped to be in the country for two years, I tried to spend the year simply observing and taking it in – not passing judgment or trying to fix things per se. I can say, that after doing just that this year, the country has a long way to go. Kenya was recently ranked the most corrupt nation in all of East Africa – and corruption permeates the day to day operations of the country – both on a local and national level. But when I would confront these things, or when my studies would focus for too long on the challenges – I would look to my classmates for inspiration and the courage to believe that someday the country will once again chart its course for the good of all Kenyans.

So let me tell you a bit about my classmates! There are nine of us in the 2010 IDS M.A. program. We meet on the 5^th floor of the Mahatma Ghandi building on the main campus of University of Nairobi. I should mention that I’ve taken a fairly untraditional route – of the 40,000 or so Nairobi students spread amongst roughly 5 campuses, I believe I am one of about 5 non-African international students (I’ve only met three others). I am affirmatively in the minority and stand out like I’ve never quite experienced before! It’s been a unique experience – something I think very few of my peers or many in my community will ever truly experience – being an “other” on such a scale, and in such an obvious way.

Back to my classmates – in the group of nine there are five women and four men ranging in ages from around 24 to roughly 36. Of Kenya’s forty or so indigenous ethnic groups, there are at least 7 present – from Luya and Meru to kamba and the biggest group in Kenya which is Kikuyu. A few recently finished their B.A.s and started their M.A. straight away (I should mention that education is of paramount value in Kenya with an extremely high percentage of the population getting Masters degrees – many of whom do so abroad and have shown in studies to outperform all other ethnic groups in the U.S.), while others have worked in the fields of politics, economics, healthcare and youth services. They are an inspiring bunch – some clearly in school simply for the job opportunities the degree will present, others with hopes of once and for all changing the trajectory of the country and promoting a more equitable and socially just land.

As I mentioned before, one’s impression of

Kenya might be very different depending on the time in which you visited it – but one thing that won’t change is the people – the threads of a Kenyan culture that transcend the tribalism that continues to rear its ugly head in the promotion of differences. Tribalism allows politicians to manipulate the masses into thinking that it’s impossible for all Kenyans to be afforded the same opportunities – thus they are willing to fight for the sake of protecting their own – at the worst times (as in late 2007), to the death. But on a day to day level to be Kenyan means to warmly welcome any outsider, to be fascinated with the goings on of the world and one’s country – I was so inspired by the young people (and everyone else for that matter!) who read the paper thoroughly each day, who often knew more about what was going on in the U.S. than I did as I struggled to adjust to life away from the news headlines I’m used to reading throughout the day online at work.

We need more of this – more focus on what it means to be Kenyan. And this is where I find one of the most valuable lessons of my year as an ambassadorial scholar and the opportunity to take what I learned and bring it back with me to my own country. I have found that I never understand more profoundly how deeply blessed I am to have been born in this country and afforded the opportunities it presents than when I am abroad. This is not because being abroad I see countries whose problems are so much worse than our own – but rather I see problems that simply reflect the very human struggles we all share to live side by side, manage collective resources and empower all to live life to the fullest. While there are many things I found myself thankful for during the year as an American, I also saw that each issue I confronted in the Kenyan economy, government and society I could find in some form in my own country. Perhaps most importantly – the failure on all our parts to recognize our collective similarities, before we break each other down with our differences and opinions. In Kenya, a place now dear to my heart, such divisions resulted in over a thousand lost lives at the beginning of last year, and many people believe that the election of 2012 could be worse. One bright spot in the midst of the country’s recovery following their own elections that must be mentioned, regardless of the political demographics in this room, is the absolute joy and pride that all Kenyans experienced upon the election of Barack Obama. Seeing people of different political opinions, ethnic groups and backgrounds all rejoice in our country’s decision gave me hope that someday they will collectively identify a leader of their own who will once and for all end the corruption and grow the country so that all people can benefit from a vibrant economy and the opportunities it presents.

I’d like to share some specific experiences by way of my slideshow now, and I encourage you all if you have a moment to check out my final report (well, a version of it – I failed to save the final version I submitted via fax!) to learn more about some of the specific experiences I had and how I did my best to mobilize the support you provided for the sake of those around me. I want to especially thank you for the donations you raised that allowed me to cover the hospital costs of my night guard’s child – I wish I could convey the joy, relief and excitement I felt when I received emails from Char, Bob and I believe Ron telling me about your outpouring. I would also like to report that the additional funds you raised have been distributed - $50 to Kibera Girl’s soccer academy that works with at-risk girls in Africa’s biggest slum (about 15 minutes from my house) to get the education they so desperately desire, $25 to a dear friend whose story I hope to share with you if time permits to re-enroll her young nephew in school after his parents were unable to pay school fees and around $125 which was given as a loan to a struggling youth project that creates beaded bracelets with logos and slogans (great to keep in mind for any of your fundraisers, businesses or school!) and needed to get a website running to keep afloat. That money will be reinvested in similar projects so you can be confident that though my year as a scholar has come to a close, I will continue to spread the generosity you have extended to me and through me as I return. And of course, my involvement with Rotary does not end here!

Home.

2009-07-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for the great delay between my last post and this one. Much has happened - I finished my first year of grad school, welcomed my parents and our friend Joy to my adopted home and embarked on a true safari with them. I want to share something I wrote to be read to ambassadorial scholarship applicants for the 2010-2011 school year (since I couldn't be there in person). I have also posted some recent pictures from our safari at my smugmug site here, and am working on catching up on many past-due photos as well. I am in the Bay Area working with eBay on WorldofGood.com until October 3rd, when I will return to Nairobi (via Istanbul where I'll do a week stopover!) to start my final year at University of Nairobi. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, and for all the support that I have received. My attempt to put the experience into words that follows, is just that - an attempt. Words, as much as I love them, will never do it justice.

"I’ve spent my scholarship year in Kenya where I’m pursuing a M.A. in Development Studies, and savoring every moment of an experience that has truly encapsulated the current Rotary theme of “Make Dreams Real.” Having an organization like Rotary recognize your goals and aspirations and extend the support they do is as great a gift there is. I know each of you have unique and incredible ambitions and aspirations, and whether you get this scholarship or not, I’m confident you’ll find ways to pursue them.

As for myself, these are the things I find myself treasuring as I near the end of my scholarship year abroad. These are things that I know come only from this sort of experience, from an investment in time and exploration in a country so far from home.

They are:
• The Kiswahili words that now flow easily from my mouth, but that will have no meaning to friends and family when I return home.
• The foods that I now crave with afternoon tea (heck, afternoon tea!) that I know I won’t find when I return home.
• The subtle cultural nuances I’m still learning to adjust to and accommodate in my daily commute, or when I enter a room here for the first time.
• The inner struggles to acclimate to a different set of norms while at the same time staying true to my own comfort zone and interests.
• The opportunity to present myself as a foreigner, as an American and as a citizen of the world in a way that those I interact with in my new home may have never seen or understood before.
• The equal opportunity to see in them something different than I may have expected.
• The appreciation and final acceptance of utter and complete differences sometimes small and other times incomprehensibly big.
• And finally, the realization that always hits me at the oddest of times: In the end, the culmination of such differences in culture, location, interests and day to day reality are in fact all actually subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) reminders of the sameness that binds us all together as humans.

In closing, I’d like to make a special acknowledgment of how much richer this experience of studying abroad has been simply because it has introduced me to the Rotary family. I knew little of Rotary before I applied but I cannot imagine how different this experience would be if I did not have the many Rotary clubs and local Rotarians (not to mention support from Rotarians at home) accompanying my journey. I have been afforded intimate access to all walks of life in Kenya, exposure to major leaders and a first hand glimpse of how the local community is tackling the development problems I’m studying."

The boys from the home I've visited many times in Nakuru in the sweatshirts and clothes my friend Heather and her co-workers donated - thank you everyone!

My dad celebrated his 80th birthday in Kenya! What a gift to share this trip with him.

More pictures available here.

On the inside

2009-06-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

Have you seen The Constant Gardener? Do you remember the rolling sprawl of rusted tin roofs in Kibera? Did the movie capture the fractured earth, the plastic bag-choked bits of green amidst the ever-present brown?

I went to Kibera for the first time shortly after I arrived here to visit Red Rose School. I wore the wrong shoes, and was cautioned that were I ever to go through the gate next to the school that beckoned into the depths of the slum I better make sure my feet were covered. I’ve been back many times since to the inner Toi market (fabulous used clothing market, I have a friend who got an authentic Louis Vuitton for under $1) and Makina market where my tailor is. All these visits allowed me to say, “yes, I’ve been to Kibera” though none of them in anyway conveyed the reality of the place I visited for the first time today. The border does not betray the inner sanctum’s reality. No, it does not.

My class had a field day today where we were tasked with visiting an acting development project. I arranged for us to visit school empowerment groups in Kibera that are being run as part of my house mate Megan’s organization, Zanna. I’ve been wanting to visit for ages and this was a great opportunity to do so. Plus, the vision and strategy behind Zanna is exactly what I think the development field needs in order to have a hope and a prayer of actually solving the problems that continue to permeate countries like Kenya.

The first thing you notice about Kibera is the abundance of children, all of whom seem to be the same size. It’s like a slum full of four year olds, all fluent in the language of “How are you!” of which as a mzungu I heard continuously throughout my visit. Then you realize how careful you’re being walking, and the sense of risk you feel as you attempt to peel your eyes from the uneven ground in order to take in the sites and smells around you. A butcher. A sausage cart toiling as it would over a cobbled street but leaving a trail of loose rock in its wake. Mamas and babies peeking out of low, dark windows. A woman in a purple lesso sifting and lightly blowing on maize with a rhythmic toss. Children everywhere, laughing and running, holding hands. A pair no more than three, each wearing one blue flip flop on the opposite foot. What friendship.

I admit I loved being there. I loved the children running by and giving me high fives. I love any opportunity to be reminded how people survive and make the most of the worst of conditions. To find an alternative to the individual stories of grief and despair, to the continued political and ethnic debauchery, the remaining IDPs, the rampant corruption. The sun was shining. Life continues.

One of our professors, a recent PhD graduate assisting our research-burdened tenured staff walked with me for a time. He couldn’t contain his disgust, his frustration at the scene. He takes it more personally than even I do for all my struggles with the inadequacies of humanity. How can some of us rock climb for fun while others build houses upon shifting land amidst rocks of poverty-laden rubble? He is Kenyan, these are his people. This is his land, right nearby the “poor” area he himself lives in. An area that cannot compare to the filth of Kibera.

Kibera, for all the attention it has received, is no joke. Incomes, where they exist, are cobbled together. I passed many tarps of odds and ends – rusted wrenches, dented mechanical parts I could not name, bits of old metal and wire for which I couldn’t imagine a purpose. Every once in awhile a shiny mobile phone. On one tarp, a single upside down porcelain urinal filled with buttons.

It is hard to reconcile my ability to see the beauty, joy and goings on of life in the slum, with the revolting site you have to process in order to know it must be changed. The land is sucked of the green. The water is scarce, the trash unbelievable. Children meander through filth, shining their glorious youth and innocence in order to make it human, to make it bearable.

There is music, constant music. There are babies being held, old men shooting the shit, hunched grandmas walking together. It is life, at the same time as it should, and never should, be.

Scene: A Typical Phone Call

2009-06-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

Some insight into the strangely significant sort of cultural accommodations you have to make here on a daily basis.

My phone rings:

Me: Hello?
Person calling: Hi Megan! How are you?
Me: Hi I’m good, thanks. Who is this?
Person calling: Fine, fine (by way of response to my unasked question of “how are you?”). Are you in Nairobi?
Me: Yes, sorry, who is this?
Person calling: Great great, when can we meet?
Me: I’m sorry who is this?
Person calling: (finally tells me who it is).

End scene.

Defensive dressing

2009-06-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

There are a million funny bus stories I've failed to record or share here, but I couldn't keep today's to myself.

I often do grocery shopping in town, and today I had my computer as well so by the time I got to the bus I had my hands full. When we passed the stop before mine I got up as I usually do and made my way to the stairs at the door. As I stepped down, preparing to hover in the door so that I could jump off as soon as the bus slowed, the bus sped up and the weight of my bags pulled me forward. In a moment of panic I kicked one foot forward, effectively launching my left shoe out into the street and under the car behind us. Thankfully I didn't launch myself out of the bus, but I was a very silly site walking back from my stop, about 200 yards down the road, with my hands full and one bare foot.

Today's incident adds loose flats to my list of what not to wear on the bus. The biggest prior offender being, of course, the wrap-around skirt.

Playing hooky

2009-05-28T02:25:00.000-07:00

Here's what I know: Hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa. They can run upwards of 14 miles an hour, have seriously huge tusks and a massive jaw (not to mention their substantial bulk).

Here's where I was on Sunday night: Fisherman's camp - famous for the hippos that come up to eat the grass below the campsite that sits on the edge of Lake Naivasha.

Here's why I was there: I've wanted to visit Hell's Gate National Park since I got here. It's just an hour from Nairobi (though by matatu it took me 4 hours...grrr...) and the only place where you can do walking or biking safaris (no lions or elephants - but there are buffalo and leopards so it does require some care!). I haven't had any friends interested in going when I've been free, so its been one of the many tourist attractions I've flat out missed until last week when my friend Allan, a volunteer in Mombasa, said he wanted to go and convinced me to skip my Monday classes (two of which ended up canceled thankfully).

Here's where our tent was: About 15 feet from a very pathetic looking electric fence, that didn't appear to be on. Allan had impulsively leapt over it when the grass was hippo-free just after dinner, hitting it in the process with his metal crutch (he had a sprained ankle) with absolutely no reaction on the part of the fence.

Here's where everyone else's tents were: A lot further away.

And finally, here's what happened: We went to sleep around 11, sad we hadn't seen any hippos but ready to rest in order to get up at 6 for our biking safari (for which I sadly have no pictures because I forgot to change my battery - snap!). At about 11:30 we were awoken by the unmistakable sound of a large animal outside the tent, most likely chewing the grass, but possibly just walking through the spongy ground (it had rained that day). Allan bolted out of the tent with my headlamp, while I simply rolled over and tried to get back to sleep since I knew I wouldn't be able to see anything and I was comfy.

A few minutes of relative silence passed. Then, I heard the deep, deafening roar of a single adult hippo. It broke through the night like nothing I've ever experienced. It sounded like he was just outside my tent, and I was sure that the fence we'd observed before must have had a gap we hadn't seen that allowed him to wander up to the grass next to the tent.

The roar was followed by the immediate sound of running directly past the tent. I remember being sure that it was the hippo itself, I could hear the weight in the movement, though thinking back I think I was hearing both the hippos mock charge and what I found out was Allan, crutches free, sprinting past the tent at virtually the same time. I wish I had words to articulate the combination of the roar and the speed of the thunderous running. The first few seconds of this video show what a charging hippo can look like:

Then, silence.

So there I was, by myself in a tent with no screen or way of seeing outside, knowing only that one of the most dangerous animals in the world was less than 20 feet away and really, really pissed off.

I didn't know how hippos sense things (apparently it's by smell so you want to get down wind of them if possible). I didn't want to call out to Allan for fear it would attract attention, and I was afraid to move in case of the same. While I could logically run through the fact that there was a fence, that all I represented was the motionless white structure of my tent and that all a hippo at that time would be interested in would be grass, I could not calm down. Allan finally came back to the tent and explained what had happened. He'd followed another hippo down the grass a bit and when he came back caught the second one square on with my head lamp, causing the mock charge.

There were a few more brays throughout the night, but for the most part it was calm. Of course I jumped at every rustle of the trees, constructing all sorts of scenarios in the aftermath of fear (at one point convinced there was a leopard outside, at another dreaming that a man with a machine gun was entering the tent). It is by far the most scared and powerless I have ever been.

The next day we learned that most likely the hippo near us has been cast out of his herd for trying to challenge the dominant male. For now, he's eating as much as he can so he can bulk up and try again. Incidentally, we also found out that a tourist was killed at Fisherman's camp in 2005 when she came between a hippo and its calf late at night.

Suffice it to say I gave the buffaloes a wide berth on our bike safari the next day.

A new endeavor

2009-05-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Like so many of the most exciting projects I've been a part of in my life, my newest endeavor is the result of a last minute burst of inspiration that moved me to throw my name into the mix and see what came of it. I've just joined the Editorial Advisory Board for JustMeans, an organization dedicated to spreading the word about corporate social responsibility (CSR), providing a forum to discuss it and other related issues (ethical consumption, social entrepreneurship, sustainable development etc.) while raising awareness for both companies and consumers alike. I'll be posting roughly every other day working to generate dialogue, interview CSR professionals and everyday people about what they know of CSR and what they think it should be and much more. Today is my first post and I'd love it if you'd take a look here. Feel free to comment and send any thoughts you have about CSR my way - I'll be on the constant look out for fresh content and perspective as I work to balance this new opportunity with my final month of school and preparation to return home for the summer.

A Kenyan Wedding

2009-05-10T08:40:00.001-07:00

You may or may not know this about me, but I'm a little obsessed with weddings. While I do think they're starting to get a bit out of hand in the U.S. (it's just one day!) I love how they combine all of life's most important pieces into one event. From family and friends to the day's underlying theme of love, plus the added elements from the spectrum of creativity (fashion! music! design! FOOD) everything blends together in celebration of a couple's new life - what's not to love? Thus I've been anxious to attend a local wedding to experience and compare Kenyan traditions and perhaps more importantly, to see what people are wearing. For you see, a Kenyan wedding is one of the best excuses to break out your hottest, brightest and most in your face African outfits. I say African because Kenya doesn't really have a national dress the way some African countries do. Some tribes have traditional wear but when it comes to Nairobi, where society is a blend of backgrounds and tastes, you pretty much get it all. Dresses for formal occasions and weddings are often made specially (and sometimes worn just once) out of traditional kangas, imported wax cloth from West Africa, more locally printed leso and kitenge or any combination thereof. I'm still learning how to distinguish what comes from where and what patterns are more traditional versus new takes on classic pieces, so I loved having the opportunity to see so many designs in one place (though I had to be somewhat surreptitious in how I took my photos!).

A great thing about Kenyan weddings is an invitation is more of a formality than an etiquette lesson. For yesterday's wedding, I was invited by a friend of the bride, who, along with the groom, I have yet to meet! The event started in a Catholic church, where a wonderful choir sang both modern and traditional hymns throughout the service. After the church portion (in which the groom was invited to "embrace" his bride - no kiss!) the guests were invited to take pictures of the bridal party before they left briefly for formal portraits. After that, a buffet line was set up and guests ate and drank (soda - alcohol isn't served until the evening's festivities which are more for the couple and their close friends - less family, more booze) while waiting for the return of the bridal party.

Upon the bride's return, all woman were summoned to greet her at the car and help bring her into the reception with song and dance. The bride is from the Akamba tribe, but her husband is Kikuyu so it was his relatives that participated most in this in order to announce her welcome to the family and her new identity therein. There was a loud call and answer song as the group made their way into the reception. Shortly after, the bride's family and friends from the coastal area were also invited to dance and celebrate their traditional songs in celebration.

A series of dances and speeches followed, culminating in the cutting of the cake, which the bride and groom took turns feeding each other and then to their parents (I thought that was a nice gesture of commitment to each other's family). The whole ceremony was very Christian, with many sound words of advice for making marriage work and biblical references. I loved the honesty and encouragement family members and friends offered - very realistic about the challenges of marriage but also full of hope and blessings for the new couple.

Turns out it's easiest (and quickest) to upload photos to facebook. You can look at the rest of the wedding photos here, whether you're a facebook member or not.

Up Country Easter

2009-05-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I come from a large and treasured family. The beautiful home my grandparents made in Monterey and the family homes nearby have hosted a lifetime worth of holidays full of friends and family, inevitable group sings and some of my favorite, home cooked foods. Easter is traditionally held at my Aunt Carlie’s house, and there have been years when the egg count topped 200 due to the abundance of kidlets in their Easter best, lined up smallest to tallest awaiting their turn to take on the lawn.

In an attempt to stave off the homesickness that is inevitably worse around holidays, I headed to Nakuru to once again visit the boys at the Expanding Opportunity group home. I was joined by Jinna (the other Ambassadorial Scholar who ran the food distro at the Rally for the Disabled) and with a couple of soccer balls and some food coloring in tow, we hopped a matatu for the two hour trip.

A couple months back, a friend I know only through the blogosphere indicated he wanted help the boys by sending some support. Shortly thereafter, my cousin Madeline indicated that for her son David’s birthday, he had elected to collect money in lieu of gifts to support the boy’s home. So, Easter not only meant a fun visit with the boys, but the opportunity to deliver these incredibly generous donations.

It’s hard to imagine over a dozen boys ranging in age from 5 to 18 without any sporting goods or balls, but the intense love and devotion given to such things by the group means they rarely last very long! Still, I think their replenishment is a necessity, and we brought two (funded in part by Frank and David’s donations). The first was put into use immediately and by day 2 looked as if it had been at the house for years! It was amazing to see the boys switch effortlessly between soccer, volleyball, wall ball and general fancy footwork tricks.

On Easter Sunday, we broke out the food coloring and interrupted our marathon Scrabble sessions (one of the oldest boys, Sammy, is a true Scrabble genius. He scrabbled his second play in the second game and won every single game we played by a wide margin). The boys really enjoyed the egg dying, though at first they thought it was a strange activity indeed.

We postponed the egg hunt itself until Monday so everyone could participate – it was fun to see the group apply their keen eyes to the garden where we hid eggs and treats. It was a great weekend and since that time, I’ve received a full report of how the donated funds have been put to use. You wouldn’t believe how far $300+ dollars can be stretched! From helping outfit the new, full time social worker's office and filing system (in order to be compliant with local regulations – this is an amazing step for the home), to getting pajamas, clothes and underwear for the boys along with new (used) games, artwork for the walls, a complete paint job of the main dormitory and general storage solutions for laundry and personal belongings, the money has been put to great use. My unending thanks to my cousin, David (and his parents of course!), and Frank for their generosity and heart for these boys!

My small room's time to shine

2009-04-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this really gives me the credit to say "I'm a published photographer" but it did give my friend Dan and I quite a fun rush when we saw it posted!

About a month ago Dan told me about a series that Andrew Sullivan, a prominent blogger on The Atlantic website, has been publishing for some time. He simply asks readers to send in the view from their window - no glitz, no glam, just what you see day to day. He is planning to publish a book with the pictures he's collected and had mentioned in a post that he didn't have any submissions from Kenya, so there ya go - my room on The Atlantic's website. Fun!

(please click on photo for full dimensions - dang blogger likes to mess with my frames!)

The White Highlands

2009-04-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Chris and I drove to Meru, a small town on the edge of the "White Highlands," the nutrient and water rich hills that many colonialists claimed as their own before Kenya was given back to its people. We visited the offices of the International Peace Initiative, a Meru-based NGO started by Dr. Karambu Ringera to address the many problems facing her home town. I love visiting local organizations, especially groups as transparent and well-run as IPI. During our visit we saw the first of six planned children's homes that will serve 80 orphans. One of Karambu's goals is to change the community's perspective of children orphaned after losing their parents to AIDS, who many see as a nuisance and drain to local resources. Karambu hopes that by building the home in a communally central local and empowering the kids to train their neighbors about better farming techniques, chicken and cow raising and handicrafts, they will be seen as leaders and beneficial to their home communities. Another plan for the kids is to set up individual savings accounts so that once they complete high school they have nest eggs of their own - either to start businesses or pursue university.

I met some of the kids who currently stay with Karambu when they're home from boarding school and they are very bright and driven - sure to make wonderful local citizens and leaders due to the support they are getting through IPI - regardless of the hardships they've faced in the past. As I got to attend an IPI board meeting it was truly wonderful to see an organization for whom the main focus remains the people it serves, and not its own employees or founders (corruption is so common in Development NGOs unfortunately).

The following week my optimism in the face of so many development challenges grew further with a visit to the local offices of a U.S. based NGO called Olive Branch. I met the Kenya Executive Director, Parit, at an export conference a couple months ago and wanted to learn more about their programs - especially those involving local women and artisans. We talked about marketing ideas for the various crafts they buy to support their local programs and how to work with the women to enhance the design and market relativity of their products to increase income and better sustain their lives. I'm talking to a few local designers in the hopes of setting up some workshops next year to help introduce artisans to the idea of designing with trends and seasons in mind, helping them to embrace their creative potential rather than just churn out identical designs with little marketability.

With all the challenges I'm studying and observing it's always wonderful to meet individuals and groups who are embracing the opportunity to address what's wrong in their communities with what's right.

Guest blog for Red Rose School

2009-04-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

I wrote a piece for Red Rose school's blog last week and wanted to share it with all of you. Please click here to read.

Off to Meru tomorrow to meet a new woman's group - look forward to sharing how it goes!

Joy! Part deux

2009-03-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

(please note, in an attempt to save time I've linked photos directly from my smugmug account. Unfortunately, this has caused some undesired cropping. To see the full image below, please click on each photo. Thanks!)

Today I joined Rotarians and Rotaractors from throughout the greater Nairobi area for the annual 'Rally for the Disabled.' I didn't know much about the event beforehand, and much like my visit to Red Rose it turned out to be a ball full of joy at the end of a busy week. Every year a different Rotary club takes charge of this large-scale event, and schools that cater to those with physical or mental handicaps are invited to enjoy music, performances, face painting and food at the Nairobi fair grounds.

My host club of Hurlingham was in charge of food, and my fellow Rotary scholar, Jinna Yun, and I had our hands full working with Rotaractors to distribute over a 1000 lunches. Jinna had been working on this for two days, and I'm not sure she ever even got a chance to get out and meet the kids she was so busy counting and distributing boxes. I was luckier to rotate between working with Jinna and delivering food to the various groups, which was a lot of fun and very humbling.

Though some schools work with one specific type of physical challenge (we had two large schools with over 100 children that worked with blind or deaf kids), many of the smaller schools teach children with all different sorts of impairments. I worry a bit that the stigma attached to certain physical characteristics has lumped children of normal intelligance in with children coping with actual mental disabilities, but for the most part the children seemed well adjusted and cared for in their school groups. What was wonderful and humbling to experience was the comraderie between classmates, especially between those in need of assistance and those who despite their own limitations were ready and willing to offer it.

The kids were spread out throughout the stadium, but all seemed to enjoy the entertainment . We rolled kids in wheel chairs across the dry earth and watched as they joined classmates and kindred spirits to get down to Kenya's favorite pop songs (and let me just say, it's absolutely true that Africans have more natural rhythm than just about anyone - even kids who could barely walk or sit still were dancing circles around me!).

There were some wonderful groups who performed, including a dance troup whose members had various physical challenges - from shriveled limbs to a lack of limbs all together (the guy standing in the photo above has only one leg) - which they managed to move gracefully while setting a powerful example that physical limitations need not hold anyone back from that which they desire to pursue.

The day ended with the Nairobi sky opening up to torrents of badly needed (though poorly timed) rain. A tent was finally assembled so the dancing could continue, and even in the cold I think the kids enjoyed the ice cream treats distributed at the end of the day.

More photos here.

I'd like to introduce you to...

2009-03-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

...a feisty little gal I've started to call 'The Angry American.'

Never in my wildest dreams would I think I'd play this role in a foreign setting. I much prefer to don the slightly elitist, exceptionally culturally aware 'Sympathetic World Traveler' identity while abroad. The trouble is, when you move somewhere it's much harder to play any role at all. For me, it's against my nature, and even if I was a better actor than I am, there's just too much sensory overload to be anything but my most human and base self in my new home. Unfortunately, this can every once in awhile lead to the emergence of the aforementioned character with whom I'm trying to make peace. And, as with most things (dreams, fears, faults etc.), I think public admittance is half the battle.

The Angry American tends to emerge most often in food or beverage establishments. I might order a small beverage, and a large is delivered and added to my bill instead. Or, I mistakenly ask for a lime instead of a lemon (as lemons here are bright green) with my vodka tonic, and receive Rose's Lime Cordial instead (also added to my bill). Upon attempting to correct such errors I am often advised that once something is on the bill, it can't be remedied, and I just need to deal. The anger and frustration is not always valid - sometimes basic mistakes are made, and sometimes it's my fault. But such things don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in the context of a country where the color of your skin still says more about you to most people upon first meeting than anything else. As a mzungu you are expected to be wealthy, indulgent and unlikely to count pennies. I suppose this is the case for many white people and foreigners in Kenya. But it's not for me, and I have a hard time dealing with those who assume it is. Thus, even when such mistakes or a refusal to correct them are made with absolutely no relation to me as a mzungu, the collateral effects of daily life in this skin leave me brittle and overly sensitive.

I also struggle with my identity as someone entering the Development field under the pretext of "I'm here to help" (cue the Elle Woods accent my friend Adrienne donned in jest when I was preparing to leave last summer). After all, what right do I have to be here or to assume that in doing so I am, in fact, helping anyone at all? And, how do I know how to best maximize what resources I do have given the constant need and opportunities around me? If I did have all the money in the world, I'd be confident in knowing how to invest and offer it where I know it would be used wisely and to great benefit. As I don't, I am constantly wondering where what I do have can be best directed, and feeling guilty when it is sometimes spent on little indulgences or myself.

I think it's because of the thoughts above that when people attempt to play the "rich mzungu" card with me (or downright steal from me as happened on Friday night), The Angry American is ready and willing to respond. On a matatu coming home from one of Nairobi's priciest malls this past Sunday (I was there for a craft show), the tout refused to give me my change, though he had the correct coins in his hand. He was half flirting, but clearly hoped I'd brush the change off and leave it with him. After what happened Friday I was in no mood to indulge the assumption that I have cash to burn and don't think extremely carefully about each and every bit of money I have or spend here. The frustration of getting my purse snatched on Friday and the constant reminder that I just don't know how to balance spending with the need around me boiled up and I took the guy on. My anger appeared to entertain him and the rest of the passengers, who maybe had never seen a mzungu on public transport quite so upset (it's fairly rare to see a mzungu on matatus at all, to be honest). His persistence in withholding my change and taunting (at one point he outstretched his hand and then snapped it back when I went to take the coin) made my blood boil, and I felt completely helpless to do anything about it. Though I can now laugh (and cringe) at my threat to, "climb over the seat and clobber you if you don't give me my change!" the whole scene was wildly uncharacteristic for me. As a friend on facebook said, "Wow, Megan being mad??? You are like the nicest person in the world!!!" Let's just say this matatu full of people does not share that impression! Now a few days later, it's hard for me to imagine how such a small thing could so upset me, and I'd be horribly ashamed to witness the outburst - but at the time it was simply the final straw in a string of bad behavior and assumptions based solely on how I look (I asked the tout if he'd have pulled the same crap with any of the other, clearly Kenyan passengers - there's no way he would have).

I see unfairness and lack of recourse all the time here. People are mugged, houses are robbed, consumers are screwed and the apathy and corruption on the part of law makers leaves little option but to suck it up and count your losses. Couple this with the basic human need found in urban and rural settings right alongside the average person's preference to look out for their own interests (myself included) and I start to understand why The Angry American is so readily available. That said, I don't like her at all, and while for the most part I feel my indignation is justified, I'd like to overcome the anger that presents me as someone other than a foreigner who is desperate to have her presence here be a good one.

As I process my own personal journey I always try and look at things in the broader context. Realities and perceptions don't exist in a vacuum, and as I try to deal with those projected on me and how I react, I'm realizing that in order to deal with the problems facing humanity you have to be willing to admit your own identity therein. Though I don't like to, I must admit this often includes the good, the bad and yes, even the utterly irrational and just plain angry.

By request: how to help

2009-03-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

I've shared a number of organizations and individual stories on this blog thus far, along with a few specific requests for help should anyone be in a position to offer it. I know most people already have their charitable budget determined and set (especially in this economic climate) but I've been inspired by how significantly small amounts can make a difference in some of the lives I've come across here. Take the $18 dollars that covered a month's worth of transport for a young friend starting a job from scratch who had no way to get there but walk (2-3 hours each way) until his pay kicked in. Or, the $6.40 that covered two months of rent for a mother of 4 I met during the visit to coffee country that let her and her kids have a roof over the heads for more than a few nights at a time.

It's amazing what some pocket change can do to give someone a small leg up. Support aimed at providing sustainable training or resources is best and what I am trying to focus on with my time and resources - but in honesty the need is plentiful and whatever can be spared can be put to good use. A friend recently asked if there was a way to send funds that could be directed to some of the organizations I've highlighted. In response I've added a paypal donation button in the right hand sidebar if any of my past or future posts inspire you to give.

Let me say that asking for money, no matter how noble the cause, is probably my least favorite thing in the world. I'm doing it because people have asked me to make it easier to support the people and orgs I've written about, and, in all honesty I feel like it's part of my responsibility as a Rotary Scholar to mobilize whatever resources available to help respond to the opportunities I come across.

Previous posts:

The good, the bad and the ugly
Support immediate needs for the boys at the Expanding Opportunities home in need of clothing, school fees, sporting equipment and monthly sponsors. Donations can also be made by way of the organization itself here.

Hidden Masai
Provide funds to purchase books and help keep the Masai children of this off-the-map village in school.

Further Out, Further In
Help grandmothers raising orphaned grandchildren in Mathaato to start a sustainable business raising chickens and selling eggs.

Need
Help with school fees for Damaris and her sisters, a family who lost both parents a number of years ago.

Joy!
Support the children of Red Rose Elementary school, currently participating in a pen pal project with the kids of Red Hill Elementary in Orange County and St. Johns Primary School in London.

I will share the results of any donations received and how I'm putting them to use. In terms of the schools and kids I visit, it's great to have some resources to help purchase those things I see immediately lacking - puzzles, balls, notebooks etc. In regards to potential projects - it would be wonderful to have some funds to help establish the chicken project in Mathaato, or to help when specific cases (like Be's work transport or Cecilia's lack of housing) arise. Feel free to send any questions/comments my way. Asante sana to all!

The good, the bad and the ugly

2009-03-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

The start of second semester was delayed by a week and I took advantage of my last free days to visit the boys home in Nakuru again on Thursday and Friday. They have fifteen boys now, ranging from 5 to 16 or so, and they are truly a wonderful bunch. Running hugs, late nights studying, adopted big brothers - I see in these boys the best of young men who happen to be coping with the worst of situations - loss of family, former alcohol and glue dependency, and the continued struggle to keep them in clothes and school with extremely limited funds. I watched them stay up late with a local pre school teacher who came to tutor them Thursday night, and when I got up with them at 6 to take pictures in their school uniforms, many had been up since 3:30 studying. Two of the boys, all their circumstances aside, are competing for the top spot at their high school. This is truly no small feat! It breaks my heart to think of the challenges they will face paying for university - both Sammy and Bernard want to be engineers and they will work their tails off to achieve this dream - but like anywhere else, dreams cost money.

I would like to note that my little cousin, David, has decided that this year for his birthday he will ask his friends and guests to donate to the boys in Nakuru in lieu of gifts, and he will also be starting a penpal relationship with one of them. I'm so proud of his willingness to share his blessings and his interest in getting to know these boys who I know he would have so much fun with if they could all hang out in person! In the meantime I am continuing to look for donors and supplies for the home. I will take my parents to visit when they come to Kenya in June - so anyone nearby who has boys clothing, sporting goods or books to share please do. There is literally nothing that would go unused or unappreciated. The littlest boys do not even have underwear right now!

I returned to Nairobi having had yet another dose of perspective. My friend Rachel who is volunteering at the home has been using her own funds to get each boy a new outfit, school books, back packs and underwear. I see need daily in Nairobi, but I get to escape it in the evenings when I retreat to my beautiful home and the comfort of friends. Rachel is on the front line (trading street boys food for glue) - her experience reminds me so much of my time in South Africa and the desperate desire to make as much of a difference as possible. Still, I left the boys home energized by the pure potential and joy of the kids - it was great to help out at the home in the morning and get my hands dirty (literally - we cleaned and organized their exceptionally dusty bookshelves - clearing out such irrelevant titles as "Choices in Becoming A Woman").

My good mood (and the great nap I got in the matatu on the way home) inspired me to hit the town with friends and enjoy my last free weekend. A very fun night ended on a bad note as I got my purse snatched downtown. I let my guard down and hate to admit I was a prime target (I am normally extremely careful - in all my travels this is the first time I've been mugged). I don't think the guy was prepared for the three people who pursued him - a security guard, a friend of a friend and myself (I have not run that fast since high school track - and in heels no less!) but I got waylaid by a sharp corner that sent me into what I hope was a kind of cool tuck and roll (or maybe just crash and burn?) and the other guys lost him in the dark alley. We briefly got him on the phone and thought we could buy back my wallet and phone, but he didn't show at the appointed location. In some ways it's better that he wasn't caught - thiefs are often "lynched" by whoever witnessed the robbery - meaning they're beat to death in front of the victim. I lost an expensive phone and some money, but I'd rather not have someone's life be exchanged in their stead. It was a lesson learned and a true Nairobi initiation. Please do send me your phone number as I rebuild my contact list. Thanks!

Going to the source

2009-03-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Second semester's been delayed by a week, due more to scheduling issues than the student protests that kept most rational people out of the city center today. As I await the start of classes I am enjoying the opportunity to continue exploring my creative side with the help of a new friend, Sandra, who is a budding Kenyan designer.

One of the best things about building a life in a new place is the opportunity to reinvent pieces of yourself that in the past you've failed to pursue to the extent you might want or be capable of. There is a freedom to be found in introducing yourself as the person that you want to be - rather than the person you've been. For me, this is increasingly taking form in an acknowledgment of my utter need to be involved in creative endeavors, and the opportunity to pursue writing specifically as more than an infrequent hobby. I have started to acknowledge that those dreams we often place far outside the parameters of our "could or would be" aren't always as daunting or intimidating as they seem. I may not leave Kenya as a full-fledged writer or designer - but while I'm here, I'm doing my best to change the way I look at myself as an individual and an artist - breaking my habit of partitioning such critical pieces of myself and focusing on the practical. So today, I sent off a query letter to a local editor and I joined Sandra on a trip to Kibera to meet many of the artisans who create the fundamental components of so many of the arts and crafts found in Kenyan markets.

We caught a bus in front of Kenyatta hospital, with Sandra happy to have made it out of the city before the protests were in full force. Upon arriving in Kibera she encouraged me to make note of our stop - which for all extents and purposes looked like any other in Kibera - full of people, small rusting kiosks, maize husks on the ground, dust and the bent pieces of steel and wood marking the many furniture makers to be found. We entered a market with colorful numbered stalls. Some were tailors, other fabric shops, still others leather dealers (as we'd come to see). I learned how leather is sold and priced and what colors are available. Toddlers peaked out from under their parents' ironing tables, one giggled for quite some time as I marveled at his perfect "toddlerness." Apparently I am quite funny looking to a Kibera two year old. We visited a man who makes the beaded leather sandals found in the markets - his were exquisite - and like all the other vendors, he welcomed sketches and designs from us. We collected prices for piping, waste bands, embroidery, tops and skirts, and then left that market area to visit the bone carvers. Sandra warned me about the dust, but I was more concerned with the almost pleasant, distinctive smell of goat that emanated from the many stalls where men sat hunched over buzz saws and carving tools. Stacks of bones, both dully untouched and glistening polished white lay at their feet. We passed furniture fundis (a fundi is a skilled worker in Kenya) and metal smiths. We stepped over meter upon meter of copper and metal rods, some already pounded into the designs that I'll be offered by street vendors selling bracelets for 100 shillings.

It was as if the local Masai market that is held throughout Nairobi on various days was gathered, sorted and then taken apart piece by piece. I could see the start of dresses, shoes, bags, bracelets, necklaces and furniture. I now know who to go to if I want any of these things (or their components) made. It was a good day, a step forward in being the whole person I want to be. And, as far as I know the University of Nairobi protests did not result in any injuries or major police action - yet another thing to be thankful for.