A Tribute to My Cousin Sue

Today I want to write a little different post than I usually do. I’ll call it a tribute- to my dear cousin Sue who passed away a couple days ago.

Sue is a special person to me who lived with passion and flare. She was quite a presence- with the loudest, most infectious laugh in the room and the most animated gestures and hair-flipping during story-telling. Ever since I was a little girl I remember looking up to her and just wanting to be near her. She spoke her mind with boldness, fought for causes she believed in, sought hard after truth and listened intently with an authenticity that made you feel like she loved every minute of being with you. And she loved her family!

You see I (or should I say we, all of us Garretts) grew up in what I’d call a man’s family. At Garrett family reunions there’s lots of shouting (the kind that everyone enjoys, although maybe not the new in-laws), very intense card games (euchre!) usually accompanied by chain-smoking, continuous rotations of softball and eating… like I said, a man’s family. But, Sue always held her own with the guys. She knew how to put them in their place and love them all at the same time. And she was the one who sort of held the family history together, teaching us about our roots and who (in our huge extended family) were our second cousins and who were “twice removed”. I’m still not sure if I know what that means even though she explained it to me every year.

But, what I love most about Sue is her humility and her passion. She was able to admit where she went wrong and be grateful for where she was…even in dying. Although I was away in Kenya while she was suffering in great pain from cancer (it broke my heart not to be able to see her), I was able to email her a couple times. Here’s a bit of what she said to me in those exchanges; to think she wrote these words facing death really touches me:

“Our wonderful God has been blessing me with peace, joy and lots of love and expressions of caring. He is so faithful. So many times in my life I've turned away from HIM and he loves me back to him any moment. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for all he's done for me all my life and especially now.”

When I think of Sue, one story keeps replaying over and over in my mind:

The first opportunity I got to go to Africa was in 2004. The church I was going to invited me to join a trip of young professionals to looks at projects being done by various humanitarian organizations and think about how our church could partner with their work. They asked me, because someone told someone else that I was a water resources engineer. What they didn’t know was that this opportunity was exactly what I had been looking for, and a passion for using my technical skills in the developing world was bubbling up within me.

I knew that I needed to be on this trip, so when I got the phone call, despite the lofty fund-raising and time off work required, I instantly committed to be part of the team. I was thrilled! I wrote a letter about it and sent it out to close friends and relatives. I brought a few along with me to the annual Garrett family reunion. When I handed Sue hers, she tore it open, sped through it mouthing the words with a huge smile on her face and getting to the closing line that asked a question like: “Do you want to be a part of this?” she emphatically answered out loud as she stood up: “YES! I want to be a part of this!” And, although she recently lost her job, she whipped out her check book and gave me a generous donation that helped send me on that trip.

That’s Sue. I'm inspired by her, I love her, I miss her and I can’t wait to see her again…in a little while.

Playtime Rescued Me Today

When I woke up today I really wanted to be optimistic.

The past few days I’ve been struggling through some kind of stomach/intestinal issue, which has been causing continuous painful cramping and lots of bathroom trips. Annoyingly, it’s zapped a bit of my energy and has definitely slowed my pace. With all that is coming up next week- the beginning of the Foundation Team transition and having some major water projects at the same time, and wanting to enjoy the team before we double in size- the timing is quite inconvenient. I have tons of catch up on due to the lost time this week!

My stomach woes were slowly reducing, not as quickly as I’d like, but it started getting better. And then this weird arm pain came. Nothing major, but it hurts, all the time…even as I’m laying in bed. Maybe a pinched nerve?

Anyways, enough about my odd ailments. The story is this:

Today, I was in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

I woke up discouraged and it was becoming toxic. I felt the shortness in my tone and my general irritability. I tried to yoga, I tried to pray, I tried to journal honestly, I tried to reflect on all that I should be grateful for (and am, underneath my frustrated surface).

After a few minutes of journaling on the back porch, my 8-year old friend Winfrida came over to see me. Doug asked me if he should tell her to come back another time, aware of my fragile state and need for alone time before a busy day. I thought about it for a moment, and decided that playing with Winfrida might be exactly what I need.

So, I grabbed the markers and paper and Janine took it up a notch and delivered some sweet coloring books and crayons, and Winfrida and I colored together on the front porch. It was fabulous! All we talked about in our limited shared language capacity (she knows a tiny bit of English, same for me with Kiswahili) was colors and pictures.

Ten magnificent pieces of artwork later, Winfrida went home and I was left with exactly what I needed- a complete attitude overhaul. The ailments are still annoying, but I got the perspective I needed. Now I’m ready to get to work.

Oh the joys of simplicity, friendship and playtime. Great medicine!

For all you moms and medical people, it’s nothing serious I promise. No other major symptoms. But, Kris Tohtz- the best chiro in the world, if you’re reading this, I definitely miss you. And, mom, I'm doing the braty diet you suggested, well at least the things we have here- rice, toast and bananas. I think it's helping...

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!

It’s daunting and thrilling and just another reminder to me that this work truly requires all of me.

Women, Water and Anger

I came to Kenya knowing all about it. I found out about it many years ago. It rocked my world, and it made me cry. I face it every day. I look at the situation and force myself to hope, even when it seems impossible. I hold back my own emotions in order to prevent shame, because they have enough hardship and they don’t need me making them feel bad about their lives, their courageous lives.

I'm talking about women, and their water burden. Here in Kenya, and all over Africa, women and girls carry the burden of water collection. Their daily lives literally revolve around it. They often have to walk long distances to reach a water sources, on average about an hour there and back. And they have to do this several times a day, 3 times on average.

If you add it all up, that’s about 20 hours a week spent on water collection.

And that doesn’t even include treatment and storage that has to be done in the home to keep the water safe. Interestingly that’s the time commitment required for a part time job. It makes sense that water collection duties are keeping girls out of school and keeping women from keeping jobs and earning money for their families.

If you’re a girl in charge of collecting water for your household, your choices in life are greatly limited. Your choices are limited, because your family needs to quench their thirst, wash their bodies and clean the dishes. In the Western world we rely on others working behind the scenes to make all of this easy for us by bringing water to our taps and showers. And all the treatment stuff- most of us aren’t even aware it is happening at all. Women are doing all of this by themselves in their homes.

And, during times of drought when water sources dry up, women are forced to walk even greater distances and wait even longer in lines. In one area here, women reported waiting 6 hours and having to get to their water source by 4 a.m.

This past week, this made me angry. I know all about the crisis, but still, I was moved to tears. It’s not ok with me that many women in this community can’t even sign their own names, that as little girls, instead of going to school they got to be water maids. It’s not ok with me that tiny little girls are robbed of their childhoods, hiking up steep embankments all day barefoot with heavy buckets on their heads. I may have blogged these very same words before, but the truth is, if I was born here I could have been one of those girls.

It’s the anger that fuels me sometimes; it keeps me working late into the night, investing in local leaders, and pursuing partnerships and projects that sometimes seem audacious. I do it for these women and for these girls, and I'll keep at it until they get clean water, at a reasonable walking distance from their homes.

This is My Life

I tend to be a somewhat adaptive person that can slide into new environments and sort of quickly learn the ropes and make my way…at least I like to think I am. However, there are moments when I feel my brain take a pause and think

“Is this seriously my life?”

Then my emotions start to feel it and catch up to laugh, cry or just reflect. A few recent examples:

Meeting with Chiefs
Often, I have to visit the various chiefs in the community to announce a training event or discuss an upcoming project with them. They are very respectful of me and providing their honest and useful feedback. I really enjoy these meetings. The other day as I was riding on the back of a boda boda (motorbike) home from a meeting with Chief John, the head chief of the area we’re working in, and I was struck with just how remarkable it truly is that I’m in and out of the chief’s office discussing community water/sanitation issues and at the end of each meeting he’s shaking my hand and saying,

“Nicole, I want you to know that you have my full support.”

Women of Kuria
I was at a grade school a couple weeks ago scoping out potential well locations. School was in session and the kids were curiously peaking out of the windows at us. All of the sudden an older woman comes strolling across the school yard, with six cows (it is very rare to see a woman with the cattle and I’ve never seen an older woman rearing cattle). She exuded both the strength and sorrow I see in the women here. Everyone I was surrounded by knew exactly who she was and greeted her with honor. The cattle parade stopped me in my tracks, and for a moment I stood frozen, in awe of this woman.

Chaotic Bus Rides
A matatu ride (Kenyan public transportation- pretty much a run-down 14 passenger van) is always an adventure, but last weekend on a journey to Kisumu, a nearby city where Doug and I were taking a little break together, my expectations of the chaos were again exceeded. When we boarded and saw only 1 seat available, the operator (guy who sits in the back of the van, opens the door for passengers, and takes the money) pulled out a wooden board about half the thickness of a two-by-four and twice the width, set it between two seats and gesture toward me to take a seat.

I'm not a large person, but my rear is definitely in need of more than a 3-inch plank.

After that several people continued to load into the already full van even after I took my seat on the plank. And at the next stop, even more people loaded into the van, so many that the door could not close. There were 23 people crammed into the 14-passenger van, and my plank was looking like prime seating to the people hanging out of the door. Oh, and we got a flat tire on the way home.

The Beauty of Kuria
I’ve said it before, but Kuria is truly a spectacularly gorgeous place. Often, as I’m riding out for a field visit or on my way to a meeting in the community, I sit on the back of the boda boda (motorbike) and just gasp at the wonder of the place- the green rolling hills, the rock outcroppings, the patchwork of shambas (farms), the brilliant blue sky and white puffy clouds. The stark contrast between the staggering beauty and the deep suffering…

Positive Change
I had a meeting with the water sanitation representatives, 48 fantastic volunteers who have committed to teaching their Nuru groups about how to prevent waterborne diseases by boiling their drinking water and washing their hands with soap. They each shared a about what it was like to train their groups (many had never done anything like that before), and to my amazement and joy, they reported that drastic changes are beginning to take place.

A woman reported that for the first time she started boiling her family’s drinking water after attending the water/sanitation training, and they stopped getting sick. She spread the word and her neighbors are boiling now too. A man reported that many people formerly washed only one hand (the one they use to wipe, I presume) and used no soap, but they now understand that both hands need to be washed and that soap kills disease-causing micro-organisms, so they’re all using the “3X3 Hand Washing” technique they learned in training now.

It’s only been a couple months, and already we’re seeing positive change! I love my job!

Happy Belated New Year!

I know, I’m a month late. How is it February already?

So, I returned to Kenya in mid-January and have been running 100 mph every since, and somehow in the chaos of it all, my blog entries slipped through the cracks. Forgive the delay, but I’m back on track now, and I’ll be back to my 2 entries per week routine.

A lot has happened since I last wrote…here are the highlights:

Christmas Break in the U.S.A.
The whole team departed Kenya and took a “home leave” back in the U.S. Doug and I took a sweet week-long vacation in Zanzibar to kick it off. We enjoyed every moment together and soaked up the beauty of the turquoise waters and mystical tides of the Indian Ocean in the heart of Swahili culture (more good language practice for us).

Then, after a week of bliss, in less than 24 hours we made the very presumptuous assumption that our bodies would be able to handle the transition from moist tropical 100 degree heat to an icy -6 degrees in the Windy City. As my Kenyan friend Lucas says, “Ahhh, no.” I got hit really hard with bronchitis, spent a couple hours on Christmas Day in the emergency room (really!) and then Doug got a bout of the evil cold/flu thing too. We loved every minute we spent with our family over Christmas, but to be honest, I spent most of the time in bed.

My voice came back by New Year’s and I was delighted that my best friend, Kelly threw a party so Doug and I could be with our Chicago friends. We had a blast, but we were ready for the heat again. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I really don’t think human bodies were designed to sustain such arctic conditions. I salute all of you mid-westerners still braving the cold. You are tougher than I!

Back in Kenya
So, we returned to Kenya a bit less rested than we hoped to be, but somehow energized. The only way I can explain it is that we really believe in the work we’re doing. And, I can’t fully articulate what a gift it is to be able to be on this team as a married couple (although there are challenges too, especially with no ceilings).

A lot went down in the first couple weeks back on the ground:

-We selected potential deep well locations for the first phase of our “Water for Schools” project.

-We finally moved into the Nuru house! Yeah for ceilings, finished floors & running water (well, most of the time)!

-We completed the hydrogeology study- basically analyzing the rock and water below ground to find good spots for deep wells.

-I finished a report documenting pretty much everything I did in the first 3 months here and the water and sanitation needs we’ve seen and heard (more on that later).

-Lucas and I selected 5 people who we will train to lead the water/sanitation program long after I’m gone.

-We’ve had power outages nearly every day we’ve been back, including a couple that managed to span the entire work day (thank God for back-up computer batteries).

-Doug and I went on a weekend getaway to Kisumu and had a lovely time enjoying real drip coffee (oddly nowhere to be found where we live), a sunset on Lake Victoria over a glass of wine, and chicken (the chickens near us eat garbage and taste gross). Side note: One of our goals for this 3 month run in Kenya is to go away together for one weekend a month…to reconnect and pour into our marriage…not easy in this demanding 24/7 kind of job. More hilarious tales on the adventure of traveling to and from Kisumu later.

It’s good to be back in Kenya. I feel alive, healthy and euphoric about what’s coming up in the water/sanitation program and glad to be back to bloggin' about it!

Clean Start for Water Day

The Water/Sanitation Program kicked off with a great round of training on the basics of water contamination, how it makes us sick and how we can prevent waterborne diseases by integrating simple practices into our daily routine. The theme was “It Begins with You”. To take this theme to the next level, I wondered if a good next step might be to encourage the Water/Sanitation Representatives (WatSan Reps) to put some of their good ideas into practice. I heard many of them in the field talk about the drainage ditches that need to get dug and the erosion protection that should be implemented to protect the springs where their families and neighbors are drawing drinking water from.

So, we launched an experiment on December 2- “Clean Start for Water Day”.

I know, I’m a little behind in posting. The idea was that the newly trained WatSan Reps would lead their Nuru groups in a special project at their local spring. We held a workshop and helped the watsan reps brainstorm ideas for possible projects. They each developed a project proposal and reviewed it together with Lucas and me. I was impressed with the outcome of the workshop; their ideas were well thought out and the reps were excited to get to work.

I was even more impressed with the turnout for Clean Start for Water Day. On December 2, in villages throughout Kuria, 173 people representing 20 Nuru groups worked hard at over 25 springs. The project managers that day were the the WatSan Reps and they led well!


Jake, Doug and Janine, joined Lucas and I for a tour of a few projects. When we arrived the WatSan Reps were so proud to show off their work. Many trimmed bushes and grasses to improve the flow of their water supply as well as the safety of the paths that lead to them. Others dug drainage ditches to prevent rainfall runoff (often rich with fertilizer from farms and fecal matter from animals and humans, especially where latrines aren’t available) from getting into their drinking water. Men, mamas and children working together with their hands, shovels, jembes (hoes), pangas (machetes), and homemade brooms.

I am so pleased with the results of our little experiment. Days later, people are still buzzing about their projects and when they see Lucas and me in the field they plead with us to come see the work they did on Clean Start for Water Day. And people are now asking us what’s next. It was a great note to end on before the holiday break. And, I love that the very first water projects were designed by WatSan Reps and implemented by them alongside their neighbors.

It was fun to share the day with the team. Here's a shot of us looking a little wild in the field.