The Transition Artist

I’m so ridiculously happy and full right now. First, because we had chapati and bean stew for dinner tonight and that combination makes up one of my favorite meals. I think the primary reason I love it so much is because it tastes basically like a thicker, heartier version of tortillas and charro beans, which is like a trip home for my taste buds as someone raised in a half Mexican family. Second, I’m still coming down from a really wonderful weekend full of so much learning and conversation, and a great afternoon spent with the kids I teach at the school. So when I say I’m full, I mean both physically and spiritually.

This past weekend I got to shake things up a little and go visit another one of African Leadership’s project patterns, Irene Tongoi. Irene is the founder and director of the New Dawn school, a high school in Huruma (another slum across Nairobi). New Dawn is what I would call a diamond in a coal mine, and the work being done by Irene and her team that has helped write a new story for Huruma, transforming it from a place with a lot of heartache, distress, and desperation to a place of hope and redemption. I stayed with Irene for the weekend at her home in Nairobi (only two miles outside of Kibera, but a half an hour away with the traffic here) and got the absolute privilege and pleasure of sitting and talking with her for hours on end about her walk with God and the journey of New Dawn, and a whole slew of other things. I’m honored and pleased to say that I’m currently working on writing her story so that others can look to her as a living example of the way God can work in, through, and with us. Irene is one of the most genuine, kind, and faithful people I’ve ever met, and the weekend I spent with her was a blessing in so many ways.

Friday when I showed up at Irene’s I was both excited to be in a new place, experiencing a different part of Nairobi, and maybe just a little nervous at shifting out of any sense of routine I had started to gain, preparing myself for more culture shock. I’m glad to say any nervousness I felt was totally wiped clean as soon as I arrived. Irene is one of those people that you just immediately feel at home around. One second I’m shaking her hand (we’ve only met briefly once before) and the next I find myself absolutely pouring my heart out to her and sorting through everything I’ve experienced since arriving in Kenya. Irene, being the relational and understanding person she is, listened and gave me some incredible insight and advice, and I left feeling a little more whole, humbled, and in awe of the beauty and simplicity in human connection.

One of the most interesting things I discussed with Irene was the intent with which I came to Kenya, and the assumptions and cultural differences that came along with it. Throughout the course of last week I found myself in this constant internal battle of “I can’t believe how selfish I was to come on this trip,” and “It’s not selfish! You’re still making at least some small impacts while you’re here!” I know this is a hard one to wrestle with (because believe me, my wrestling with it on my own was difficult enough), but in volunteering at the school, where I was having a really difficult time teaching on my own because of how rowdy my class was getting, I started to feel like I had come with only myself in mind.

I like to think I’ve been very honest in saying even before I came that I realize that I can never say this trip was only about helping people, because it wasn’t. I didn’t come to save anybody or convert them or “change their lives,” and I knew all along that I wanted to come to change my own, but my initial intent was to form relationships and understand the people in this culture. Going to the school last week and starting my volunteer work there made me question everything, though. I kept feeling like I should be helping, but felt like I was really getting in the way more than anything.

The principal offered to put me anywhere I felt like working, and I said I liked working with the younger grades, so that’s exactly where he put me. I didn’t have much instruction, and a few times, for lack of something to have me do, I found myself in a classroom full of students who were technically supposed to be done with classes for the day, teaching handwriting and “English lessons,” with no real end goal in mind. Then, on the flip side of that, I’d spend the morning haphazardly making my way through almost every subject in the second grade curriculum, absolutely floundering (borderline drowning) as I tried to teach my unruly bunch of second graders for at least 10 minutes at a time (seeing as they would be talking or getting up after that time elapsed). The only real productive part of the day (so it seemed), was the afternoon, once school was out, when I sat around with children from all the different grades teaching them songs, dances, games, and sitting while they styled my hair. I felt somewhat defeated, thinking I was really of no help to school, and reflecting that I make a much better babysitter or camp counselor than I do a teacher.

I told Irene all of this, and she just chuckled. As the director of a school, she gets requests all the time from people like me who want to come volunteer. She explained how very hard it is to place those people, because the African teaching style and student are so different, and there’s this difficult line you have to walk in figuring out if the volunteer is going to be a friend/mentor or teacher figure for the students. In my case that line got blurred and I ended up on both sides of it, making it harder for the students to see me as one or the other. She stopped me, though, when I started talking about how I didn’t feel like I was contributing much.

“I think when westerners come to Africa they have this idea that they’re coming to give something away. The west is very good a packaging,” she said. I asked her to elaborate. “You all package whatever it is you have to give very well. You send clothes and donations; you have some set processes for how to go about evangelizing; you have podcasts of sermons available online! Everything is easily given and neatly packaged.” Irene went on to describe how this neat packaging makes giving so very easy, and how, as a result, we westerners come with a mentality that’s a little like, “We have this, you don’t, so we’re here to give it to you!” The thing we always forget, though, is how to receive. “When you come to Africa you have to be ready to receive,” she told me. “Every culture is broken in its own way; that’s a fact of life with sin. But the way my culture is broken may not be the way your culture is broken, and we can heal one another and become a little more whole when we share the parts that aren’t broken with each other.”

I loved that statement so much I ran to write it down in my journal as soon as our conversation ended. Hindsight is 20/20, but I realized how very true her statement was as I thought back on the time I’ve spent here. The best parts of my experience have been when I sat and listened to other people, or sat and reflected on some of the cultural differences I love, or when I’ve allowed myself to let go of trying to be “helpful” or pleasing and just let it all hang out in the company of people who are doing the same. The times that I’ve learned the most or felt like staying forever have been when I’m receiving and truly connecting with another person. They share their culture, their story, or simply their personality with me and I heal. “Slowly by slowly,” I’ve been blessed more than I could ever have hoped to bless my new friends, and I didn’t have to do anything to deserve it but show up. I think that the way God works, really, but I don’t have to feel selfish for that.

In terms of that lesson and many others, this past weekend really opened my eyes to a bigger picture of my time here, and I am now making an effort not to worry about what I may or may not be doing to help, and just trusting that there’s a reason God put me where I am. I made it back home just in time for the HEKO support group meeting yesterday afternoon and got to sit and talk to a group of ladies that I would consider masters of optimism. The ladies each have their own incredible story about their battles with HIV/AIDS and the impacts and implications that’s had on their lives. Having gotten the opportunity to engage with and enjoy the company of such strong and wise women taught me more than I could ever share in a single blog post and opened my heart and mind in ways I didn’t realize I needed. So I go to sleep wholly content tonight, feeling simply satisfied and enough.