Building a community

Hard to believe that it’s a year down the road I took in April last year, oops, March 2007. Old dogs do learn new tricks, believe you me. I look back to my marketing days and have problems recollecting the day today musings of deadlines and crazy targets! Change happens.

Its such genuflection that has borne today’s blog. After the March 21^st incident I had in Baragoi with the bandits the old lenses through which I looked at life just didn’t do the trick any more. I found myself looking at life and realizing that all that I saw around had actually been created! Someone labored to bring to reality the idea that is the road I drove on. It took perseverance and dedication to create the freedom that I took for granted. Someone lays their life on the line to guarantee me the security I always took for granted. It takes guts to invest hard earned cash to build the house I rent and so forth. Equally, it appeared as such a clear reflection that it takes concerted effort to design the systems that keep a society going. Efforts to weave enduring relations, and patience beyond what I had exhibited this far to see fruition of communal objectives! Thus was born the community developer in me.

After the two years in Ghana with VSO I came back full of ideals, fears and aspirations. I must admit that I came back to my community as a stranger of sorts. I have spent a year unlearning a lot of what I thought it took to make things work. Apparently a community is a lot about relations, sharing ideas, meeting physically and mentally, trading ideas, accepting and discarding notions and perceptions. It’s a continuous endeavor that once realized I have found I cannot negate.

Low moments abound, with nay sayers taking every opportunity to pull my pants down. Critical lessons from PFC (preparing for change) have however kept my focus on the true North however; focus on positivity! Sell your ideas to a critical mass and step aside!

After a while I have learned to hold back my opinion balance a raft of opinions, cajole my way through mined paths and ultimately offer leadership in quick sand situations.

The biggest project in my life so far, an hospital for my rural community is what keeps me believing currently. I must at times stand out as an oddity with my enthusiasm and call to get back to the objective on all parties. This project has brought me side to side with common people, churches and their leaders, ministry officials, contractors, suppliers, village headmen, schools, district wide health stakeholders, politicians as well as the donors and the donor representatives.

The challenge I pass to my friends from my past always is; who is building your community?

Extra days

I am writing this post from my office desk atop the hill. All around, for as far as my eyes can see are rolling hills, sparse vegetation, grass interrupted by boulders and the blue sky touching the horizon. This view, through my window, is so captivating that whenever I come here its like a fresh take of the scenery. The room is spacious, with three other desks for my colleagues. The floor boards, a shiny polished brown are worn in places due to use. Its a homely place that reminds me of a place I have read about in one of Hemingway's books, but I cant recall which one now. I am all alone in here, since we rarely meet here, unless we have one of our regular 'irregular' meetings owing to fieldwork.  The room is therefore quiet most of the times, and conducive to concentration and putting in some hours to reports, which is what brings me here mostly.

I wouldn't like to chance to explain why I have not posted for over a year now. I am guilty as charged for going off air, and leaving my 2 followers stranded in the desert of my life's story! Each time I have meant to write I have asked myself where to begin. I have decided to start from the beginning, which is here, where I am.

Its going to 14 months since I returned from West Africa from my two year volunteering stint with VSO. A lot has happened in my life, all in reflection milestones in my personal life, as well as my chosen career in development. I shall attempt to share some of these, with a view to bringing you up to speed kiasi.

Sense and Cents.........................................................................

Yours truly is almost a year old coordinating the activities of a not for profit organisation that works in my rural community. I get to work from my house most of the days, from the comfort of my study room. In many ways this is a dream come true, and a welcome relief from my 5Am drives to the office that characterised my marketing days. Increasingly, since late last year when I got a solar system for my home, I can now enjoy flex hours of work, and get more done.

Just after my last blog I decided to do part time taxi business around the community. In March 2011 while mulling over a puncture the good Samaritan that came by happened to be a program manager with the local Compassion office. Weeks later when I went around to say thanks for hooking me up with a mobile mechanic I found an advertisement for this NGO outside his office. A day to the interviews I presented my papers, whaooed the first and second panels, and got hired a week later. 

I like what I do, and in the short period of  nine months I have seen the partnership extended to my local Primary School, where now an extra teacher, monthly exams, tuition and equipment have been made available in the new partnership. We are in the process of building a medical facility for the larger community, and this year we begin exploring alternative livelihoods for the local men!

The past 10 months have been engrossing, tiring, frustrating at times, but definitely rewarding for all. There is a lot of contrasts to my marketing career, for the most part refreshing contrasts. I can only be thankful to VSO for the fantastic opportunity to volunteer with them. I am certainly better off, for having taken the 'risk' to leave my  comfort zones, and volunteering for the two years. Sharing skills, changing lives is the VSO motto. I truly feel like part of the global change!

In Quaffs and Gaffes........................................................................

Its quite a challenge to put to writes everything that has happened in the 12 past long months. All that I can say at the onset is that it has been a monumental year for me. I have gone places, literally and figuratively, that I never thought of before. I have forayed into zones that I never fathomed, as well as touched peoples life's in ways that I never figured possible. I have shaped, and been shaped by peoples life's. I have had to make a deliberate effort to catch up with myself, especially as it relates to my life before West Africa.

Visit to In laws

As per custom,  I made the one mandatory visit to my in laws in April. Ostensibly its an appreciation visit to ones in laws, traditionally, just before getting hitched, or in my case, after the fact. It s meant to be a celebration reflecting the commitment that a man makes to his spouse and in laws. The feast involves gifts to the in laws, as well as partying.

Mine was quite a sojourn, involving travelling 600kms from the Eastern part of the country. I made the journey accompanied my dad, my brothers in law and two of my brothers, mum, aunts and a couple of my friends as well as my wife's friends. My sisters in laws from the Western part of the country met us.

Quite apprehensive I was, considering that due to technicalities I did not make the visit earlier. It turned out to be one of the most colourful events that I have been part of, besides the approval it met! My wife still talks about it, and so did my dad, before his passing on last month.The feast was characterised by lots of food, drinks, singing and dancing, exchange of gifts. Overall the change did me good, having been accustomed to travelling up and down during my two year placement.

Shift to Kasuki farm

In April, a week after starting working, we shifted from to Kasuki farm. This meant a change of school for the kids, something that suprisingly they welcomed and continue to cherish, since we can all ride to school togather.

It was a seemingly daunting task getting everything packed and unpacked, fitting into the new sorroundings, starting new friendships, finishing up buildings and building new ones. We are now fully settled and accustomed to the new sorroundings. Its a welcome change for the better and the freedom to be an independent family once again is invigorating.

My dad passes on

With the good comes the bad, is a saying whose origination I cannot recall.

On 25th of January this year I laid my dad to rest, after a long spate of illness, visits and a surgery operation. The funeral was a deserving, black suit, white tie event, in due respect.

My dad was an epic, a self made man, as the parlance goes. Born in a very poor family, without brothers or relatives to reach out to, very basic education and training, it borders on miraculous to describe what he achieved. This includes sending two of my brothers abroad for university studies. His traversing Est Africa during his time, materially and socially. I salute you dad.

Most of my cherished memories of dad, especially the conversations that could go on and on for hours are during a shared drink. Its in your honour that I will be keeping off the bottle, at least for a year. Hats off to you.

Aluta continua....

Extra Festive

This reminds me of talking to the wind. A little bit. Hello! Anyone out there? Catch up time! Been a while since I tried to write anything… despite attempts, the last being at the waiting lounge of Kotoka International Airport. I scrapped that one... 

You have missed out quite a bit of yours truly’s extra ordinary simpleness. A rare thing, as you are already aware. I am writing from Kenya, where I am on my end of service R&R, having left Ghana on the evening of the 15^th December. Below is a select few that float in my still booze, spirits and wines clouded mind; courtesy of the Christmas inebrations.

Rave Placement Review – 8th December

Now now, there are a few things that happened in the course of my voluntary placement, but this takes the book; it floored me.

VSO’s programming emphasizes on partnerships. In design the placements are evaluated along their course and at their conclusion by inviting representatives of the host organization, beneficiaries and a programme staff. The essence of the exercise is to measure achievements, learning, lessons effects their attributors that result out of the volunteer placement as well as to identify gaps that inform the next volunteer placement. It is a candid joint reflection that I must admit feels like an annual appraisal.

Mine was the only such opportunity I had during my thirteen month stay. I was apprehensive because my subject agri-business simplified through facilitation to encourage self reflection and analysis was not the type where results can be yielded over night, or so I thought!

It was therefore so humbling to hear a colleague in the extension department recount how a farmer in his zone had taken ‘courage’ from my lessons and had stepped up from ‘brokering’ produce in the market, and was now actually selling produce to markets 400Km away! The farmer had even identified a niche market (courtesy of my business planning lessons!) for yellow corn that he could not satiate presently! Another colleague who happened to translate for me a farmer class witnessed how one of the women market traders had expanded her product offering range to tap into a wider market. She in turn (the colleague) had got her own sister, a pharmacist to include bottled water and refreshments in her stock! A farmer from one of the communities found it a profound lesson that market research should precede production of any crop. The partner was grateful for my introduction of Internet usage to the staff as well as my emphasis on organizational development initiatives.  Simple learning’s, but profound effects!

The biggest lesson I learned was to always ask for feedback, and to share it generously when it was due. The simplicity of life maintained through most of Ghana, is a challenge to posterity, at least for me.

Now, that was a happy ending, if ever there was one! I will definitely be back to Langbensi, one day one time, soon!

Christmas Family get together 25^th-26th December

I like the Christmas festive season. I have always done so. This Christmas was special o me because I missed being with family during the last one. The northern Region of Ghana is predominantly Muslim and so Christmas is low key, not to mention that the Christmas break is usually very short, and I was spending the day alone, having worked the previous day, and thus being unable to travel to be with friends in Bolgatanga or Tamale

This time round it was so fulfilling to see my family unwrapping gifts that I brought all the way for them. There were brothers, sisters in law, nephews and nieces, cousins and uncles as well as aunts whom I hadn’t seen in years.

The freshly slaughtered goat meat, Tusker, Whisky and Vodka were in the flow. There were familiar foods; chapati, beef stew, kachumbari, boiled goat head and tripe’s, ungali and sour milk from moms gourd… lots of eats, as my dad calls it, and  ‘kinywaji’- drinks were in flow. It was so nice to while away an afternoon over a bottle of Tusker and spare goat ribs, and chat away into the middle of the night with JK, Saul and Gabriel… No Christmas will ever be complete without grilled meat- nyama choma in Swahili, and frothy mugs of malted beer, and stories to boot!

The ‘landlord’- aka Dad was holding court as usual. Now now, my dad is an enigma. You should have seen him in his fugu and reclining chair, seated at the verandah, overly boiled goat meat and Konyagi whisky on lime on a low table, face and bald head glistering from good health, milk white teeth showing as he shared a funny experience from 1953… holding court to yours truly, JK, Gabriel, Saul, mum and a host of nieces and nephews. It was nice to laugh with him, and recount stories from gone times…

Learning how to be a Kenyan again

Ha! Reverse culture shock! I never see it coming, but there! the feeling of ‘this is wrong!’ There is a better way, then I have to remind myself to relax! Easy does it! I am glad that I won’t have to join the working class of Kenya for another three months. I intend to ease in into the system slowly.

There will be more details on this later, and in case you were wondering how the subject of the last post ended, we met to shop for shoes instead, and so the god of marriages won. My laptop is running on a low battery…

Follow me!

X files

I write this blog in the memory of Anita (not her real name and no she is not dead). She is an X-file. An old one that dates back to 2003. She is in my blog now, because like other long lost shadows, we linked up on facebook a year and a half ago.

Yours truly is not exactly Mr. Gadget (though I surely think my 8 year old thinks I am), or am I? I will gloat here (where else, I know none will ever read it!), but 95% of my age mates in Kenya never dug into internet. Besides a workplace email address, the majority, rarely go into the internet for leisure. For that reason, I am indeed way above average. Thats just another facet of my extrovertedness led inquisitiveness, and the marketers itch in me that seeks to know what is cool about now, but I digress..

Anita deserves mention, because she is one of those girlfriends who though long gone, a man yearns for. This, likely to happen when he finds himself, especially on a Friday evening, seated at a late hours bar, watching the dance floor, no intention to dance,not in a hurry to go home. He could be a traveler, far away from home and home sick, or he could be plain sick from home. It’s the gal one wishes would emerge from the dance floor, or miraculously drop into the seat adjacent, again. Am I talking to someone?

That is the girl that kept the trophy, relegated as she was. You still wonder why exactly you broke up, never call her, for you still kick yourself when you think of what you could have done different in that relationship. Among the most memorable choice parting words she said to you were ‘you only know how to make booty calls’. She stormed off your flat in a huff, slamming the door behind her, or worse, left it open to the corridor, and yours truly sans dress square on the doorway.

No, none of that happened between me and Anita. We just sulked up on one another, and the next time she met me in the church I attended (because I expected she would be there) we were both stubbornly adamant and un apologetic;

‘How have you been?’

‘fine.’

‘what are you up to nowadays? (Read who is laying you of late?)
‘I went to choices last Friday and did not see you. You changed hang outs?’  (Needy?)

I knew she was making inference to me avoiding her and not  wanting her to see my new date, I swear. I bite off my next sentence, and instead ask her to join me for lunch.

On her end she must have realized the more she seemed interested in my recent life the more she appeared to be groveling to me. And being the stoic lady she is, she checks her watch and goes oh my God! I must go!

‘Why, what’s the hurry?’

‘I am meeting this new group.’

“New group?” Asks yours truly, in a suspiciously envious tone. In the last month I have been miserably blue, preferring to lock myself in my Forest Apartment room, smoking one Embassy Lights after the other, watching 24 season 2 over and over. Did I digress again? Don’t worry, I am filling you in, I am the party that I want you to sympathize with at the end.

‘Oh, I should have told you I went ahead to register with this UK visa processing assisting agency’

“You did?”

‘Yes, in fact if all goes well I will be flying out in three weeks time’..

Oooh no!!! I wanted to scream, please baby! Wait! You did? No, you are pulling my leg. Please tell me that you are trying to make me feel jealous. Then it hits me. She is dead pan serious!

“You are serious, right?”

She does not answer the question. She rather leaned forward and kissed wooden me.

‘take care!’

‘Mumble bubble hubble blandah.. Must have been what I said to her squared back. And you wonder why I never called in the next 4 weeks?

And then we met on facebook, and two dozen weekend international calls later, emails and FB messages, I have been able to piece together her life in the past seven years. She got married to the father of her son, who turned abusive, and unnecessary, and she moved on. She has custody of the five year old son. The childs father pays upkeep, and gets to see the child. She admits that she has "found herself thinking of me". Then she asks about missus. That takes me back to ground zero, but I will stand by my  woman this once. I will not desert her. And so I am Mr. perfectly married man to Anita.

Deep down I know like most married couples I am just trying to be stoic, having to make it work. It’s only later that I will find myself on that bar stool, at Oxford Street,  Bywels to be exact, down town Accra. Surrounded by ladies of four nationalities, in our group of seven, but only thinking of my college flame.

Did I lose you somewhere back there? Hope not. The big deal is, she is coming back to Kenya for the December holidays. We have an open lunch date on the 16^th of December. She will be bringing me the phone of my dreams, as a Christmas present. I cant wait to lay hands on it. May the god of marriages (who is the current one by the way?) intervene on this day.

Sorry gals if I lost you throughout. Ask your man what I was jabbering about. I hope he is not the smothered type.

I promise that you will be hearing more of Anita soon. Keep tuned. Karibu!

so long a journey

As I write this its 19 months since I came to West Africa. I feel like a survivor, and rightfully so, I must say. I arrived at Kotoka International Airport one very hot Sunday morning, the 15^th of March 2009, apprehensive and somewhat eager to stay the course. The West African heat and the hatmattan were the first things I had to content with. I stayed in Accra for one week, feeling like I was slowly and surely skewing over a coal fire.

I left Kenya when the short dry season was just setting in. The temperatures over there were 28 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees cooler than Accra! For the first week I stayed at the Byblos Hotel I never had to contend with the hot West African dishes as the Byblos hotel serves a varied Lebanese menu. Besides not wanting to leave my air conditioned room for long, I remember not venturing out much. My old Nairobi instincts being that since I was alone it would be easy to make me out anywhere, and that I may stray into the wrong streets without knowing. Each time I stroll (almost) anywhere in Accra now I look back at those days with a smile!

The real journey into Ghana, the 17 hour bus journey from Accra to Tamale via STC (State Transport Corporation) was a further eye opener into what I had simply got myself into. I remember those first days talking to my wife back in Kenya in that tone of voice that reminded of my first days in boarding school, and almost cursing myself for getting myself into volunteering and trying to be brave at the same time. I had to continuously remind myself why I decided to volunteer in the first place, and what good, to self and the world this portended. It was not easy-o!

Once in Tamale I joined a Canadian colleague who arrived a month before, and two others with whom I should have got in with in mid February. It was somewhat a relief to meet up with new colleagues who were also adjusting to the environment.

There was at least a ‘social scene’ with the Tamale vols and I soon had something to look forward to, - the weekend. Not only would there be probability of other volunteers coming into town from neighboring regions but there was always an excuse to get together and have a drink, or for the odd cooking lesson from Rhona and Flora, two Phillipino colleagues. This came in the wake of realization that my ultimate placement was not ready, since the partner could not accommodate two volunteers at the same time. I remember getting this news from my Programme Officer and almost asking him ‘are you for real?’.That would have contravened the priciple of flexibility that codes my organisation. I took a fund raising role for a collapsing NGO for the next six months in Tamale. I recall that around this time I was looking for about any reason to quit, and and only the prospect of going home with no good memmories deterred me. 

The temperatures at the end of March were into 40’s. I would take up to 5 showers in a day and drink 4.5 liters of water and still have to content with more sweat and thirst. The ceiling fan would drone on, wheezing as it cut the dense air until I had to turn it off. My main delicacy was rice and fried beans, for almost 5 months. I could not bring myself to buy the open air market meat, or even imagine eating the cooked one, with the hair singed off. The spices and the heat were sure enough to get my sweat dripping again. Generally the soups and over boiled vegetables were yuck to me. I remember on that first weekend in Tamale Issah from the Bolgatanga office taking me around Tamale to see the sights and then to a fufu ‘chop’ bar. The soup was as usual curried hot (it was light soup, the colour orange red) and the ball of fufu, well cold to the touch and mouth too. It was a strange sensation, trying to swallow this smooth cold morsel, without chewing, dipped in the peppery hot soup! I persevered only because Issah sat across from me. Well, I thought that was hot pepper, but that was before the day I finally tasted Banku and fresh ground pepper soup! Its not actually a soup. Fresh red pepper with at least one tomatoe is ground per serving of Banku. Fried fish is the accompanying meat each time. Hot.

After two months I transferred from Will’s to live with Fred and Tim. Fred was a Kenyan, Tim British. This was indeed the best part of my stay in Tamale. The ‘Hygiene’ house, so called because of its proximity to the Tamale school of Hygiene, was also opposite the infamous Hygiene spot. It served as our living room, leading onto our kitchen, before retiring to bed. There was also this old hammock strung between 2 Indian almond trees that simply rocked on a hot day, and night!. That must be how I got the mosquitoe bites that gave me my first ever bout of Malaria in my first four months in Tamale. 

Tim and Fred were the easiest people to live with, entertaining with their knowledge of world history, how stuff works and generally easy going. The idea of a drink was always a suggestion away, and the discussion only got more interesting, when Freds Star and Freds Club flowed!


I chanced into blogging courtesy of Tim, who for long ran a blog aptly named Tim in Tamale. One evening as we sat in our ‘sitting room’, Tim reading his paperback by the dying afternoon sunlight, seated under the street lamp next to the gutter by the road Tim looked at me and in a Star induced inspiration prescribed blogging for me. It would be nice to have a blog from you, an African volunteer. It would give a unique perspective of a homegrown take of things, and there, voila! the seed was sown! Everytime I pen off I should sign off; with apologies to Tim Little!

I must admit I started entertaining the thought and belief that I could survive the two years placement. During this time I also discovered my old passion for reading, generally and cycling. I have always taken to reading like therapy. Books have this way of transporting me with them. At times when I have 2 or 3, I will read them consecutively, travelling up to some point in one, and taking the other. During such times time becomes of no consequence. Give me a book any day! Thats what discovering reading at nine years has done to me. It gives me a high, like nothing else. I love it. I aim to write a book some day. Who knows, this is my journalism school!

During this time I also got to know volunteer colleagues based in Bolgatanga of all nationalities, - 150 Kilometers away and eventually discovered the haunts of Bolga, as it’s popularly known. Many a weekend I would go up, borrow a few books from the library and have a drink with the gang before ‘crashing’ at a Charles’s place. ‘Mwananchi’, as we called him, was a Kenyan colleague into his second year of placement. He had studied in India for 7 years, been placed with VSO in Papua New Guinea and so had the most interesting stories to tell.

By September of 2009 I moved to my current station, - Langbensi, halfway between Tamale and Bolgatanga, 30 odd kilometers off the main road. You would think that I was done with culture shock, and the myriad new things I had to cope with, but you would be wrong. I thought I was equipped to live disconnected from support networks, but Langbensi was a lesson in self containment.

Langbensi is a village town of about twenty thousand odd inhabitants. The adults must be a quarter of that figure. Polygamy is practised here, being religiously sanctioned. Most men have three if not four wives.


Though the town is in itself a commercial centre, the biggest after branching off from Wale Wale on the main Bolgatanga road, and the nearest, compared to Gambaga, it is a far cry from any concept of a town most may have. For starters there is only a handful of cement and block structures in the town, the majority being mud walled. The spots, as drinking bars are called in Ghana, are mostly for selling hot drinks, the most favourite being akpetesh; African gin. Drinking is not a common past time, courtesy of religious beliefs, not a bad one, but that means that clubbing social life is nyet! A chap walks into a spot, orders his two tots, and downs it in what they call here flash. I am prone to digressing, excuse me. Charlie was however still around, though of course up to five pals I had met while in Tamale left around the time I made my move to Langbensi. If I started writing about Langbensi now this blog would never be posted. I will spare that for the next one!

Come to think of it, I should ‘catch’ a cold Star as I reflect on my next blog…why not?

The boy that made the man

I am writing this as much to myself, as to any reader who may be reading it. With all the changes that going away has had on me I need it. I mean, I sometimes find myself trying to relate that dude driving from the carnival at 2Am on a Friday night to this one here, and I go like ‘was that for real’? The guy here gets by on a Yamaha DT, is more likely to drink millet beer on a Friday, and needs a translator to pick a gal around, just for example!

And while I am at it I may just unburden my conscience about that boy. I was one of those drivers the lunatic matatu drivers opted to give way to; I guess I was just tired of people loading it over me. The fellow who bought the Ceres from me must wonder why traffic clears at the round bouts as he approaches! I cringe at some of the maneuvers I have ever pulled in a traffic jam, including the illegal U turns on Moi Avenue, and the token middle finger that I doled out once too often. You have to allow a salesman some leeway now, come on! I still can’t figure where all that booze went to, including the 2Am bottoms up at Pewa and Legend. Funny thing is, it felt cool, and I have buddies, who considered me a teetoler, for come 6.30Am I would be brewing coffee at the office coffee machine, preparing to go out to close a posh deal. Good that the boy grew up then, you can see. I may be a boring returnee to Jackson, Marto and Patrick, but come on guys; this boy had to grow up! I will be urging the girls who drooled over the boy to grow up equally fast, for this boy is now finally committed taken. It was just too good to last. No more threesomes, and no more booty calls. Ahem!

There were some memorable times too, good ones, like the boy spending a weekend with Loreen, Lavender and Betty at Ole Polos, taking dad for an outing and a drink after he came from hospital. There are the lazy weekends spend visiting with family friends up country, throwing an impromptu party for Betty that involved a grill, a bottle of Amarula chocolates and popcorn for the kids with my favorite bro, JK and a windows down easy ride back into Nairobi. I miss the latter and will certainly be looking forward to spending more time with my family.

Having realized that I have quite a handful to thank those who have made the realities I see, and that I can shape the bits that I don’t like, the man is now going to carry his weight (did I hear you say finally? Sucker!). I will even own up and carry that of the less able in my community. I got a leadership role to play (now that I have been there, done it and burned the T-shirt). I will still be the funky dude, not to worry. You can expect surprises from this man, for I still believe in working hard and playing equally hard. Best of all, I wont be trying to entertain you, so you better get a monkey to do the tricks for you.

Simply put, the boy grew into a man, ahoy!

The journey to another home

This has indeed been journey, to another home, both figuratively and in truth.

In all honesty I can’t say that I exactly recall how it felt when the first thought crossed my mind and the point where I opted to stand up and be counted.

To live with a people, waking up in the same realities, living in their situations, grieving with them, partying even, exchanging skills, and learning’s, all the time unaware that you are indeed touching each others life’s; well till you realize, now, theirs is a different way of doing it but it works! Does open your eyes.

You stumble into the realization these are people like my people, all looking for solutions in their own way, in their own context, and you begin to like them. This is exactly what happened to me. Un knowingly they began to mirror my own people, my own home; just the same ball game in a different pitch.

As I spend my last month here, I have found myself in the process of reconciliation. At least I did not go native. There are bits that I have swapped for good. Others that I have reinforced, and yet, chunks that I have chucked out the window. It is sad that the chunks have been things that I was willing to hang my pride and honor on before, but no longer hold water. Others have been attitudes and beliefs that made a once solid foundation to a house of cards. There are mountains that I have had to acknowledge were mole hills now, and molehills that now loom ahead as mountains. Most of these were in most cases, related to shared positions.

It does feel a little like standing on the edge of the rift valley, and looking out to Mt. Longonot. That’s a major ground I have gained, for while I was at the bottom of some, they looked more like cliffs, but now I am able to soar with the eagles, to the clear blue skies, as well as glide onto the floor, over the crater of the volcanic mountain below, without fretting.

I can make the journey, any time. I would volunteer overseas again.