THE OFFICE

I found this on flickr - my old office in Kenya. Through that tiny door on the right is the gateway to our modest mini-villa. Beyond the door you find a courtyard leading to a maze of buildings, including a guest house, a small guest apartments and houses for your network family. I never could get an acurate count on who really lived below. But I know a meek women named Mwana Aminah was the matriarch on everything on the ground floors and her younger brother Umar was the Chief or Baraza (Kenyans are obbsessed with titles and rubber stamps) who organized everything else.
You would never believe what is hidden behind all that cement. It doesn't look like much, but it is the brain center of several development projects funded by some big name donors. A typical day at work, for one all depends on whether or not the electricity is working. The island is run by diesel engines that break daily. So it has to be rationed. Plus there is not a set schedule, except if a bribe is given you are almost always garanteed lights.
If we had electricity, we would check the emails and print them as quickly as possible, because the lights went out. Forget about internet. We did a lot of siting around and politicing. Most work was done at night on palm covered roof- decks, often under the limited light of a candele (or parafin lamps.)
We had dusty kids running through at any given time, mommies searching? and leaving out with your shoes and strange relationships that were impossible to define. The same goes for my purpose there. However I made myself teaching staff how to type, fix paper jams, taking kids to the doctor, cleaning up wombs, diagnosing ringworm, tutoring school kids, typing, typing, typing, typing and did I say, typing. Alhamdulillah, I was able to organize and partipate two production of community workshops and meet a whole lot of interesting people.
I feel guilty, because once I left, I did a terrible job of keeping touch, which seems odd, because I talk about Kenya soooo much. Insha'Allah, I hope to get back in touch.
I forgot to mention the donkeys!