The End of the Beginning (of the first week!)

Hello from Kenya!

I have officially survived and (I believe) thrived for an entire week in Kenya!  It’s difficult to find words to describe how beautiful the land and the people are here.  And I have to say, it really was like coming home.  I am sitting on the front porch of the upper house in our compound at six in the morning, trying to get a decent internet connection.  The sun is rising, the roosters are crowing, the birds are singing, and off in the distance I can hear both a massive dog fight and the strums of some chill Kenyan wake up music.  The mornings here are one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced.  The weather is always perfect, the scenery serene and the sounds so simple and a part of the natural world.  Life here is full of beautiful, simple serenity.

With the 19 of us here, my internet access has been spotty, just as the electricity has.  I’ve been wise enough to take my headlamp to the shower with me, which has definitely come in handy. I’ve also finally learned which water pitchers contain potable water, and what I can and cannot use when the electricity is out and we switch to the generator (which includes the water heating unit for the shower which had to be switched off on me at a highly undesirable time).  The food is incredible, especially given that we have limited options and even more limited cooking appliances. We just celebrated our first three birthdays, all right in a row, and had the most amazing chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted that took over three hours to bake.  We share duties and chores, and generally everything works like clockwork.

When we walk through town the locals stare and the children often run after us yelling either ‘Mzungu!’ (basically ‘white person’) or ‘HowAreYou?’ all run together like one long, high-pitched, terribly exciting word.  I decided on arrival to continuously be an ambassador of goodwill and to smile and wave at just about anyone who looks like they won’t misinterpret it as a wedding proposal.  I would say about 75% of the time I get a big smile and a wave back.  I’ve learned a lot of Swahili since I’ve been here and the bit I learned from the Burundian refugees I used to work with is quickly coming back , so I try to greet every single person I pass with a greeting conveying the appropriate amount of respect.  I’ve made a lot of friends along the path to work (about a 30 minute walk away) and within work too.  We had a field day (full of sack races, water balloon tosses, and other great games) followed by an incredible feast and a lot of dancing. 

The week overall was really an intro to Isibania (the town) and to Nuru (the org and the exisiting team). The Western and Kenyan staff are incredible.  It is clear that the Kenyans have made great strides in taking ownership of the organization and the programs.  We’re not there yet, but a full transition from Western to Kenyan staff is definitely on the horizon. 

Top 5 favorite moments:

1.       Having a dance off with some very talented little girls through a barbed wire fence.

2.       Feeling the sunshine and the wind on my face while riding from town to town on the backs of bodas (motorcycle taxis)

3.       Being immediately accepted, loved, and especially hugged by some of the local children.

4.       Sitting here now in a pinkish-peach sunrise, awash with the beautiful glow of nature and the beauty of the simple life.

5.       A tie between seeing my first monkeys and baboons on the sides of the road and that delicious chocolate banana cake!

Top 5 strange things that happened this week:

1.       I had to chase a fierce and crazy chicken and it’s offspring out of our Learning Center with a broken down cardboard box.  It was a highly sensitive situation and took far longer than expected.

2.       Running into random camels charging down a small path at me on my first morning here.

3.       Having some saw-toothed creature try to bore through the ceiling of my room this morning which woke my roomie and me up at about four in the morning with no hope of falling back asleep.

4.       One of my co-workers borrowed my camera and took a lot of photos of his wife breastfeeding their new baby.  It’s not taboo at all here, but I was just surprised to have so many up-close and very personal shots of it in my little camera.

5.       A few crazy, drunk guys had me take their picture, dodge their flailing arms, or surprisingly knew how to say very explicit words to me in English.  They are currently my only dislike about living here.

Altogether, the week was fantastic.  I have learned a great deal from both the outgoing team and the Kenyan staff…program related information, as well as how to navigate the market, where to find the scarce jars of peanut butter in town, and how to make a delicious and very large meal with limited resources (last night my roomie Tanner shared with me some shredded cabbage with tomatoes and onions coated with peanut butter, vinegar, and some other important ingredient that I’ve already forgotten and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted.

We have another very busy week ahead, so I am grateful for having had the weekend to recharge and relax a bit.

I am thinking of all of you often and sending you lots of love and well wishes.

Yours,

Jesi

Kwaheri!

Dear Friends!

It’s ‘Kwaheri’ (goodbye) time at last! At least for a little while.  I leave for the little town of Isibania near the Kenyan-Tanzanian border tomorrow via Amsterdam and Nairobi and what sounds like an extraordinarily long and bumpy bus ride. 

Some of you have asked for my address, which is:
Jessica Hansen
PO Box 176
Isibania, Kenya 40414

It only costs 98 cents to send a postcard or letter!  Some of you have mentioned care packages too, so FYI: Things have been known to arrive already opened and scrounged through by postal workers, and sometimes they don’t arrive at all.  The least expensive way to ship is usually with the white flat rate boxes you get at the post office.  They can weigh up to 20lbs and the cost depends on the size of the envelope or box as seen on this list: https://www.usps.com/send/priority-mail-international-flat.htm.  A padded envelope or small box cost $13.95 to send and the largest box is $58.50. The average shipping time is about 3-5 weeks. 

Some tips that may help the package arrive without being opened:
·         Tape it very very well
·         Make 2 copies of an inventory list (place one in the box and hold onto one or email it to me and I can verify that all contents arrived)
·         On the international customs form you will be required to fill out, no matter what is actually inside, I’ve been told to list highly uninteresting things that wouldn’t be too valuable if stolen (i.e. books, magazines, soap, etc.) and put a low dollar amount
·         One friend had luck when her mother would write Jesus Loves You and put religious stickers all over.  Ah, the guilt of having God watch you as you contemplate stealing…No, it seems some people hold religious orgs in high reverence and are less likely to try to steal from them.

Things I have been told are excellent things to receive:
·         A letter or postcard if you have time.

·         Non-perishable food items that aren’t readily available there (I am packing a little chocolate, the kind of cheese that doesn’t need to be refrigerated (like you get in a Hickory Farms basket at Christmas) pasta sauce packets, brownie mix, hot sauce, and soy sauce to name a few)

·         Photos (I will miss your faces and would love to decorate my room with them, but you can always share via email and save yourself the postage : ) I will completely understand) magazines, movies, books, etc.

All this being said, I am not expecting anything at all and shipping is quite expensive and not reliable, so I plan to use the internet to communicate more than the mail.

If you get a chance, check out the organization I will be working with: Nuru International at http://www.nuruinternational.org/.  (Don’t Google just Nuru, at least at work or in front of small children or your in-laws,….in Swahili it means light or brightness, but in Japanese it’s a form of exotic body on body massage.)  I will also be posting in the Education Blog section of the Nuru website (http://www.nuruinternational.org/blog/category/education/) about developments in the program I work on.  I’m very excited and feel really good about Nuru.  As most of you know, for about a decade now I’ve worked for some of the most incredible international aid, relief and/or development agencies, and what I love about Nuru is that it combines all the very best practices of all the great agencies, infuses them with innovation and critical/creative thinking, and gives all this over in the form of support to the local community to create sustainable and comprehensive solutions to the many manifestations of poverty they experience.  It’s all about working with the local leaders to identify the source problems and find sustainable solutions, then handing everything over to the local population, exiting ideally within 5 years from each location.

I apologize in advance if I fail miserably at keeping this blog up.  I’m one of those people who always bought journals with the very best intentions, but they all got torn up and used for to-do lists instead.  A planner, not a chronicler I suppose.  Also, my Skype is jessica.hansen888.

I will be in DC and then traveling a little in December for our break, so keep me posted on your whereabouts and hopefully we can meet up!  Thank you everyone for coming out on the ‘Farewell Tour’ to give me a goodbye hug, wishing me well with your texts/calls/emails, and/or just sharing in this experience with me.

Lots of love and many thanks to all,
Jesi

Greetings from the great state of Texas!

Hello from Ft. Worth! I should start by saying that this is my first real blog post. The last was a short intro, but this is the first one for which I’ve actually got a little something to talk about, given that my only sister very recently gave birth to (and this is as unbiased a description as I can muster) the most beautiful and perfect child that was born to anyone ever. I know a few moms who may disagree with me there, but having been nanny to half the children on New York’s Upper West Side, I must assert that I am in fact a trained expert on what constitutes a beautiful child.

Featured in the photo to the left are my lovely sister (the proud new mother) Apple Hansen Sims, and my darling niece, Katherine Ava Sims. What fortunate timing to give me ridiculously cute photos for my first real blog attempt!

My sister made a good point about my choice of blog title yesterday. I thought it was an admirable feat in witticism myself (being that I am not a very big person, that I am partially Thai, and that I am venturing a long way from home), but as she pointed out I am indeed more Thai than any other race that’s mixed into this strange concoction of DNA, so it should have been ‘More Thai Than Any Other Race Goes A Long Way,’ but it lacks a bit of…je ne sais quoi, wouldn’t you agree? And beside that the title is also a nod to my firm belief that to know a little bit about something (preferably everything, but especially languages) can take you just about anywhere, get you out of sticky situations, or open up whole new worlds for you. You never know when or where you will run into people in this world who you’d love to get to know or ask for directions to ‘el bano’ from and if you’re not willing to invest a few moments into becoming a bit of a babel fish, you might just be stuck lonely, lost, and peeing in the bushes for the rest of your life. Not a nice thought, eh?

This leads me back to my perfect baby niece, who I hope will never feel lost, lonely, or have to pee in bushes (unless she wants/needs to for a moment because in fact, I have found that each of those things can be enjoyable in their own way at the right time). It’s strange to look at her now and imagine her dating some boy who will want to get to second base (I refuse to imagine him wanting to get any further or I may have to affix a GPS tracker to her here and now!), driving, registering to vote, becoming leader of the free world, or even sitting upright on her own for that matter. Babies really do make you reflect on all sorts of things…on the fragility of life, the endless possibilities that are before us all, the sustainability of our choices and our world, protecting those who need it and empowering them to protect others too. And by god, they smell incredible. I have met my fair share of babies in this life, but I’ve never gotten the chance to spend this much time with a one week old baby, and what they say is true. It is intoxicating. You’d think with all the burps, farts, and other unpleasant excrement of life they might smell quite vulgar, but there is simply no sweeter more addictive smell. I get one more lovely day of breathing her in and then it’s back to DC for 2 days, then off to Isibania, Kenya.

And as an additional note, it was the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks yesterday (which you likely don't need me to tell you unless you live under a rock or on the moon without any social contact or satellite TV).  I daresay we all remember where we were, how we felt, not only on that day, but how the feelings have resonated in the months and years that followed.  The tragedy, the horror, the heroism, and the unflinching and indomitable spirit of humankind.  Oddly enough, I had dropped out of college earlier that year, which was 'odd' because not only did I always love school, but (not to toot my own horn) I was always really good at it.  For some reason, I'd decided to pursue something I wasn't very good at at all: skateboarding.  I had moved to Long Beach, CA, in with a lovely man (you know who you are ;) )who was an incredible skateboarder and really wanted to try my hand at being something other than a bookworm for a little while.  Well, a real nerd can only deny his/her true nature for so long.  I didn't last in Cali, nor at skateboarding (though it was a hell of a wild and awesome ride that I don't regret for a moment).  It was just days after I packed up and went home to my parents house in Oklahoma to try to figure out where to go and what to do next in life that the first plane slammed into the towers.  I'd already been abroad quite a bit, I'd seen poverty, felt the pangs of social and economic injustice and the resentment they cause.  I am not one who will tell you that there is necessarily and unquestionably a direct link between poverty and what happened that day (I've been thinking about that link a lot lately based on how my current org came into being), I know the men on those planes were well-off and well-educated.  What I will tell you is that in a world where all people have access to quality education, health care, livelihoods, clean water, and opportunities, we are certain to have fewer enemies and our friends will be greater in strength and number.

I decided to go back to university that day (I knew I had more to offer the world than being a terrible skateboarder).  Not in the States though.  It took time, but I managed to do a good portion of my Bachelor's in International Politics and all of my Masters in International Social Development abroad.  I got to see the States and the world as they are seen through the eyes of students from across the globe.  I defended our honor with tenacity, but apologized for our mistakes profusely. Over the past decade since the attacks, I have had the honor to work for incredible organizations that work to protect and empower people, to fight injustice and inequity, and create a better, more peaceful and sustainable world. I have seen what works and what doesn't.  I know that real change can only come when people in poverty have access to the knowledge and resources they need to transform their own lives and communities.  I am excited to embark on another journey toward those ends this week with Nuru International.

Lots of love to all, and please feel free to give me feedback on my posts. I imagine I need all the constructive criticism I can get. Or just say hello. Many humble thanks, j

Karibu...

Karibu, friends. Welcome to my first official blog! As you likely know, I am headed to a small village in western Kenya shortly and I've gotten a fair few requests to try my hand blogging. I can't make any promises but I figure it beats mass emailing and I can get more photos (my preferred means of communication!) in this way too.

I'm keeping this brief for the moment as I continue on my farewell tour of the States! (Photos to follow soon.) But for now, below is a photo of the wacky, brilliant, incredible people I will be with pretty much 24/7 until next April.  I might as well admit it now...I love them!  They are a fabulous mix of smart, kind, strong, deep, quirky people (many of whom are most excellent at hilarious impersonations) and they are willing to pack it all up and move to a little village on the Kenyan-Tanzanian border to empower local leaders to find innovative, sustainable, low-cost, high-impact solutions that will lead their communities out of poverty and transform lives forever.

R to L: Me, Naruth, Matt Lineal, Rebecca, Janine, David, Jennifer, Matt Lee & Thomas

I am sure we will have many stories to tell over the next few months!  Thank you for being interested enough in the journey and the mission to have a look from time to time and please keep me posted on your journeying as well. Lots of love to you. -j