Toward the end of my second week at work, I finally came up with a suitable project. It's an immense relief, especially after the frustrations of culture shock. Differing concepts of time, communication difficulties and work structure have made progress slow, and last week I had trouble coping with it. But now I have a goal to work toward! As you may or may not know, this internship is supposed to be an opportunity to work with the community on a "sustainable" project, which ideally should help the build the "capacity" of the community to work toward its own goals. The process is somehow both disillusioning and encouraging.
I'm going to work with a community womens' group that feeds orphans on the weekends. They're all farmers already, and they have extra land at the feeding shelter. So I'm going to facilitate the process of creating a "kitchen garden" that requires very little water (they have no well nearby). That way they can feed the orphans something more nutritious than porridge, and maybe even sell their extra produce at the market so they can expand the feeding program to weekdays - which will help them work toward their eventual goal of building a shelter where the orphans can sleep.
3 comments:
Yippie on many levels... first, that you've decided on a project. If you need any help researching drought-tolerant vegetables, let me know. Also Yippee on the level that you have your blogspot up and running! Can't wait to read your exploits!!!
Love ya!
I am so excited for you. We had an amazing experience when we were in Mombasa for three weeks this summer. I can imagine how stimulating it would be to be there working as you are for three months. A suggestion or two for your free time. A restaurant in Mombasa called Hunter's has what Sarah described as "the best steak she ever tasted". We didn't get to go there because we went to a restaurant in Nyali that is Kenya's only floating restaurant. I don't remember the name, but the food was excellent. They cater to expats, so it was very European feeling, and may provide some solace when you just can't eat any more Swahili food. As I said, we were only there for 3 weeks, but I got really tired of Swahili food - I guess because there was no difference between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Once something was made - you just ate it until it was gone, even if that was for three meals in the same day. (And Said's family would probably be considered middle class to upper middle class for Mombasa and they still did that. I am really looking forward to reading your blog. I know I will enjoy them. My screen name is my son-in-law, Said's name for me. :-)
My blog account is broken and won't let me sign in! So I made a new one... kiraworldwide.blogspot.com. Read that one instead.
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