Sunday, January 29, 2012

Through the Looking Glass

Week one: down.  Twenty-two to go.  It’s difficult describing what it’s like to be back.  Before I left, it was hard to put words to this place and this experience without an air of some utopian paradise.  But poverty isn’t paradise.  Quite the opposite in fact, in most intepretations.  And if there were no poverty, we wouldn’t be here.  It’s funny how much you can love a place when you think it is perfect, but then how much more you realize you love it when you realize it’s not at all perfect and yet you love it more completely with all of those flaws and hardships.  That resulting love is more solid, more real. I was in love with this place before, but now I love it. Truly, deeply, and profoundly.

Before I left here for break, it was difficult to remember what life was like off this compound, away from this tiny border town.  The States sometimes felt like a distant memory of images from a film I’d seen once, a long time ago. This was reality.   And that was after only three months.  Imagine how out of sorts I will be, come July.  During break, once I’d hibernated in DC for about a week, all of this, this life…this place, seemed like a dream.  Like Alice waking by the bank of the babbling brook, left to wonder how it all felt so real.  I’ll admit that readapting to the creature comforts of life in the USA (not to mention gaining almost 10 lbs by allowing myself every food I’d missed at any time I craved it), left me slightly hesitant to return.

My early introduction to this organization and life here was (I hope) abnormal for all involved.  I walked into what felt to me like a smattering of intense human drama and chaos.  As much as I tried to weather and utilize all my sensible faculties, it was hard.  People whose actions and behaviors turned on a dime, systems and policies seemingly wholly lacking or nonsensical, it seemed nothing could be easy or logical.  It was frustrating and I secretly wondered what I had walked in to and how quickly I could walk out.  Instead of walking out, I put on my rose-tinted glasses, embraced all I loved about it and worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to try to serve it best. 

I found this place and this org after years of working for other organizations with seemingly similar aims.  Every one of them left me frustrated and looking for the right fit, Cinderella’s slipper, if you will.   No matter how much they tried, how well organized their efforts,  nor how much experience they had, there was always the underlying element of ‘We have masters degrees or PhDs or we are white or we are from the developed world or we are Christians or we are wealthy…so we know best.’  No matter how well intentioned, I firmly believe that nothing will ever be resolved so long as those beliefs are at the foundation of the approach.  All parties should have something to offer, whether it is technical expertise, deep cultural understanding, etc., but the belief that the community is capable, that all of humanity is capable of overcoming the adversity it faces, should be held deeply and firmly by both those who come to offer assistance and especially by the community itself.  I took this position because I believed I had found that glass slipper, but instead am coming to realize there may be no glass slipper, no fantastical and perfect fits, just people struggling to do what they think is right or best, regardless of how correct they are in those beliefs.

There is an air of weariness over what was once an excited and energized team.  We are pushing through and fighting for what we believe in, but even using the terms ‘pushing through’ and ‘fighting’ on our very first week back is a bit worrisome.  I feel a heaviness in my being that I can’t quite seem to shake.  Is it a shaky suspicion that missteps over which we have little control will likely continue and this will, in the end, be for nothing?  Is it a sadness that I can’t do more, a disappointment at my own limitations or the early onset of my exhaustion?  Is it the fear that in thinking I had cast off all the ill turns that came with the big and bureaucratic NGOs, I may have found myself at the early stages of much of the same, where we are only reinventing broken wheels instead of finding those precious meaningful and impactful ways forward, but all involved are in fierce denial that this is or could possibly be the case?  I want to believe this is at least part of what I was looking for, and I haven’t given up that hope yet, that somehow (as in Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday) all I am seeing is the back of things and could I only come around to see them from the front, they would be too beautiful and perfect even to comprehend.
 
And in that hope, what is left to be done is to continue striving to see the world and all it facets (including this experience) from all angles, but most importantly head-on, in all its glory and to continue working to make beautiful even the shadows that appear from the back .

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Episode VI: Return of the Jesi

A terrible title, I know.  It emerges from the fact that any Apple product will auto-correct my name to Jedi, which I actually find quite flattering.  Cheers and RIP, Steve Jobs.
I had an incredible month-long visit to the States, where I got to see Aaron, my dear friends (in NYC, OKC, and DC), my four month old niece, my family and my pets.So, at long last, we returned to our home in Isibania around 48 hours ago.

I was welcomed home by a number of very large spiders that had built impressive havens over the past month, an awesome vampire bat outside the kitchen window that follow your every move with his huge eyes, a lizard’s tail left inside one window and an actual lizard who had gotten stuck in the tape I used to seal the gap in my window (it doesn’t shut all the way) who very likely died a long, slow and painful death, all because I didn’t want a bunch of creepy-crawlies throwing parties and building nests in my room during my absence. Pole (sorry), lizard.

I have returned with a new approach at the project and life in general.  Gone are the days (and nights) of only 2-3 hours of sleep a night, of trying to do absolutely everything humanly possible to launch my team and our program ahead, and living, eating, breathing, etc. highly un-intentionally.  What I mean by that is that I intend to sleep this round.  I intend to purchase foods ahead of time that are healthy and eat them instead of food being an afterthought and eating whatever greasy bread product is readily available.  I intend to not just speak and think about exercising, but actually to get up at 6am to do it.  I will read the books I brought, watch the movies and TV shows I ripped onto my external hard drive, drink the wine I picked up in Nairobi, start my days with my long lost love: NPR, and be better about keeping in touch with the people who mean so much to me spread out across the vast continents of this world.

I do not intend to let my work slide.  I love this place.  I love my team (both the Foundation Team I live with and the Kenyan Education Team I work with). And I love our program.  However, I intend to do what I ask my team to do, which is to take care of themselves so that they are the best they can be at their work and to always maintain a healthy work/life balance. Time to start practicing what I preach.

When New Year’s Eve was rolling around I heard a few different takes on making resolutions that I really appreciated.  One was from a man on TV who said he never makes resolutions because if something is wrong, he tries to correct it immediately, and that rarely coincides with Jan 1, so he just makes up stuff he wants to do.  And my friend Jenelle mentioned how instead of resolutions, she makes a yearly to do list.  Since my life revolves around to-do lists more and more (the older I get and the less I remember, putting pen to paper is the only way an idea can become a reality for me), I decided to make one, quite unlike the ones I’ve made before.  It still involves the traditional getting in shape, but is meant to encourage 2012 to be the year of 1) the work/life balance, 2) accomplishing some ridiculous goals, and 3) living intentionally.

12 Things To-Do in 2012
1.       -Learn to knit
2.      - Memorize and be able to do the choreography to Beyonce’s Single Ladies
3.      - Read 32 books off my to-read list (I’m turning 32 in Mar)
4.      - Floss everyday (I’m a 2-3 times a week girl; gross I know, that’s why it’s on the list)
5.      - Always be present;  listen well
6.      - Be less of a peace-maker (not referring to the weapon) and more of a change-maker
7.      - Continue to take a photo a day
8.      - Be intentional and proactive about my physical, mental, and emotional health (includes exercise, healthy eating, yoga, meditation, etc)
9.      - Wake up with NPR and keep up with the Economist
10  - Plan a trip to Antarctica (the final continent I have not yet explored)
11.   - No working after 8pm
 12.  Remember to tell people what you love about them

We have a total of 164 days starting from our first full day in Kenya on Jan 19th until we leave on Jun 30th.  Three down, 161 to go. May 2012 bring beautiful things for both the people of Kuria and for our team as we countdown the days we have left here.  And for you all too!  Love from Isibania, j