Day 7: Enterprise

I wrote one blog post last year that I published, though a handful of deep thoughts are stored away in drafts, scraps of paper and digital files spread across devices and apps. Such is the nature of my writing these days - the inspiration still comes, but the ideas are even more fragmented and fleeting than before, challenged first and foremost by conflicting "to-dos" and more often than not, the option of simply going to bed.

I have always struggled to prioritize writing, but I struggle more these days as I do with most things, and I'm just now beginning to understand why. As age and exposure have granted me a hint of the wisdom required to live a balanced life, such knowledge continues to butt heads with a far more developed, though unintended, reality.

I have become an entrepreneur.

Despite the lack of potential for grand financial gain, the more this path unfolds, I realize I am thickly in the throws of the unmistakable reality of having a venture dictate just about everything in my life. The continuation of a journey started roughly 7 years ago, it's in many ways a natural development. At some point, I even saw it coming. Yet, while I trust my path implicitly, the recent opportunity to educate and acknowledge the roll I've taken on for what it is, provides some much needed solace.

I am rarely comfortable distinguishing myself from others, far preferring shared characteristics and realities to that which sets us apart. Lately, my reality seems misunderstood by even those I trusted knew me well, and I find a sense of freedom in acknowledging, publicly, just how damn hard it all is. I know it's hard because I am still new, and I am far too often immersed in my own reality to see where gains might be made, challenges solved differently and opportunities seized. At the end of the day though, one reality doesn't change. For now, I am "the buck stops here" for a bit more than a handful of exquisite lives. That people say "there's only so much you can do," and "you have to take care of yourself" is valid and ultimately true. It does not, however, affect that daily opportunity to set such thinking aside and simply do the work to keep things going. More than that, I know enough to know how much better things could be, and to take the steps to get there. Whether I'm fast or efficient enough is, of course, yet to be determined.

In the meantime, the day to day of my life looks a fair amount different than many around me. I carry a different kind of weight than that which others carry (as dearly to them as my own is to me, I am sure). More and more often these weights seem to challenge each other, often overshadowing the weary bearers below as we knock each other off kilter instead of joining shoulders to lighten each other's load.

It is a funny thing to be honoring such a core calling in work, only to find it makes it harder to resonate with the immediate world around me. I am learning it is not uncommon, and there is faint comfort in that, but mostly I still resist.

Faith in what will be

Right around a year ago, Maggie and I got into a major fight. She had been accepted to USIU, and we had quickly celebrated this great opportunity. But as she went ahead and enrolled, I panicked - knowing I did not yet have the funds raised for her first year. Maggie was inconsolable, fearing that now that her dream was within reach - she would have to face that it was just too good to be true. I was devastated that she doubted my commitment or belief in her. We were at an impasse. I asked her to wait one more semester so that I could secure a handful of funders that would help us in the coming years to avoid constant scrambling for fees. I needed to know that she would be able to focus on her studies, and that I would be able to focus on my work. I wanted it to happen - but I didn't know when it would happen, and was afraid of moving forward with freshman year without more money in the bank.

Maggie, in a combination of desperation and incredible faith, was ready to move forward - even if it meant that at times she'd have to put her studies on hold while we raised funds. She wanted to start - she was ready to go to University.

As I vented to friends about my stress in taking this commitment on, it only took a few people to realize I was being too cautious. "Let her start school, the money will come." I heard this from a variety of friends in Kenya and abroad, some who planned to donate and others who simply believed in Maggie's potential and my ability to raise the money. By the time the next semester rolled around, we took the plunge, continuing to share our initial fundraising video and crossing every digit and appendage we had.

When I think about the difference in Maggie from her sadness, anger and frustration the day I told her she could not start school yet, to the joy and confidence that she exudes right now, I am blown away. And as I take this emotional and sometimes daunting journey beside her, I am humbled that she was right to want to start, and my friends were right to encourage me to let her. Money can be a sordid temptress, but I have learned time and time and time again, that where there is opportunity, community, hard work and creativity - it will come.

It has come!

Today I was notified of a recent donation, and when I logged on to our fundraising site, I saw that we have raised $4,836 of our $4,900 goal. The truth is, we have raised a bit more - with a couple of monthly donors catering for safe housing and healthy food costs, and a few others donating via our new partner organization, the Ndoto Project (which offers tax receipts as they are a non-profit). While I want to see that $4,900 goal reached on Go Fund Me - the amazing reality is that we already have a bit of funds in the bank for next year's tuition. Further, Maggie has a clean and safe room next to campus, gas to cook with, healthy food to eat, bed linens and other necessities that we weren't sure we could cover. I am floored, humbled, grateful and tickled pink.

To those who have shared this young woman's story in your own communities, encouraged me in this endeavor, donated once or more - thank you. You give me hope in the value of a single life, and the power of a community behind her. You are part of her story, my story and so much more.

Day 8: Love wins

Life in Kenya changed this week, though I'm not there right now to experience the new reality. On Saturday, terrorists stormed and took siege of the largest and most popular mall in Nairobi, creating an indelible mark on countless lives and the communal identity of our city. Striking a place employing and drawing every echelon of society, every nationality and race, every age and religion - they acted with strategic brilliance to maximize the impact of their terror.

Going through the pictures of the siege (which I have forced myself to do daily in honor of those lost and those who survived), I see horror and fear that cannot be erased. These lives are changed. These souls face months and years of recovery, flashbacks and fear. All these tangible responses alongside the less tangible but undoubtedly shifted lens to the outside. How to make sense of the classmate who does not return to school, or the empty desk at work, or the missing askari at one's favorite shop? Tangible and intangible, terrorist is the perfect name for these perpetrators. While we must not honor their purpose or fight fire with fire, the sad truth is they have succeeded in wreaking havoc.

Often, when I'm writing about my time in Kenya, I shy away from the hardest of stories or daily realities of living alongside poverty in a still-evolving post colonial society. I do not want to dishonor my second home, a country that has welcomed me in and accepted my work and energy with open arms, by telling stories that would discourage others from visiting. At times like this I am compelled to write - to tell the story, to try and communicate how intimately connected to this shifting paradigm I feel, to try and process something that is virtually unfathomable. Words can only do so much to tell the true story after all. As I try and connect the dots, I cherish those who upon hearing the news of this attack reached out immediately, even though I am now in the US. Somehow, they understood what it might mean, how terrifying it was to try and track down friends who I knew could be there. As Sudarsan Raghavan so eloquently articulated a few days ago, it could have been me.

Reviewing photos from the attacks, the one below stood out. The woman in the center is an American friend of friends, and is thankfully ok. I find this picture represents both the terror of Saturday's attack, alongside the beauty that is the city of Nairobi. Here are three people who are some mix of different races, religions and nationalities, holding each other up in response to those who use terror to seek control. I find so much hope in these three people, as excruciating as it is to attempt to understand the fear they must have been feeling. As I meditate on this photo I appreciate the words of a Muslim victim at the end of this video: "our religion preaches peace, understanding and humanity." Most do - and in that way we are one.

Photo Credit: NY Daily News

In war, we must align ourselves in a way that prioritizes peace above all else. How else can we do this than to walk arm and arm with our differences, turning our back on those who place terror above the possibility of peace.

Day 9: The Son

A few years ago I thought I had found my church. After years of feeling slightly overwhelmed by large congregations and the group identity that often accompanies them, I stumbled upon a house church. This church was being led by a pastor whose heart was rooted in Jesus, and not the various factions his birth, and subsequent death, led to. For just a few weeks I gathered in a small apartment amongst fast friends and random strangers to go back to the beginning of the story. We broke bread together and gave testimony of God's presence in our lives just as the earliest Christians did. Since I had fallen in love with the pastor along with the church, when the relationship ended I struggled to reconcile what I'd lost. A friend's community church provided solace during those first few Sundays when I sat weeping silently in the absence of romantic love, but surrounded by the sanctity of God's love. I moved away shortly thereafter and soon returned to a feeling of distance between what Christ represented in his life, and what religion has done with these truths. Since that time I have recognized the presence of God in a number of gathered moments (both in church and beyond), but have not been able to bring myself to return on a regular basis.

In the past year I have been depleted and raw in a way that is utterly and profoundly new. Now, I'm no stranger to anxiety and depression - but I sense that what's going on lately is largely a result of near constant movement and a depleted immune system thanks to various ailments incurred while living abroad. Here I am with a dream of a job based on service and empowering those in need (in other words, what I understand Jesus stood for), but my body and personal faith has become so depleted it feels constantly threatened by my own exhaustion. As I settle into new rhythms and opportunities to take care of myself and rebuild my strength, I have been humbled by a call towards faith I haven't felt in quite some time. 

***
Historically, my faith has always revolved around the Holy Spirit, whose near constant presence I've felt throughout my entire life. This sense of a higher power is so profoundly emmersed in love as a counter to the desolation of human existence and impact on each other and planet, that I can't help but believe. As I was exposed to the Christian paradigm fairly early on, it has always been my lens, and I have never been able to find any fault with Jesus. But my distrust (and frankly, distaste)for many Christians has made it a strange and often solitary path - never wanting to align myself with the aspects of faith that condemn so many people I cherish, while at the same time knowing that my life depends on the ability to rest in salvation - not just for myself, but for this devastating world we live in.

And so in these months of renewal and rebirth, I sense a need to get to know the Son - the name upon which so much division and angst is born, but who for me is starting to provide incredible comfort and care in this desert of a time. As has often been my experience, as soon as I open that sliver of my heart and mind, provision flows forth, and I have once again found my church. 

Since returning to the US this summer, my parents and I go to a book group studying the underground church with a handful of senior citizens every Wednesday night. I am brought to tears nearly every week as these beautiful souls despair over the state of the world, and the distance our religion has created between itself and the God we believe in. We talk weekly about Jesus and his disciples' "radical hospitality." We explore how the Christian "church" was founded on inclusivity and service. For it was this that made the early Christians stand out - not their proclamations or commitments to do good. 

One of the women who attends each week is caught in the struggle of "where to start?" and "what does it matter if no one will listen?" I studied her profile today as she repeated these questions, her soft gray hair twisted up atop her head and the lines of many decades framing the pain in her eyes. I told her afterwards of the philosophy that first took me to Africa - that we can't fix all the hurt in the world, but if each of us is open to doing something - the world will change. I told her that every time she is willing to speak up for those in need, the world DOES change.

***
On Sundays, I still lose focus from time to time during sermons that feel more like lectures than the discussions my brain finds easier to process. When this happens I focus on soaking up the rays of sun that come in through the wall of windows facing the Santa Lucia mountains. My dad insists we sit on the right side of church so we can enjoy the rose garden next to the sanctuary, which is never a problem as there is always plenty of space (it's an aging population, afterall). For most people my age, there would be nothing to tie them here - no music that stirs the heart, no strategically quirky sermons to make them feel like they're on the right path. But for me, it is the church I have been looking for - for it is bound to what Jesus came to earth and died for - radical inclusion, radical service, radical humanity. 

After book group tonight one of the attendees held back and pulled the pastor aside to ask if he could sleep at the church tonight. He is without a physical home, but like me, has found his church. What a privilege to receive the same welcome and to be able to worship beside him and this community of seeking servants. 

Day 10: Rebirth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"plz just save my future."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 11: Stillness

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

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

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

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

For tomorrow, Kenya votes.

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

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

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

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

Evening comes, as does the dawn

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

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

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

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

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

In which I make a meager metaphor

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

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

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

ARE YOU GETTING MY METAPHOR!?!

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

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

Words + pictures + patience = story

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

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

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

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

I am a story teller.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mom and I get our SASA on!

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

The start of my summit list

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

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

Here and there

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

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

Just a little reminder of how awesome this universe is.

World Aids Day: In Rememberance

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

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!

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

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...

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!

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.