Safari Maji: The Transition is Near

I’ve been in Kenya since September. So, for teachers and those of you who have children – since the beginning of the school year. Maybe five months sounds like no time at all to you, just a brief stay. But, to my surprise days here in Kenya are just jammed packed. Maybe it’s because I take far less water and bathroom breaks than I did working in consulting . During my days here in the field, the “latrines”- holes in the ground surrounded by some maize husks aren’t always inviting so I often hold it, and I’ve tested the local springs and have seen the fecal colonies with my own eyes, so drinking from them is out of the question.

We have accomplished far more than I ever imagined we would since we arrived, and I say that with the deepest humility and gratitude. I developed a plan for the Water/Sanitation (WatSan) Program before we arrived and tweaked it along the way. To be honest, in those first couple weeks, whenever I looked at that Excel spreadsheet I felt a rush of excitement and fear, often accompanied by a bit of nausea.

Probably because this is not just a job for me. The stakes are high. I want to get these people some clean water and the knowledge to protect themselves from nasty waterborne diseases in the meantime.

This is life and death stuff I’m dealing with every day, and when I look into the eyes of suffering people I want to mean every word that I say.

So, I’m amazed that I only have one more month here in Kuria, Kenya, a place that will ever remain dear to me. The Nuru model operates in “foundation teams” (FTs are highly qualified professionals who manage Nuru’s five program areas: water/sanitation, healthcare, agriculture, education and small-medium business development) that rotate into projects for 6-month runs. The intention is to keep the staff passion and energy up in order to serve the community well. Burnout is a huge problem in this line of work and can crush organizational creativity, momentum, relationships in the local community and project progress.

There are also a few other added benefits: one is that it truly forces us (the FT) to empower the local community. It could be easy to just run the show and get stuff done, maybe even quicker, but a quick attitude adjustment accompanies the awareness that you’re leaving the project in a few months and the community will remain. Sometimes teaching Lucas (the WatSan Field Manager, see earlier blog post for details about him and Episode 4 for a profile into his life) takes tremendous patience, although I love working with him. Other times he’s schooling me.

The point is this: true empowerment where the local community really gets trained and built into to the level that they can one day take full ownership of this project, run it and pass it on to neighboring communities is very hard work. And there is a sharp contrast between this and pseudo-empowerment where we show local people on our website and say they’re running the show, but in reality we’re micro-managing them and calling all the shots, actually impairing them from real growth.

Here at Nuru we believe that true empowerment is the only way that lasting change will come to those in extreme poverty.

And every single day, even when I’m tired, I’m grateful that we’re doing it this way. I’m grateful for the Nuru model and how it’s different.

So, the transition with FT2 will begin next week. Although I’ve already been working with Chris Clarke (the new Kuria WatSan Program Manager) remotely since the day he was hired, I’ll finally meet him face-to-face and hand off all the many WatSan projects going on here. I’ve compiled an endless list of all the things we need to discuss, all the places I want to show him and people I need to introduce him to. I’m ready for this!