March Roundup

MCC Kenya Team

March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion, said Shakespeare. For us, the month has seemed more like a perpetual locust swarm of activity and engagements, both in work and in our social life. Because of the constancy of activity there has been little time to sit and reflect. (Sitting is more of an exhausted stupor at the end of long days). As a result, the best I am able to manage is a month-end round-up of things that happened.

I am not sure why work has felt so overwhelming in the past month, perhaps because this is the end of our fiscal year, and any unfinished activities or unspent funds need to be completed. We have also had a parade of guests coming to Nairobi for various reasons. Our regional hub is here so MCC staff from the region regularly come by for visits with the Area Directors, medical needs, etc. 

One of the longest visits was from the MCC South Sudan program staff who wanted to see some of the livelihood projects we are supporting in Kenya. Our partners have extensive experience with women's savings groups organized in small-holder farm communities. James and Nelson from South Sudan came at the beginning of March and we took them to several project sites to talk with partners. A fairly big group went down with them including our two agriculture coordinators, Charles and James, our Area Director Kristen, and me. 

James and Charles drove down, and the rest of us took the train (SGR) to Kibwezi (en route to Mombasa). As luck would have it, it dumped flood-level rains on Nairobi the morning we were leaving. My 30-minute cab ride took nearly 1.5 hours as we navigated foot-deep water on some roads (which were packed with rush-hour traffic). I arrived at the station minutes before departure, but I did make it. 

We arrived late morning, met the partner (UDO) and started by visiting a number of savings groups and individual households where women had used money from their savings groups for livelihood projects. Several of them had invested in grass seed and a hand-made baler to make hay which they then could sell to pastoralists during the dry season. Chickens, we're told, though, are the most lucrative business, for meat and eggs. We ended the field visits late and took a short rest before dinner. After dinner, which ended at 9pm we had a debrief on the day with the partner. We ended late, after 10pm.

The next day, everyone was very surprised to find it rained heavily at night as it was ahead of the season and they had been experiencing drought. We had an ambitious morning planned of hiking to the top of a bluff that overlooks the landscape where the project is located. We left early because we had to catch the train back to Nairobi later at noon. Because of the rain, the road and path up to the bluff was a bit muddy, but we did all make it up by mid-morning and were able to look down over the landscape and start to see the transformation of the landscape happening as a result of the water conservation and other nature-positive interventions happening as part of the project. (The project is back-funded by Global Affairs Canada, so it is at scale, incorporating about 2000 hectares of land.) 

The South Sudan visitors were intrigued by the savings group approach but were concerned about how easily it could be reproduced in the highly patriarchal SS cultural context where women really have no control over family wealth. UDO explained that it took some time to convince husbands that this was a good thing, but since they have seen the improvement in their livelihoods resulting from their wives' enterprises, they have been enthusiastically contributing to the saving groups' weekly share purchases, as the interest in the 'kitty' grows about 20% annually. 

Some women farmers are raising turkeys

We caught the midday train and got back to Nairobi by midafternoon. Our guests stayed another day and visited another partner, MIDI to see similar activities in a Maasai context. I believe they left inspired, however, with the deteriorating political situation in South Sudan, I do not know if they will be implementing it any time soon. South Sudan is the second MCC country where MCC international staff have had to evacuate. The DRC staff left over a month ago with the take-over of Goma and Bukavu by M-23. Now South Sudan has evacuated as well with the deterioration in relations between the President and First Vice President, who represent competing factions. 

More and more work feels like lurching between crises. Political situations are deteriorating, the USAID cuts have cut many workers from the development and health sector which are already very underfunded. We have hosted several evacuated staff who have come through from South Sudan as well as DRC. We had at least 3 more who traveled here for medical reasons. We usually spend at least some time with everyone from MCC who comes through. At least one was a colleague from Ethiopia, which we were glad to see, but sorry that he was dealing with a family medical issue. 

The last visitor was our grants officer Janelle who came to help us renew a foundation grant that funds a food security project in Turkana, a very arid part of northern Kenya. She was also hoping to drop by USAID to find out about grant opportunities (she had made the booking to come here before USAID was shut down.)

Atypical work events continued to dominate the month One notable one was attending the consecration of the Bishop for Nairobi of the Kenya Mennonite Church. Since we are a Mennonite NGO, it seemed appropriate that we make an appearance. It was a joyful event of about 5 hours followed by a late lunch, and the main challenge was getting to the church which is located in a highly congested Somali area of town. Very crowded narrow streets were very difficult to navigate to go to and from. The whole event used one Saturday entirely. 

Peace Symposium

It is hard that we are often asked to make time for work on weekends. Among the visitors was our regional peace coordinator David, who went on several Nairobi-based field visits with Rebecca and our peace programs coordinator William. Rebecca also attended a day of peace on another Saturday right after the Bishop consecration. We try to set some boundaries around our work and leisure time, but there is often expectation that we will show up at events as MCC Reps. 

Energizer at the partner gathering

The most demanding work event was our annual partner meeting last week. This is a huge undertaking to plan and execute. About 50 people from our partnerships and MCC staff attend. It lasts 2 days and involves trainings, team building, debriefing and networking. Organizing the hotel/conference center and agenda takes all of our staff. We began on a Monday evening with some intros and team-building exercises, several done in silence. 

Partner gathering photo

The central training that happened the next day, was focused on fundraising. The person who led it was fantastic and did a lot of cool activities along with training on thinking creatively about fundraising beyond just pursuing donor grants. He has organized a number of runs, etc that he gets sponsorship for. He helped them have a broader mind about where resources are available. One thing I have observed is that Nairobi has a large Kenyan middle class with significant wealth for leisure. I challenged them to find ways to build networks of generosity among Kenyans as they are building surplus income. 

We had a number of other topics, including dealing with staff trauma and burn-out as many partners work in difficult situations. We had some fun too with singing and dancing in some of our breaks. Despite its success (and partners said they really appreciated it) Rebecca and I were completely exhausted afterwards. 

With all these 'extracurriculars' we have had a great deal of trouble keeping up with office work, which the last two weeks has focused on completing all staff performance evaluations. This involves a meeting with every person for 1-2 hours and a lot of writing. Combine that with a need to sign all the new project agreements and complete all financial transactions by March 31 and one can see why we feel quite overwhelmed. 

As we continue to work on building community here, we have found ourselves in very active socializing, which has been fun, but I can't say we found a lot of time for relaxing. But there were some highlights. 

Murder mystery party

At the beginning of the month, we were invited by a friend from church who is a colleague in another NGO, Mona, who hosted a murder mystery party. We were given roles as 20s gangsters, and had a really fun evening. Rebecca was dressed as a flapper from stuff we pulled together and I was a get-away driver. The flat we went to was set up like a Speak Easy (with real gin!) and we had to solve a whodunnit of which one of us was guilty. It was the first time I have done that it was good to get to know some church friends through the party. 

German community choir

Choir has also been an active kind of divertissement. I admit that going to rehearsal every Thursday from 7-9pm can be the last thing we want to do after a long day, but the director and participants are fabulous singers and we have a lot of fun. We sing songs in about 10 languages on average. This time we worked on a lot of tunes from Movies and Musicals. The pay off was this past weekend when we sang a performance at the German school. Our groups sounded great and I was glad to see a half dozen people from our MCC staff there to enjoy it. One of my favorites that we did was Baba Yetu (from the Civilization computer game). 

David has also been actively singing as part of the musical he is doing "High School Musical". He is not in a lead role, but is singing a ton in the chorus. There is a lot of dance as well. I was invited to audition the dancers at the beginning of the process and have been recruited to work on the final polishing as they will perform in a few weeks. David gets home about 6:30pm every evening, as late as we do. That is one of the challenges of our life here, we leave very early and get home at dinner time. 

We did take 2 days off this month and went camping! David's school had spring break, and though we had too much work to take the whole week, we did get some camping recommendations from friends around Lake Naivasha and chose a camp called Loldia Eburru, which was on an escarpment overlooking the lake. 

We arrived in the early evening just before dark. They said one could arrive in a small car, but I am really glad I brought the 4WD MCC Landcruiser because the road up the last 4 minutes was a grueling rock and dirt road.  The camp crew had prepared a picnic table with a covering and fire pit for us to use. We brought camping gear including tents, stove, and food and supplies. The place was really impressive! A great view and acres of grass and trees to camp on. On Tuesday we were the only people there, but were told that on Thursday about 100 camping groups would arrive to watch a safari rally that would pass within view of the campsite. 

We enjoyed the complete peace of the place alone. It had nice bathrooms and showers and a great lodge for rainy weather. (we had very little rain considering we are in the rainy season now.) There are apparently antelope, buffalo, zebras, and hyenas that wander around on the grounds but we did not see any. 

On the second day we took a hike. We thought it would be a 2-hour walk, (and we were required to take a ranger as a guide because of animals). But it was actually straight up the side of a high hill (felt like Longonot). We hiked for over 2 hours straight up to the top, where we had a great view, then another hour down. It was quite grueling according to my Fitbit. 

The great thing though, was that it ended at a geothermal steam room and sauna. (The Rift Valley has a lot of volcanic activity and geothermal steam is everywhere around here.) Even the water we used in the bathrooms was condensed from steam. The steam room and sauna were about the hottest I have ever experienced. 15 minutes was almost unbearable. Right outside the sauna and steam room was a very cold plunge pool. It was great to spend an hour there going from 15 mins in steam or sauna to 5 mins in very cold water. If you like this kind of thing, this is the ideal place, especially after an exhausting 3-hour hike. 

We had a great time cooking, playing frisbee, playing games and enjoying nature. We left on Thursday morning before the rally group arrived. We felt really blessed to avoid the rain, and a large crowd.

Other diversionary activities that have been an antidote to all the work is our regular morning exercise which includes swimming at the Rosslyn pool (David's school). The only challenge is we have to leave at 6:30 am to use it. Golf is another activity that David and I like, and we try to go once per month. Our neighbors the Ungers join us on this frequently. 

We have been active in church. Rebecca led music a few weeks ago and I joined her on banjo. It was actually awesome and I think people were really blessed by our selection of repertoire. I also have begun teaching the youth Sunday School class which is something I enjoy. 

Oren visits friends at Goshen college over spring break

We are really experiencing the challenge of having our family separated, with Oren in college. There are times we feel he needs some mentorship and parental support and the best we can offer right now are WhatsApp calls. It is hard being overseas at this time in his life. We continue to remain disheartened by the change in US foreign policy. We spend a lot of time with Canadian, European and African friends. The current administration seems to be doing its level best to develop an antagonistic relationship with our longtime allies. It is hard to avoid as a topic of conversation as it has affected the lives of many here. 

That is enough for now. We are hoping for some relief from the relentless drive of work next month but that is not likely to happen before May.