Of Australian football stars and worthy causes

As I continue to rack up interesting experiences and memories in this ever fresh environment that I work in, I need to mention that part of my work involves dealing with a kaleidoscope of visitors to the camp. These include the media (local and international), filmmakers, photographers, researchers, government officials and donors. And not to forget, celebrities! Yes…again, story for another day.

These visits are usually referred to as missions and at any given time, I can be dealing with as little as one mission per fortnight or as many as three per week. It can be quite daunting to juggle all these visits from varying calibers of people and entities especially if you are rather wet behind the ears as I was when I first got here. But with time I got the hang of it. Forget the fact that sometimes I would find myself completely awestruck by some of the people I had to work with; other times I would want to just curl up in a ball and forget everything because of the sheer exhaustion that would follow a day of running up and down like a headless chicken.

Needless to say, it’s always interesting meeting all these people and getting to interact with them; some I would get on with like a house on fire and of course there have been the expected ones that are just...well... 

But in all honesty, if I was to rank my top favorite missions over the past year and a half, the visit by the Awer brothers would be high up on that list.

See, it isn't often that refugees who are resettled to other countries come back to revisit their past and give back to their fellow refugees. Of course there are those who will send remittances to support those who they left behind in the camp. But majority leave and start their lives afresh and then...life just happens. Despite all good intentions, somehow they don't all get that opportunity to return.

So it was a refreshing experience to meet A and his brother Awer Bul as they returned to Kakuma to launch a powerful initiative called “Barefoot to Boots”

Check out my personal encounter with the brothers and their inspiring story here:

http://www.unhcr.org/559f9ddb6.html

http://unhcr-regional.or.ke/blog/star-footballer-kakuma-getting-together-motley-crew

 I'm loving: Hey Brother - Avicii

In Retrospect: 1.5 Years of Humanitarian Work

My year and a half of humanitarian work in one of the world's most recognizable refugee camps, Kakuma Refugee Camp, has come with experiences beyond my hitherto pedestrian realm of thought.

I have never been so shell-shocked, amazed, dazed, amused, excited, homesick, emotional, awestruck, dismayed and giddy all at once. I think I have been going through an outer body experience and only realized that hey, I'm not dreaming so I need to pinch myself and WAKE UP!

Truth be told, my work here started on an extremely strenuous note - at the height of South Sudan's emergency and the ensuing influx into Kenya. Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers crossed Kenya's border with South Sudan and the result was that every waking hour of my life was transformed. 

I came face to face with the realities of what it looks like (for one can never understand how it FEELS like unless you are a refugee yourself) to escape conflict and war. To have under a minute to grab what matters and run for your life. To crouch through bushes under the cover of darkness surrounded by a cacophony of gunfire, explosives and war cries. To see your loved ones die right before you. To not know where your children, spouse, parents and siblings are. To be an unaccompanied child, separated from safety and comfort, shivering in the cold night, crying for your mother...

It is an inexplicable feeling. 

It left me numb. I couldn't feel, couldn't breath properly; I felt like Hazel Grace Lancaster in The Fault in Our Stars. 

And yet I had to function. 

I had to document all these events through words, pictures and sentiments. I had to let the world know that what was happening in South Sudan was a huge stain on the world's conscience. I am not sure how I was able to do it.

20-hour days and hardly any sleep. Unacceptably copious amounts of caffeine and sugar in my system. Phone calls back home every evening to keep me sane. I was numb. I couldn't feel any more. But I needed to. It was the one thing I HAD to do to feel like I was doing SOMETHING. I couldn't break down because it was my duty to contribute to the organization's appeals for both material and financial support for this emergency. 

I was reporting on the situation hourly, daily, bi-weekly, weekly, monthly. There were donor missions to the camp every other day. Teleconferences every day. Ten different versions of reports and requests for these reports from ten different departments. The Kakuma office, the Kenya office, the regional hub, the headquarters; I felt like I was living in a parallel universe.

Those first six months really did me in. I was going at 100 miles per hour and I obviously crashed head first into the ground. Yes - literally. Crumpled in a heap on the floor when my body couldn't take it anymore. The elements - all of Kakuma's harsh 35 degree heat, dust storms and vast array of bugs (some were suspiciously pre-Jurassic critters) finally sunk their clutches in me and dragged me down. And like the Titanic I sunk.

I woke up in a hospital bed with an IV tube down my arm and a fever that would put the devil's toes to shame. My body was racked with sickness. Interestingly, I was not even aware of just how ill I was. All I kept thinking was how much work I had pending and oh my God did I send my report?? Good grief there are donors from Australia around; who will handle them? Christ, I didn't share their itinerary with my boss!!!

I was eventually sedated and out of it.

Next thing I knew I was being med-evaced to Nairobi. It was quite a curious affair to me; I felt like an extra in an episode of Grey's Anatomy or something. It was surreal. Hmm...I have just remembered that when I was aboard the plane, my phone was on the entire time. Does that mean that the 'switch off your mobiles' narrative that has been conveyed to passengers all these years is one big lie? I shall ruminate on that later.

Being med-evaced to Nairobi after collapsing on the job.

Anyway, I spent five listless days in a hospital bed having to contend with nurses poking and prodding my body, tasteless hospital food and INJECTIONS!!! God I hate needles! Shiver shiver...

When I was finally discharged I remember it was a clear sunny day with azure skies stretching out for miles. I felt like I had emerged from an ancient Egyptian crypt. Home was a dream; everyone fussing around me. I had not felt so pampered in years.

Returning to Kakuma after a month away was like starting afresh - but with a new set of eyes. Everything was in clear focus and I was back with a renewed energy. I was armed with my camera and pen and ready to do what needed to be done. I had initially worried that I would break down again but as one of my colleagues who comes from the area told me, "my sickness was Kakuma's way of welcoming me to her bosom."

I now have a new found sense of respect for Kakuma and her formidable bosom. It is this place, with its harsh environment that is paradoxically gentle and nurturing of refugees and asylum seekers. For over two decades, it has been home to over 185,000 refugees who have fled all manner of atrocities to seek refuge. And Kakuma has opened her arms and held all these vulnerable people to her bosom.

Like her landscape, her people - the Turkana, are tenacious and resilient. Her beauty lies in her sunrises, her sunsets, her vista of shaded hills dotted with camels and donkeys, her willowy women adorned in beads bursting with colour, her weathered men in their feathered caps and omnipresent wooden stools (ekicholong) and sticks (aburo). 

It is in these vast arid lands which I previously couldn't point out on a map that I have finally found myself; found my purpose in life. 

I work with wonderful people - true humanitarians with eons of experience and hearts that bleed for the refugee cause. It is so inspiring to wake up to this everyday; to FEEL and to WANT and to BELIEVE and to SEE what happens around me. 

I have made friends with refugees; I have come to see myself in so many of them. I am constantly taken aback by our similarities and the fact that this term REFUGEE is NOT an appropriate descriptive term. It does NOT define any of these amazing men and women, boys and girls, young and old. They are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, sons and daughters.

These precious Somali girls are the future. They make my job worthwhile.

They are students, teachers, doctors, architects, security guards, laboratory technicians, models, singers, actors, trainers, community health promoters. 

They have dreams, aspirations, feelings, desires.

Above all, they are hopeful. 

Hopeful that every new day will bring them closer to realizing their dreams.

Hopeful that the senseless and pervasive effects of politics and war will cease and people will learn to look at each other as God desires us to.

I am a humanitarian. And it is because of my brothers and sisters in the camp that I do what I do. They are just like you and me.

I would love to think that my work will one day be considered as powerful in the way that one of my favorite writers, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie described as "...the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

Here's to another 1.5 (multiplied by 20) years of getting to know refugees and learning from them how to be a better person.

I'm loving: We Fall - Emmanuel Jal ft. McKenzie Eddy

There's More To Life

It has been a while since I was last seen on this hallways...time has flown by so fast and I am amazed at everything that has happened in the past one and a half years.

My last blog post was in 2013. That is incredible! For someone who's fingers are always twitching, it hardly makes any sense that I have not written anything for this entire time.

Writers block is real people, it is real.

On the upside, I think I have enough material now to write an entire book. I HAVE written an entire book as a matter of fact (well, two actually but that a story for another day) so I should be good to go from here on.

What's happened in the past year and a half?

I learnt that there's more to life. Much much more.

See, people usually go through life like its a dress rehearsal for something bigger. People go through the motions like they don't really want to be here. Most of the time, we are on autopilot for the better part of our lives. Or we rush through life like it is one grand race that we just have to win, sometimes at the detriment of others.

I have been one of those people. 

For the longest time I think I have gone through life without really understanding what my purpose is. I have been on autopilot for so long that at one point nothing made any sense any more. I was going through a boring, droning routine that I could spell backwards - wake up, shower, dress, go to work, come home, eat, sleep. 

Wake up, shower, dress, go to work, come home, eat, sleep. 

Wake up, shower, dress, go to work, come home, eat, sleep. 

Until I left the corporate world and joined the humanitarian one.

Everything that I ever thought mattered didn't matter anymore. I was so far flung from my comfort zone that my nerve endings were tingling. Everyone thought I had lost it. 

I wasn't shattered though; I felt like there was a purpose after all - I had been a hamster on a wheel for so long until I couldn't take it anymore. So i jumped ship.

And now I finally have the opportunity to make a difference - even if it is just an iota. But a difference all the same.

It feels good looking back almost two years down the line.

I have met incredible people who have inspired me beyond words. I have realized that all the material things we hold dear are so transitory and so facile.  

Acting silly with kids in a refugee camp. 

All that matters at the end of the day is to do good. Do whatever makes you feel good about yourself. 

More importantly, do what makes a difference in someone else's life.

I have been so inspired by my work and the interactions I have had. It really puts everything in clear, HD perspective. 

And I am all the more grateful for each dawn of a new day.

Here's to getting more out of life!

I'm loving: More to Life  - Stacie Orrico

This Miasma That Surrounds Me

Its been....soooooooo long, eons actually since I last checked in. My fingers are creaky, there are literally web-like formations between my digits. And there's this weird...miasma(I cannot for the life of me think of a better word) that has been surrounding me for all this time(well, since my last post).
It has enveloped me like a cloak...I cant shake the damn thing off. I have tried all manner of remedies..a vacation in the countryside, copious amounts of caffeine, mojitos, hell I have even tried a change in career....but nothing. Nothing.

So I have decided to embrace the cloak and make the most out of it. Its been an interesting journey though...quite revealing at most. I didn't realize that I had the resilience of a three-legged turtle. I quit my job (I will get back to that in a bit), started a new business, got into a new relationship(that I am still trying to figure out), made some new friends then shed them faster than you could say Jack Daniels because I realized they were sneaky little bastards, got blacked out by a close best friend(that's a story for another day) and sank into mini depression. Oh...and also turned the big 3-O which was another insane experience(that's another story for another day).

At the moment, I can say that I am getting used to this weird funk I'm in. Its like I've been in hibernation and I just crawled out from under this heavy rock and got startled by how much the world has moved on. And I have no regrets...at least I don't regret quitting my job...that was a serious ball and chain that I'd been hauling around for way too long.

Speaking of which, it happened in the most spontaneous of ways. I quite simply just walked into work one day,  sank into my seat, looked around and decided I had had enough. Yup...fired up the PC and furiously typed out my resignation letter. It was sitting pretty in HR's inbox by end of day. And I was as happy as a clam.

So here I am now, not sure what lies ahead, but still looking forward to whatever funkiness is around the corner. Frankly, I have been oozing a lot of negative energy but I am learning to make my way around it. Positive energy - find me wherever you are, I beseech thee.

And this cloak of mine is seemingly less funky as I trudge on from one day to the next.

Yup. This is me taking it one day at a time.

I'm loving - Bad by Wale & Rihanna

Dear Wangari

Wangari,
I'm just a young, ordinary Kenyan girl.
I'm just an average, disillusioned citizen, tired and apathetic.
Wearily have I watched as our country's leaders have turned the electorate into puppets. Weaving tribal lines, churning emotions and pitting brother against brother.
Wangari, I grew up like many others, in a time where few emerged as true leaders, worthy of Kenyans' admiration and gratitude.
Noble leaders such as yourself have come and gone.
I grew up watching and learning from you; you evoked such a die-hard spirit. You made me wonder if indeed it was possible for this country to one day, rise above the pettiness that defines our leadership.
You made me believe that Kenya was indeed capable of producing fine, worthy and legendary leaders.
You made me take note of the little things; your love for the environment, your fierce protective nature and your resilience in your quest to ensure that Kenya remains green - all these made me love nature even more.
Your resounding clarion call for Kenyans to wake up and contribute to saving our forests was heard across the seven seas.
You instilled such an immense sense of pride in me, in women, in the youth. You were a beaming light; a fierce torch that would guide all women who dared to stand up for what was right.
You were a true mentor, a believer, a hero, a mother, a confidante, a revolutionary, a friend.
You were Wangari Maathai; a human being that has left an immeasurable void on the face of the earth.
You will remain the stuff of legend, and our children's children will live to hear of your greatness.
Wangari, I cry for the loss that this country has faced today.
Wangari, I cry for I know we will never be touched by greatness such as yours.
Rest in peace Wangari.
You fought a chivalrous battle and emerged victorious.
You survived adversity and ashamed your naysayers.
I will forever remember your contribution to this world.
I treasure the fact that I lived in this generation; to witness who you were and what you achieved.

Travel well Mama Miti.

Love and sincere gratitude,

Citycat.

Mr. Right

Mr. Right; okay he doesn’t exist. Yeah, I know. We all know.

But every girl still has a list of how their Mr. Right should be. So for heck’s sake, here is mine…ok, its kinda rambly and all. Its more like a list of all the characteristics I did and didn’t like after a date is over. Call me obsessive, I don’t really care…I’m all for perfection. Or at least finding someone who is everything I’m looking for. (Sigh)

1. Makes me laugh - To me, conversation has always been more important than looks (to a point though, there has to be some initial attraction. I mean DUH). I would rather be with someone who makes me laugh than someone who makes the mean girls jealous. Ok, fine. Both would be sooo cool.

2. Creative – I like to consider myself pretty creative (with the exception of this topic) and I think for someone to be able to be with me long-term they would need to have a little creativity in order to put up with my story telling and intricate delusions of grandeur. Mostly these pop up smack in the course of my erstwhile monotonous work days. So I basically end up going through the motions with a dazed look. Not so bad once you get the hang of it…which leads me to…

3. Intelligent - I think it goes without saying that an intelligent mind is a major turn on. Please tell me you didn’t love A Beautiful Mind. Go on, look me in the eyes and LIE!!

Yeah…anyway, there’s absolutely no way to tolerate someone who seems painfully subterranean in terms of their grasp of all things intelligentsia. I just can’t. I love a guy who makes me think, keeps my brain churning and bursting with ideas and questions. Excite me with your world views and hypotheses. Don’t make me feel like I’m the only thinker in the room. I’m not saying you should give Socrates a run for his money; I’m just saying be bright. Period.

4. Tall - I’ve found that short guys tend to have a Napoleon complex…Plus I just feel more comfortable with a guy taller than I am. Hello, those six-inch heels have to be worn when we’re out.

5. Has a job – I understand it’s a bad economy, but I’m just one of those people who work a lot, and enjoy it. Oh please, who am I kidding-I hate working. It’s totally uncool and frankly, whoever came up with the idea of 9 to 5 is so on my wanted list right now.

That having been said, it suffices to say that being with someone who has no motivation to even search for a job – a decent, well paying, take-care-of-my-woman job…yeah, not gonna work.

6. Enjoys learning - I was one of those people who got super excited about buying school supplies, the person who read the book before school started, the person who got thrown out of British Council’s Library and MacMillan because goddamit, its 6 pm on Saturday - you’re supposed to be out partying or something, not stuck in an old, creepy, dusty library, choking on dust balls but still ploughing through atlases and Thesauruses.

7. Must love animals – I hate creepy crawlies. Love all other members of the animal kingdom. Cats, dogs, horses, alligators, pigs, chicken…Love em, love em, love em.

8. Spontaneous - I think it would even me out, I’m a lover of routines. I’d want someone who would inspire a random trip to the Rift and back… No scratch that – a random trip to some place that cant even be found on GPS. Yup.Just because it would be fun to go.

9. Sarcasm - I’ve met guys who don’t understand my witty/sarcastic remarks. At times it felt like I was speaking a different language. Seriously, is it that hard to figure?

10. Loves the outdoors – I love being outside, especially when it’s sunny and blue skies are stretching out for miles. Road trips and escapades to wherever, bungee jumping off cliffs and running around in the grass bare feet…these, a girl loves! No way do I want to be with someone who sits inside all day.

11. Competitive – Okay, I know what you might be thinking because you’ve been with the “overly competitive guy”. And it isn’t fun to compete about everything, but going back to careers…I think it would be nice to find someone as equally driven and competitive in the work place as I am.

I'm loving - Mr. Right by A Rocket to The Moon

I Have Learnt

These past few weeks, leading upto the last one and a half months; have been choc-full of some pretty hard life lessons.

I didnt know; at least I never imagined that I could ever take a crash course on life in such a short period of time.

But all the same, lessons have been learnt.

Lessons that will stay with me for life. Lessons that I wouldn't have otherwise learnt if it wasnt for the experiences that I had in this period of time.

I have learnt...that no matter what I do, no matter what I say, if something wasnt meant to be, then no Oprah-inspired advice, no self-help book or philosophy will make it be. It just wasnt meant to be.

I have learnt that people who I thought were true friends or had my back, were not such true friends after all.

I have learnt, because of this, who my true friends are.

I've learnt to love my loved ones like I'll never see them again. And to let them know just how much I care for them.

I have learnt that shit will happen - and not just once- concurrently and I'll have to wipe myself of it and keep going.

I have learnt that revenge is best served cold.

I have learnt that no amount of revenge can soothe a broken heart.

I have learnt that when I realise that someone doesnt like me half as much as I like them, then I really have to get a-stepping coz staying will only lead to heartbreak. And I dont really have time for that.

I have learnt that when someone likes me, then I wont need to ask them nor do quizzes nor take behavioral science to know it. I wont have to st by the phone, or keep checking my emails to check whether they've looked for me.

I've learnt that when someone DOES like me then it shows. It TOTALLY shows.

I have learnt that there's no use in crying over spilt milk. I'd better just head to the store and get another packet.

I have learnt that when all is said and done, this life is too short to surround myself with negativity. I need to LIVE like I never will.

I'm loving : There's Hope - India Arie