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.

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.

Day 13: Resilience

(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

(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

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

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.

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.

Day 18: Prayer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.