July, July!

Friday, July 29th! Where did this month go?
I'll try to recap the highlights before going more into some recent news.

The 4th of July is never as fun in a different country. Never. I know a lot of the interns were missing home quite a bit that day, and I think it really hit me how much I missed it until I was at a 4th (10th) of July potluck party, thinking about how I would have spent the day if I were in MN. I probably would have run the Afton 25k Trail Run again this year (completely hooked after my first time last year), then gone home to shower and nap before finding more outside activities, maybe even a trip up to the cabin for burgers on the grill and corn on the cob. Then home for those 10pm fireworks. Oh, America.

I did opt to stay up uncharacteristically late and watch the final Eurocup game (which started at 10pm local time)... no fireworks though. Waking up the next day was difficult.

Mom arrived in country the next day! It was such a treat to show her around my home here. I develop a greater appreciation for where the home I've made for myself in a foreign place when I can then share it with someone. We made dinner in my house one evening, and had a big breakfast-for-dinner potluck with many of my friends here the other night. She came with me on some intern visits and learned about a couple of their host organizations - plus this meant she got to experience tuk-tuks and piki-pikis, like a true Kenyan. What a trooper.

We met my sister in Nairobi and the next day (after a little luggage drama) took off for Maasai Mara and a few days of game drives in Kenya's most famous park. It. Was. Breathtaking. We managed to see just about every animal I could've hoped to see. When Mom and I were in South Africa at Kruger, we didn't really see any cats, and this trip definitely made up for that. We saw multiple cheetahs and leopards, plus probably a total of seven or eight lions. Amazing. And our driver was SO good that he got us within a couple meters each time. (I do intend to post some of my better photos somewhere, somehow, at some point, but I'm not sure when I'll have bandwidth for it.) The people at the camp sang Maren a very Happy Maasai Birthday song and presented her with a cute little cake that evening too - what a neat way to spend a birthday!

The three of us then headed to Diani Beach, on the coast south of Mombasa for some intense relaxation. We even had our own chef who would game plan meals with us, do the shopping, and then cook a ton of food. We had fresh seafood every night. It was heaven.

Saying goodbye and returning to Kakamega after all of that was really difficult, but even coming home after a really good vacation can be comforting in a way I can definitely appreciate. To be fair, I didn't even have to go straight back to work - the next morning I got up and made my way to the office early to depart with the interns and other members of staff for our midterm retreat. We spent three nights at a neat campsite on Lake Naivasha - more good food, fun activities, and a chance for the interns to get a break from Kakamega (which is really important too!).

Being in Naivasha made me realize how much I miss having a truly active lifestyle. I don't think I'm cut out for desk life. I ran with one of the interns each morning, then one morning we all rented mountain bikes and rode around to another lake and back toward town for lunch. Another day we went on a long hike in a park where lots of safari animals were just roaming around (zebras, buffalo, wildebeest, antelope, giraffes, warthogs...), and up around the perimeter of Crater Lake. The scenery was definitely different from that of Western Kenya. I loved being by lakes again, something I'm realizing I've maybe taken for granted in Minnesota.

That more or less brings us to this week (we all got back from midterm on Sunday afternoon, at which point I washed probably close to 2/3 of the clothes in my closet before falling asleep very early). This is the first week I've spent fully in Kakamega since the beginning of July - sort of strange. I attended one of our intern's workshops about condom use and negotiation, which she and a colleague gave to upwards of 20 community health volunteers who will hopefully then be able to take those skills out into the communities where they work, and enhance knowledge and family planning while also reducing transmission of HIV and STIs. It's been seriously cool to see the interns in these situations since they've been working here for 5-6 weeks now and so their internships are wrapping up. I think I get to go to a different intern's workshop next week, which should also be good.

So then the big news... I still haven't decided if I want to call it good news or bad news. No doubt it's a bit of both. FSD has decided to cut my contract short due to some financial constraints and very low intern numbers for the fall and beyond. Rather than my original departure date of September 27th, I now decide when I want to leave, anytime after August 20th, as that is the last day they will be providing financial support to my position.

Reading the email from the director on Wednesday morning was a little surreal (especially since I had just paid my landlady my last month of rent the morning before). I am still trying to figure out how I feel about it, but in general, I'm not thrilled. I think it's sort of poor to give your volunteer/employees only 24 days notice about unexpected termination. I realize it's not related to anything I've done (or not done), but I still don't especially appreciate it. And to be told in an email. Not the most professional, but it's out of my control now.

I've been applying to jobs off and on while I've been here, hoping to set something up for once I'm done or back in the States. I've not had much luck with it, and even this week, a couple leads I thought I had turned out to be relative dead ends. So... I'm working on being patient. I'm also working on figuring out what exactly it is that I think I want to do, which has proven difficult. I can't figure out if I want to work at home (in the States, likely East Coast) or abroad (East or sub-Saharan Africa). Most international positions would require a commitment of two years, which didn't seem so long for Peace Corps or grad school, but I'm 28 (approaching 29), and two years from now... well, it just seems like a big milestone and I worry I won't have things any more figured out at that point. I don't know what all "settling down" entails, or if I actually want any part of it, but at the very least I'd like to feel like I'm working my way down a career path, rather than bouncing around a handful of (essentially volunteer) positions that end when the organization decides its funding is better directed elsewhere (this is the second summer I've been in this situation). End rant (was that even a rant?)...

On the positive side, I'll get to see my friends and family earlier than expected. I'll get to train for a month at home before the 10-mile in early October (hopefully my running, even a little, at "altitude" this summer will have helped). I'll get to go to a wedding I had thought I would have to miss. Trying to keep the silver lining in sight.

Sending love from a very rainy Kakamega,
K

Halfway There

June 29, July 4 (I didn't manage to finish this in one sitting, and the second sitting didn't happen until almost a week later)

Greetings from Kisumu, where I managed to successfully extend my visa until the end of September. This is a good thing since my return flight leaves Nairobi on September 27.

Hard to believe, but I am just about half done with my 6-month stint here. Wow. Three months from today, I will be home. Home. And it will be fall. September will have come and practically gone. Though I’m absolutely craving those cooler temps (plus sleeping with screens on my open windows, and malaria-less mosquitos), I can tell I’ve started adjusting to the Kenyan climate. Even my coworkers make comments when I put a sweater on at work – “You are becoming Kenyan!” And so I am.

So much has happened since my last post. So much. Life has been mostly good.

The interns arrived (both shipments of ‘em), and orientation went well. It has been interesting to note the differences between groups – lots of personalities and really great energy. The first group had eight days of orientation in Kakamega town, and the second only had three and a half since they’d gone through a fairly extensive orientation in Chicago before departure. This is all over the course of 16 days. I know I’ve complained about various aspects of my house here, but after a total of close to two weeks in a guest house (with spotty hot water and issues with providing all the rooms clean/dry towels), I definitely came to appreciate my place. The solitude, the familiarity of my own bed, the access to a fridge and kitchen and choosing what I cook and eat… really great. And now I’m staying at home for another two weeks until Mom comes (July 11^th!) and we go to meet up with Maren for adventures! Hooray!

The transition from not having a lot going on to being busy full-tilt went pretty well, actually. The interns are all so lively and excited about being here and learning and jumping in to their projects, and that energy was really contagious. I am so excited for them – that they get to have this experience and see this tiny corner of the developing world. My first experience in Africa was so pivotal that I’m back for more. Whether or not they have a similarly influential experience in thees two months, who knows, but I do know that they won’t be able to remain unaffected. I only hope that my being here is helpful to them, even in some small way.

One has already had a really tough experience, and though I wasn’t directly involved, it made me think about who I am, why I’m here, and what I’m doing. This particular intern has been partnered with a health center in a fairly rural place, not too far outside of Kakamega, but I’m sure it feels very removed from any kind of town life. She spent her first week getting to know the various departments in the health center, and was privileged to go out into the field to meet some of the patients affected by HIV.

(Read her blog post here)

I’m no medical professional; I studied math. Some might argue it’s not a very “real world” major… obviously all mathematicians sit around proving things all day with calculators and slide rules and pocket protectors. Ok, maybe not. Suffice it to say that as a college student, I don’t think I could’ve ever envisioned myself here, facing these very real, and often heartbreaking, situations.

Regardless of what someone studies (even if it is global health or medicine), I think the first real encounter with someone (like this HIV+ woman our intern met) whose behavior doesn’t align with the western ideas of “healthy” is hard; it really shakes you. (I don’t know if I could pinpoint mine, though bringing a student with a broken leg over a mile along a rocky road on a donkey and into town via bumpy minibus taxi only to be told he would have to wait until the next day because it was a Sunday definitely comes to mind, even if it doesn’t compare in gravity.) For her to have seen this within her first week at her internship here was both immensely valuable and incredibly heavy. It makes perfect sense that she would want to write about it, both to process it and to share the experience with those back home, for whom such an encounter might still feel (and be) very distant.

I’d seen but not actually read her blog post, as I was busy preparing for and then also leading the second orientation. During one of the morning language sessions, I got a frantic text from this intern, saying someone (a fellow student at her home university, actually) had shared her post as an example of: “what not to do with your white savior complex.” (In case you’re unfamiliar with the white savior complex, google it, or here is one piece on it, or here is another. I could go on, but I’ll let you do your own searching…) For one of her peers (currently participating in a different but likely similar program in Kenya) to question her motives and accuse her of having a white savior complex completely blew my mind. Speaking on the phone to the (understandably upset) intern, I found myself getting quite mad. Where does this other student get off backhandedly accusing our intern like that?! Unproductive, unnecessary, untrue, and unacceptable… I won’t continue. I was angry.

After calming her down a bit (and trying to calm myself down too), we hung up and I went back to the Kiswahili lesson, deep in thought about my own reasons for being here, pursuing a career in international development. After all, I could have easily come home from Lesotho and gone to grad school in math or found a job completely unrelated to my time in Africa. I’ve thought about it quite a bit over the course of the last weeks, while running in the mornings, or as I job search, trying to find a next step in my professional life. Why am I here? What was it that made me choose this field? Why does it feel more “right” to me than pursuing a career in mathematics or academia or anything else? Is it maybe even a bit of my own white savior complex? I still don’t have an answer apart from knowing with conviction that I would not be able to go home to the States and leave development alone.

One of the things we’ve been emphasizing with the interns is the need for their projects to be sustainable. It was a buzzword thrown around during Peace Corps too. Many of the education volunteers quickly accepted that our presence in classrooms was not especially sustainable, but that there were other ways we could leave more of a lasting impact (I mean really, who was I to teach math and physics at a high school in rural Lesotho?!).

Maybe the “why do I do this” question is not a question meant to be answered simply and concisely. For me, at least, it cannot be answered simply or concisely, not right now anyway. I’m not there yet, maybe I never will be. I don’t have an answer, but I’m not content to walk away without trying to answer it, not for anyone else, but for myself. If the answer came easily, it wouldn’t match the complexity of the question. It seems like the big “why” question should not be far from the heart of this work, and anyone committing to working in development needs also to commit to a future of grappling with it.

On a far less serious note, Happy 4^th of July!

I so wish I could make the hour-long drive up to my family’s cabin for burgers and brats on the grill and a day of playing in the lake… I also wish I could be in Eugene, Oregon this week for the Olympic Track & Field Trials as I have several friends who will be competing. If you have a chance to tune in to trials, definitely do it. Sending super speedy thoughts to those fit few, running their hearts out to be the ones to represent the U.S. in Rio later this summer.

Lots of love.