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5.22.2012

Women and Awesomeness Part II

Chairman Benjamin Okalo addressing the women's group



The following is part of the weekly update I wrote, to keep everyone involved about the progress of the group.  We also had a VERY successful Customer Care workshop yesterday!  The women learned from the banda manager Solomon and a KEEP Nature Walk guide Enosh, I provided the role playing scenarios.  Tomorrow we have a Tour Guide workshop, and on Friday we're doing a jiko installation practical! (see below)  Very awesome and exciting things going on at KEEP this week :-)


Last week started off really positively.  There was another meeting with the womens’ group on Monday, and this time Chairman sat in and gave his input about the group and the community tours.  He is REALLY excited about this initiative and had a lot of ideas!! I was so happy to have such positive support and participation from the executive board for this new program.  Chairman thought it would also be a great opportunity to involve the women in more of KEEP’s outreaches, like the jiko stoves and running workshops.  Enosh is going to run a workshop next week on how to install the jikos, and the women are going to be going around the village advocating for the jikos.  Every installation they complete will get them 400 shillings!!  So it would be a great opportunity for some income generation for them, and it will help get rid of the three-stone hearth that uses a lot of firewood and also produces a lot of unhealthy smoke.
Enosh leading a workshop on Customer Care
                                           
So next week we have a Customer Care workshop planned for Monday, and I’m also having Adult English class sign up.  I’m expecting a lot of women to sign up, I want to have a class on Wednesdays and Fridays for anyone interested, and I will hopefully be able to split up the group into two skill levels.  We are also doing a guacamole making class on Tuesday!  The women requested it, because they want to know how to make it for visitors who maybe don’t like traditional food (this kind of forward-planning shows how excited the women are for the village tours – I really hope we can do some runs in the next few weeks! 

5.10.2012

Women and Awesomeness

So I have spent about a month total here in Kakamega Rainforest, and I have been really overwhelmed with projects connected to KEEP and the EcoLodge bandas, but overwhelmed in a good way.  Every day there is a new challenge! Even challenges that supersede things like rainy seasons, flooded streets, power outages...I have felt some personal challenges the past few weeks.  It is hard to find your place of use when you're brand new, and also very different from the people.  It takes time to gain trust, in those you work with and in the community.  It also takes time to gain confidence, and that has been my main struggle.  Its hard to learn everything about an organization in only 10 weeks, let alone create some projects that may actually be beneficial.  There have been days when I even question my own worth...what was all of that studying and investment in this education for?  What do I ACTUALLY have to offer??  But today I found some use for myself.  The past few weeks I have been thinking really hard about what I can do to connect the people in the community to the tourism part of KEEP.  I wanted to model what I had seen from other GVI projects with the implementation of a community/village tour, something that will be organized and implemented by a local group of people, where tourists can actually walk through the village and learn about how people LIVE.  How they cook their food, where they sleep, how they farm, what their children are like...I wanted to make this connection because its something that I crave myself.  I want to know everything, and I want to be accepted by the community.  I want to feel at home, not like an outsider...I want to really know how people here live, and so I can live like them too.  And I thought, if I want to know these things, maybe other people do too...and it can give both parties an opportunity to learn from and about the other.  So, I created an advertisement for such a tour, came up with the basic plan, and asked to meet with the women's group.

And that is what happened today, and at 2:00 I sat anxiously at the conference table at the bandas with my proposal and advertisement, with a sign in sheet and waited.  Then, it started to rain.  POUR actually, and my heart sank.  It would be really hard to travel in the rain, and lets face it, who wants to dredge across town to speak to a mzungu they don't even know.  But I stayed anyways, and slowly by slowly (polepole) women showed up, although they sat as far away from me as possible at the other ends of the table...and we had VERY awkward conversations about the weather (which here...is just rain...so its not even that deep of a subject).  But after about 30 minutes, there were 15 women seated around the table, and all talking excitedly among themselves.  I took a deep breath and told myself to be confident, I had something to share, and it was positive.  So I started talking, and in some very shaky and certainly broken KiSwahili, told them who I was and where I came from, and what I wanted to offer as a project.  One of the women next to me, whose name is Beatrice, was clearly the leader of the group and helped me to translate.  Just after the first few sentences, I saw women's eyes light up, and lean forward and whisper to each other.  I gained confidence, and started to talk about the income-generating opportunities this would bring, the ability to learn more English and customer service skills, and the sharing of knowledge of their culture and their history.  Suddenly, everyone started clapping!  Beatrice told me they were really happy with the idea, and that it was really exciting and they all wanted to be involved.  From that moment on, they took the meeting by storm!  They started to form committees and set up the program, all had ideas to share and everyone was talking excitedly.  I just had to sit back while they hashed out ideas, elected team leaders, and started brainstorming roles and responsibilities.  They started to talk about how the income earned would be divided, they want to use it as a group and divide it to the registered members, to help send the children in the community to school.

It was AMAZING.  I felt pure elation.  I FEEL pure elation.  At the end of the meeting, there was chapati and beans that we all shared.  Everyone was smiling and clapping and shaking my hand...I felt like I belonged.  I felt like I had done something positive, and I felt like I was a part of something really cool...I was doing development, I was doing what I had always dreamed of doing.  I walked home with a great feeling in my heart.  Some of the women walked home with me, and we were all talking excitedly and as I turned onto my road to go home, they shook my hand and gave me a big smile.  I felt so accepted and happy...and productive and everything that had been a struggle was all worth it for that moment. 

The next steps are: getting some tours done!! We need visitors and tourists...so if you're in the area and want to experience and contribute to some community development...please stop by ;-)  For the time being, I will be going on the tours, giving feedback, and running some customer relation workshops (aka, how to deal with white people). 

In the words of Pam Beasley from the office from the Beach Day episode "yeah...its a good day"