A significant part of my childhood was spent in Nairobi, Kenya. Like Jordan, I attended a school for missionary kids (Rosslyn Academy). It was during those formative years that I was exposed to Nairobi’s vast and permanent missionary and NGO expatriate community.
As such I saw missionaries and NGO workers living in the “wilds” of Africa with the latest in Home A/V technology and multiple SUV families. I have memories of my father ranting after reading “Lords of Poverty” (A scathing critique of the UN). So I learned the art of compartmentalization – where I lived I saw the isolated world of the expat but also, through the efforts of my parents, saw normal life in Africa. And somehow with the innocence of a child I was able to accept each for what they were in and of themselves.
Later, in 2007, I returned to East Africa to do ICT development work with Mennonite Central Committee in Mugumu, Tanzania. This time things were much different as I had a family of my own, we lived three hours from the nearest paved road and were the only foreigners living in our town. I was forced to turn my cynicism inward and critique my work and reasons for being there.
Our work was with a grassroots community development program which mainly supported people living with HIV/AIDS. My tasks included computer maintenance (virus’s are incredibly prevalent in those kinds of settings), improving access to the internet, moving financial and client records to electronic systems as well as developing a web presence for the program.
So over the course of our three years I managed to tackle most of those tasks. I had got the computer virus situation under control, set up an couple of WAN/LAN’s, put up www.imaratz.org and even a VSAT connection by our final year thanks to my MCC supervisor who secured the large amount of funds needed. I never did implement electronic records but I think my successor might concentrate on that.
It is very difficult to describe these conditions to anyone who has never worked in development. Accomplishing the most basic task can be thwarted by anything from looking for a key, to a power outage, to lack of credit or charge on a cell-phone to a funeral. Listing off my work in a single paragraph completely disregards the incredible range of circumstances that I encountered while doing this work.
So although my time in the Serengeti was somewhat frustrating at times, it was for the most part incredibly rich. The here & now attitude of life in rural Africa is surprisingly refreshing for those used to constantly living in the future. The people I worked with were extremely dedicated to their work but approached it through different set of priorities and expectations.
Interestingly the word for outsider, mzungu, in Kiswahili has the same root “zungu” as spin, confused and drunk. The hope for this blog is that as we begin to spin our way through our Master’s courses we will find some clearer vision for how our education and experiences can be resolved.
Kurtis (Waterloo)
