What am I here for? I might have an answer…labda.

This has been one crazy ass week, a week that for the majority of time I have been trying to quiet the voice inside my head that has been screaming “this isn’t why I came here!!! IM NOT HERE FOR THIS!!!” This loud emotional voice is mainly a result of sitting in the office constructing weekly work plans with my colleagues(which I am no expert in as im not an efficiency consultant), the bureaucratic structures our group finds itself tangled in (see blog entry on funding vision) and the chaotic periurban lifestyle that makes up my day to day life. I have become a bit disillusioned with my post. I realized this week after nearing tears of frustration countless times, that yes I came to contribute, yes I came to be challenged, but I also came to slow down, I came to put a little bit of peace back into my soul, to live how the majority of the world lives, to find my beauty again. I realized I set aside these 2 years of my life to live in a rural setting, to be surrounded by community and customs – to live the beauty that is Africa. I have the rest of my life for efficiency, long workdays and comfort. In fact, im sure that’s what a good part of the rest of my life will look like (remember, comfort is most definitely relative!).

This realization came to a head as I went with a woman from the APHIA II office (one of our partner orgs) to visit a remote hilltop village that we work in. Even just driving out of Voi I felt the change of pace – just small things life women carrying water on their heads down the dirt road or men walking their bikes because the large load of wood sticking off the back is impossible to balance. We wound our way up the mountain and already I was fantasizing about moving out to one of the many remote homes tucked into the hills. I even got as far as to make a plan of action for moving my stuff from voi and my first steps towards community integration. It all just made more sense to me – it seemed more tangible, more along the scale I imagined living life these coming years. All of this before we even reached our destination of Sagalla.

Then I stepped out of the car and into this hilly, lush absolutely serene, peaceful and intimate town of Sagalla. It was as though time stopped briefly. I stood still and listened-I could hear the birds, the wind, the children playing and the soft conversations of people working, almost hushed though it was so calm a pace. I stood and I watched – I saw men and women working in the green fields, mamas fetching water, people meandering through the terraced hills and others engaged in conversation as they patiently waited to be seen at the medical compound. The air a little cooler and more crisp to touch. It was a moment similar to when you are heading up to your favorite campground for the first time in the summer. You have been away so long, you have been waiting to be reunited, you step out of the car, you see familiar beauty and you smell the air-it travels through you and with that first breath, your disposition changes, you are more at peace, more calm, comfortable, you are home. My eyes teared up as I thought “this is what I came here for”. It is saddening how right it felt, just knowing that the atmosphere and the sensation do exist, and that it is not where I am posted.

We spent the day in a training session for mamas from 13 neighboring villages who would essentially become health advisors in their respective villages. They are not given actual medical training but are taught to recognize signs and symptoms of troubled pregnancy and are charged with referring these mamas to the hospital.* So they are educated on matters of family health, HIV/AIDS, STI’s, cancer, violence against women and female empowerment. This training will go on for a week and in the coming year, these mamas will be given further trainings for their communities benefit. We are essentially doing this in maybe a dozen communities and within different populations(youth, sexworkers, mamas, mzees(old men)…) Its really quite a great program with a rather large scope, and I was finding it a bit difficult to wrap my mind around how I can contribute. Having a hard time deconstructing the issues of so many communities to a digestible level. How can I create something new in these communities to have ownership of? It seems the work is already done. I saw myself mobilizing women and youth and giving them training on health issues, but we already have incredibly well informed people in the community to do this, and in much better Kiswahili than I could ever achieve.

Maybe what I am here to do is just contribute to the trainings. Maybe this ownership of my own project is just BS that I have been socialized into thinking is necessary to be a successful human. If everyone in a community contributes their specialized knowledge to a project, it will be accomplished to its full potential. So I wont contribute on health issues I don’t think, they seem to have that covered. I’m thinking business and income generating enterprises. In talking with community members, colleagues at Voi Youth Forum and APHIA II, this is where there is a gap. We have already discussed the economic situation of many in my community and the massive amounts of free time they have. It seems that I can be effective in helping people get the money they need to start up small businesses, teaching people to do market assessments (so that they aren’t starting a business to make coal when there are already 10 people in their small town making and selling coal), write business plans and grant/loan proposals. There really isn’t anyone doing this with these populations. So maybe ill be a business volunteer, its what I really wanted to do anyhow…I have some educational background in this field, not much, and no actual real life applications, but this is Africa, and everything has to be relearned to work in this particular environment anyhow. This is what peace corps is all about-literally starting from scratch.

*side note: it is super interesting that on some levels, infrastructure like hospitals is present, but now people need to be educated on how and when to access these institutions