Safari Means Journey, Maji Means Water

When people asked me about my hopes and dream, I was always the one with the long, complicated answer. Sometimes it felt like a curse. Why couldn’t I just go to college, get a good job, get married, have kids and be happy with a normal life? Although that sounds good from time to time, and I may live that life someday, I have never wanted it. Actually, I felt that a bad person admitting it, but the idea sounded like prison to me.

Sidenote: This is by no means a judgment on anyone else’s lifestyle, just an honest confession about the winding journey of discovering who I am. Just had to get that out there…

Only until I visited Africa in 2004- and played duck-duck-goose with children with swollen bellies whose parents can’t afford $20/year school fees, laid down on a mat alongside a woman dying of AIDS and witnessed firsthand the daylong task of water collection- did I realize the magnitude of extreme poverty. These are real people who are literally dying every day because they don’t have food to eat or water to drink and so they do (knowingly or not) what it takes to stop the hunger pangs- eat unsavory morsels, drink dirty water. Seeing all of this broke my heart, made me angry, and changed the way I spent my money and my free time.

But, I also witnessed what happens when water is safe, nearby and clean. A few links on the poverty trap chain are broken- girls get to go to school, women can earn desperately needed income and explore their passions, parents stay around long enough to see their kids grow up, and the whole family takes less sick days.

I realized that there is no real reason that I wasn’t born into extreme poverty- bound to carry water all day instead of go to school, forced to marry young to earn my family a dowry boost, unable to get an education and pursue my dreams. I don’t know how it all works, but I don’t recall anyone asking me my birthplace preference. I do know that if they had I surely would’ve chosen a place with better weather than the Midwest. For some reason though, I had it better. We didn’t have a lot growing up, but I had a chance.

I’m a water resources engineer, and I spent a few years in the rigorous world of environmental consulting working to bring grade B water up to grade A water in the U.S. On the side I partnered with a few humanitarian organizations that I admired, giving as much as I could. But, I started thinking it was time for me to make a full time contribution toward getting life-threatening water up to a passing grade (which 30% of Africans are literally dying for).

This stuff kept me up at night and caused me to get exceedingly unsatisfied at work (which was depressing and quite confusing at first, because I’m normally highly motivated). But to be honest, there were moments when I felt extraordinarily inadequate. I wondered if I was crazy or even arrogant to think that I could actually make a difference, but a single image, permanently cemented in my mind continued to bring me hope and stir up an unsettling sense of urgency within me.

Day after day, I’d sit in my comfortable chair in my air conditioned office working long hours in a challenging job that I truly enjoyed with honoring responsibility, great co-workers and constant opportunities for advancement, and I’d glance over at a photograph of children I met during a trip to Africa in 2004. In the photo, one girl is carrying her baby sister on her back, one boy is wearing a superman shirt, they are all wearing torn clothes, their bellies are swollen dramatically, they’re covered in dirt, and flies are buzzing in their hair, but they were absolutely beaming because someone was paying attention to them. They are the orphans, forgotten ones. But, I couldn’t forget them. I knew I had to return to Africa. I know that some people don’t want to go or cannot to Africa, but I simply couldn’t not go. I was just waiting (impatiently) for the right time.

My world and a humanitarian organization called Nuru International collided early in 2008, and I was thrilled when I was offered my dream job a few months later. I now find myself quite far from life as I knew it in Chicago. I’m living in the lush, green rolling hills of southwestern Kenya hundreds of miles down a pot holed dusty road from any real city where the Kuria tribe lives, so deep into the country that government officials and NGOs rarely visit. The Kuria tribe living in the Nyametaburu (pronounced just like it’s spelled, try it Ny-am-a-ta-boo-roo) district is largely forgotten. And that is why we’ve come here- to listen to the people’s needs, to work together to come up with solutions that last, to empower the community to lift themselves out of poverty. I am in charge of the water/sanitation program, and when I introduced myself to the Kuria tribe and their chief, I heard the interpreter translate my title as magi na choo (Kiswahili meaning “water and toilet”). And that’s pretty much sums it up. I’m the water and toilet person- very glamorous.

You might wonder if my stories will be all about serious and nerdy engineering work, but thus far my Maji Safari has also been a little strange and a lot hilarious, like-

• riding down a very steep potholed road on a motorcycle with 3 people trying to dodge cows who aren’t in a hurry to move,
• unknowingly spitting a mouthful of toothpaste on someone’s vegetable garden,
• nearly falling into a well (I definitely recommend tying the rope to the side first),
• experiencing an earthquake that no one seemed to be phased by,
• getting the lantern ready with kerosene and wick for the daily power outages (it’s like camping),
• hearing that my co-worker got struck by lightning (he’s ok),
• having an audience of 10 children every time you visit the restroom,
• carrying eggs home in a bag (cartons aren’t included),
• and slipping on a pile of cow manure and then walking through an ant parade (we like to call that "poop n ants").

It’s been a wild ride so far, and I can’t wait to see what will come of this adventure. I still feel inadequate at times, but I am certain that I need to be here and give it my best shot, and I know that I’m not alone. And somehow that’s enough right now.

This is my Safari Maji...