Bike shop, outdoors, and a sale:)

A Visit From Bicycles for Humanity, Colorado's Josh and Keenan

What an incredible gift!! Last week I got to spend a few days with
Josh Pace and Keenan Gates from Bicycles for Humanity Colorado. They,
along with their partners in CO, had been working for the past year
collecting bikes and fundraising for their shipment to Namibia. About
six months ago I learned of them and that they would be our partners
in the BEN Bikes project! We exchanged a few exciting emails about
how things were coming together on this end and finally, after much
anticipation they made the long trek to our village and got to see the
project on the ground!! Watching them reunite with the container they
worked so hard to organize months prior was so wonderful and having
them here, taking it all in was amazing!!

We shared a beer on my stoop late Sunday evening which was their first
night in Namibia. The next morning after a failed attempt at an
opening ceremony of the shop (a blessing in disguise) Josh, Keenan and
Michael put on some play clothes and got to work putting the roof on
the shop. Now the oven-like effect of the metal container is a
lessened a bit:) The organizing of the ceremony was to be done by the
volunteers and several key things were missing which came apparent
when only the speakers for the event showed up. So after a pep talk
from Ndadi about project planning, responsibility, accountability,
follow-through etc we decided to regroup and scramble to organize
something for Tuesday morning. It was a long day for all but by 10:00
the next morning the ceremony was in full swing and after a few
speeches, many thank you's and lots of translating we opened the doors
to Uukumwe Bike Shop and the selling commenced! The four of us left
the shop to the bike mechanics/managers and tooled around Nkurenkuru
and surrounding areas seeing the sites and chatting about Namibia,
Africa, work, play, just anything and everything trying not to be
TOTALLY overwhelmed by the fact that this was day 3 for Josh and
Keenan!! It was so great to have them here to process with and share a
bit of my world. They are very thoughtful, in tune, down to earth,
excited, and encouraging. Two guys who really 'get it.'

It was also nice to reflect on how a year has almost gone by and how
well adjusted I seem to be since my time here. Being with them in
their first moments in this place, community, culture and cultural
norms- it was amazing to hear about their process as their eyes,
hearts, and minds became full from everything Nkurenkuru has to offer
those who are open to it! I was remembering how affected I was by
some of the living conditions of some in the community and especially
the hospital grounds- my boat was really rocked and those sites were
very heavy and now, after being here and understanding some of the
dynamics and now being in a position to address them, I am less
burdened by some of these harsh realities. Thankfully my experiences
have not left me jaded or cynical, just motivated to take action and
help support my community. Sharing not only the sites but also
dialoguing with Josh and Keenan was helpful in wrapping my head around
some of the issues as well as just sharing with them with an outsider.

Now, after drinks, laughs, stories, a few evenings with Meme Selma,
eating with our hands and sweating together in the Spring heat of
Namibia they are no longer outsiders but now members of this
community! A community that will forever be changed by their hard
work and extreme generosity!!!! A special thank you to all at
Bicycles for Humanity for the energy you sent us and will continue to
send through your efforts. Cheers to uniting our global community!!!

Peace.

Uukumwe Bike Shop Grand Opening!

We're coming up on the end of the Uukumwe Bike Shop training!!
Friday's stock taking and evaluation will conclude the six weeks of
hard work put in by the mechanics, BEN Namibia mechanic trainers and
CISP business trainer. CISP is an Italian NGO that supports projects
on business management so that folks without prior knowledge of
business skills will be equipped to run their operation successfully.
The two weeks with Bernadette from CISP have been WONDERFUL. She was
incredibly thorough starting with basic topics such as "what is a
business" building to stock taking and inventory, marketing
strategies, customer care and the like. BEN Namibia really has it
figured out. As an organization they have set themselves up to
nurture the BEC projects from A-Z with complete training and an 18
month hands-on monitoring and evaluation program to ensure as much as
possible the success of the shop. Our opening ceremony will be Monday
22 Sept where we'll be honored to have Josh and Keenan from Bicycles
for Humanity visiting from Colorado and Michael from BEN Namibia here
in Windhoek! Several months ago the folks at B4H loaded the container
with bikes and supplies and now it is on the ground, painted and doors
open as a bike shop!!

The guys will be staying at my friend Selma's guest house. You have
seen her in pictures…the meme from the garden pictures eating the
cabbage leaves…the one who said she had sweet potatoes for us to plant
as big as her calf…she is a riot!! She insists that I am her
grandmother reincarnated heeheheh:) Quick story…. "Nkure Nkuru" as the
name of our town actually means "Old Nkure." Nkuru means old and Mr.
Nkure used to live in this area and YEARS ago people would say Tani zi
koNkure Nkuru- I'm going to Old Nkure's place" and it just stuck! So
you can put Nkuru after anyones name if they are your elder…Selma's
grandmother's name was Sarah. So they call her Sarah Nkuru and now
she and her mom call me sarah nkuru:) Selma loves community and having
people around her place…she is always eating and drinking with company
and if you stop by just to say hi she'll bring out fruit or water. Of
course water isn't what you think it is: "wine is my water!" hahaha
she's always saying that and you'll never find her without a 5litre
bottle on hand! She said her grandmother also loved community and
"people from internationals" and she never met a stranger! Selma
speaks about 10 different languages- "you know, I must know the
languages, how am I supposed to speak to my people if I don't know
their languages! I'm speaking everything. If you come to my house I'm
speaking with you, and drinking my water with you!"

Friday night we went over there to visit and they (her family and the
6+ kids she has taken in, guest house guests and some relatives) were
eating dinner and 'enjoying.' Big Boy (her son's name!!) went in to
fetch the new 5litre bottle of red wine and we spent the next few
hours laughing continuously, telling stories, and listening to her
hilariousness. Eventually she started going on and on about a
'baboon in clothe-ez." We had no idea what she was talking about so
she got up from the table and grabbed a flashlight and we all ventured
over to the tree in her yard….she kept pointing the light upwards in
the branches and all of a sudden a monkey with a PINK TSHIRT on
appeared!! Hahhahahah I thought I was going to die…she has a pet
monkey in a tree on a chain with a pink t shirt! No, this is not a
normal thing folks…she is just that funny!

Tonight I'm making a cake and papaya pie for her husband's birthday
party. They will have plenty of 'water' and beer and whiskey this
time as a special treat! Should be a great time:)

"Learning to stand on my own two feet"

(for CDR, a trip down pisdmemory lane)

In an effort to present a balanced perspective of my time here I want
share a more upbeat post :) Many times when I'm moved to write it's
after something major happens- sharing the day-to-day seems like a bit
much and because of limited internet access I wait to post until I've
had time to sit with the personal/professional challenges and
successes that arise. However 'intense' my posts may sound, my intent
is to welcome the reader into my process; not dramatize a situation
but to express my inner monologue in a way that tells a story while
simultaneously helping me to work through different issues. Isolation
has taken on a new meaning since being here and sometimes my only
outlet for 'dialogue' and feedback is through this blog. This leads
me to the title of the post….

Two years ago I was in my second year at Public Allies. That year I
served in the office as a community service project coordinator
charged with the responsibility of planning and implementing three
service projects for 30 Allies, Fellows and staff. This was my first
real attempt at planning a big project from start to finish 'alone.'
While the projects came off as a success I struggled to get the first
project off the ground and in general seeing the whole picture of
project planning. I was surrounded by an incredibly supportive staff
and team of Allies that acted as a sounding board, offered
constructive advice, connected me with able people in the community to
assist, and most of all were there to tie up all of the loose ends I
was forgetting when it came down to the last minute before the service
days began. I was confident at connecting people, networking in the
community, asset based approaches and fostering ideas of my own or
others but I struggled immensely with the little things and when it
came down to the wire there were many gaps in my planning. I was
always putting the cart before horse and unaware of everything that
went into bringing an idea into a product. Luckily, my dudes came
through and the projects were implemented in a successful manner :)

Coming here I have been stripped of that very important support
system. Besides a few phone calls a month and some friends here who
are scattered across the country (all for which I am very grateful!!)
I'm in a position where I'm forced to grow in this way if I want to
see success in my efforts. I'm excited for this professional growth
and thankful for those who carried me to this point. While I have a
different kind of team here I definitely feel like an island most days
when it comes to the background work it takes to reach a point of
clear communication, mobilizing folks in the community, crossing
cultural boundaries, moving forward with solutions to problems, and
connecting all of the dots of this job. I suppose that comes from an
absence a job description, living in a new setting, adjusting to a new
culture etc but I'm definitely seeing where this kind of isolation is
forcing me to a new professional level and standing on my own to see a
process from start to finish.

The shift was most noticeable to me recently when I started sharing
the first steps of the Hostel School Project with potential partners.
Four months ago the Pastor of the Lutheran Church and my supervisor
Tate Ndadi approached me to help find mattresses for the Hostels where
the learners stay during the school term. Through further discussion
and research of the hostels I realized that there were more components
than just mattresses and it was going to take on a large scale project
involving wider community participation. I've spent the last few
months communicating with community members, mapping out the different
layers, setting the stage for the first steps of planning and finally
this week got a draft plan written down on paper. The two page
document created is for the sole purpose of inviting other parties to
join in our efforts. Whether this is the local, national or
international community we are now ready to start rounding up the
troops to take the necessary steps at implementing our project ideas!
I'm sure this is pretty vague to any of you who do not know many
details of the Hostel School project but I'm preparing more literature
that will be posted soon!! To be continued….

"The Hiccup"

Coming off of the high of the bike shop arrival and the garden
producing ample amounts of bright green cabbage, I was left vulnerable
to the anxiety filled hiccup of last weeks turn of events. The
inevitable ebb after a smooth sailing flow knocked the wind out of me
for a minute.

Last week Tuesday, four random people stopped me to share some
uplifting news: "you're garden is failing," "the people don't care
about the garden anymore since the bikes are here," "people are
stealing from the garden," "why aren't your people watering anymore?"
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh all in the matter of about ten minutes as I was ending
my day…. I took some deep breaths and made a turn at the garden to
indeed, find it dry without water. I set my bag down and spent the
last thirty minutes of daylight with the hose doing the work as my
mind wandered furiously. "How do I address this situation? How do I
round up volunteers and communicate why this is a problem? How do I
express the fact that this problem is just a micro version of why
things are so messed up around here and why so much money and time is
spent on the HIV/AIDS issues but the epidemic continues to rise at
unimaginable rates? What are we doing wrong? What am I doing wrong?
Should we change our plan? Will that confuse people? Bigger picture,
bigger picture…WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?!?! Whew…..Deep breaths, walk
home, write to a friend as an attempt to wrap head around said
dilemma:

The garden and the bike shop- Two projects that work hand in hand and
the end result is: to help volunteers do their jobs better- the garden
enables them to provide food for their clients and the bikes enable
them to reach their clients who are up to 15kilometers away in a
timely fashion.

Enter real life application:

It sounds so simple doesn't it? In January I sat with all of the
volunteers, one by one, as a group, and we've been meeting every
Monday since then discussing their concerns and thinking of ways to
address them…..the needs were food and transportation. Now, after the
first distribution of the garden harvest I'm being told that folks
have lost interest and they are more concerned about the bikes. The
whole purpose of the bikes is so they can take food FROM THE GARDEN to
their clients. I'm going to start putting that into quotes because
I'm starting to think there are no clients….sure, 20% of the community
is HIV positive but the 'volunteers' who are supposed to care for
these people are talking the talk and not walkin…or riding….the walk.
I mean I had this concern before but we worked it out where the first
distribution the clients would come to the garden for a
ceremony….since then we have had little issues about who gets what but
I keep reiterating what I think is the most simple thing…pass by the
garden on your way to see your clients pick up some veggies and
deliver!

This isn't an unusual problem…this is the systematic issue and got me
all twisted at the beginning of my time here and is still difficult to
wrap my mind around….this issue of theory vs. practical. The gap
between donors and recipients. The fact that MILLIONS OF DOLLARS flood
into Namibia (Africa for that matter) and after a certain point their
impact just stops. It hits a brick wall…example:

USAID gives funds to Catholic AIDS Action who gives funds to their
branch in Namiba who then spends the money on a training of volunteers
to do home base care in a village- the money is used to buy food for a
two week training, pens and notebooks, and certificates for completing
the course. The community is told about the training so the first 20
people to register get in- they get food for two weeks and a
certificate to validate their efforts. After the training a few
things happen: 1. the volunteers get bags with a few bandages,
Vaseline, pain killers and rubber gloves in order to tend to their
clients. Five of the twenty are active but all 20 send in "reports" at
the end of the month saying their clients received care and in return
they get a stipend of N$50 a month (US$6.60). 2. volunteers get bags,
5 of twenty are active, no one turns in reports and eventually the
five active run out of materials in their kits and they quit. 3.
volunteers get bags, five of twenty are 'active' in the sense that
they complain monthly about how their clients live too far away so
they cant reach them and their clients need food to take their ARVs
but they have nothing to give them…. 4. volunteers don't get bags
because they haven't submitted reports…..but the volunteers have
nothing to report because they don't have bags to go visit their
clients with. Meanwhile CAA is still running smoothly at a level
other than the grassroots and they continue to get funding despite the
fact that there is no follow through in their outreach. This same
story can be said for any organization out there….

I wonder if I sound cynical and pessimistic….actually I'm just telling
the truth of what I'm seeing on the ground. And as someone who comes
from the states…where education, critical thinking, brainstorming, and
seeing the bigger picture are all valued and expected- I'm just
overwhelmed. I want to address the issues of the garden and the bike
shop but I don't even know where to begin because of the cultural
barriers, issues of poverty, collaboration, accountability, etc etc.
For example- if I was dealing with this issue in the states I could
rationally say to someone "dude, do you see what's going on around
you? People are dying of aids…not just people, your family members.
Your community. The fact that you pose as a volunteer for red cross
but don't actually do anything except show up once a month when your
supervisor visits (from two hours away) to collect your stipend…well
that's INSANE" ok, that wasn't exactly rational or appropriate but
you know what I mean? It's like trying to reason with a two year-old:
"why did you spill the juice?!?!?! It's in the carpet now?! Don't
you know juice stains!?!" ….uh, the kid is two, of course he doesn't
know juice stains, get a life self!"

I'm overwhelmed in attempting to explain this situation …with every
sentence I want to add commentary about another layer uncovered by the
previous problem but it's just impossible to articulate it all. I
guess it all just seems like too much and as much as I want to stay
calm, and relaxed- this is my job, and I'm hitting a point where I
don't know how to do it. I know how to fumble across all of the
issues and build community and make relationships stronger by focusing
on the little things, I know how to have the conversation with people
one at a time and plant the seeds of goodness and compassion and model
behavior like accountability and hard work…all of these things are
things I'm going to do but it just doesn't seem like enough. And at
the same time it's all I can do.

"Reinventing the Snowflake"

After writing, receiving positive words from friends and family and
reaching deep into my 'toolbox' of skills I brought with and have
acquired here I mapped out a first step. Monday was our usual time to
meet so I decided to structure it a bit differently in order to get us
on the same page. Usually I take a back seat as much as possible to
encourage ownership, empower natural leaders to step up and in an
effort to not reinforce a hierarchy based on skin color, country of
origin etc. But now, after 9 months, these guys and gals are my dudes
and we're in desperate need of someone takin' the reigns on this one.

We started the meeting off by outlining our progress thus far. I
facilitated the timeline reiterating what we had done over the past 8
months: we went from January, our initial meeting as a group and
individuals where I heard them express their strengths and weaknesses
as organizations, February where we started Monday Meetings and
addressed the needs of food and transportation, to March where we
began working towards solutions- writing a proposal to get garden
materials and making initial contact with BEN Namibia…April we
received funding and began sowing seeds in the ground, May, continued
watering, transplanting etc and by June we had food growing and BEN
Bikes arrival was right around the corner. In July we distributed
food to clients, training at Uukumwe Bike shop commenced and
Nkurenkuru was flying high.

When we got to the month of August I asked for input from the group.
First, I told them how proud I was of their hard work and how it was
pretty amazing that eight months ago I didn't know any of them and
they had never worked as a team before! Mutenda said we should give
ourselves a clap because of what we had accomplished thus far! We
cheered and clapped and I introduced them to the phrase "give
yourselves a pat on the back!" Afterwards we looked at August….at
first there was silence and then Miriam made my point for me: "There
is no watering going on and the food is dying and people are more
worried about bikes." This started a discussion about why this is a
problem especially since now we have the bikes. I was able to clearly
point out how we started with problems, now we had solutions, and what
problems were thus arising. This was well received as we entered into
another phase of problem-solving. We discussed solutions to the
garden and how to make improvements with watering, distribution,
overall care of the garden and we also talked about the purpose of the
bikes and that if their purpose was being abused then we would have to
take steps to assure accountability and proper responsibility.

To help look at how these projects are to assist in their work vs. add
another responsibility to their plates, we did a weekly mapping
activity where we looked at a typical week, Sunday-Saturday, 6am to
6pm. I took David as an example and he realized he had four hours
carved out of his Wednesday to water the garden- well since it only
takes about thirty minutes we talked about how this could be a good
time to look at what else might need to be done; weeding, adding
pesticides, planting more seed beds, singing to the plants….etc etc
etc :)

Two hours later we finally adjourned and I was feeling pretty darn
good. In conversation with Amanda that evening, I was expressing
concern that I didn't want to be reinventing the wheel with these
folks, in regards to garden distribution etc, and she shared the
following wisdom: You're not reinventing the wheel…you're reinventing
the snowflake! There have been many snowflakes to fall down before
but they are all different and unique. There are so many things that
are specific about the situation, the group, the process- hold on to a
basic foundation of group work but mold your next steps according to
the energy of those at the table!

"A reflection"

As a group we have taken a step in the right direction. This fact
makes me happy but far from satisfied. We have a long way to go and
seeing a clear path is increasingly difficult but I've realized a few
things…. First, as much as I don't want to hand-hold for the next 15
months I'm understanding that that is exactly what I need to do. Not
because people aren't capable but because all of this is so new.
Collaboration, follow through, accountability, multi-tasking- all of
these concepts are being introduced in a new way and to let go
prematurely would be moving at a pace too fast for the community. I
suppose this can be a negative consequence of any development work….
Secondly, I've bonded with my community in a new way. Like I
mentioned before, I like to take a back seat in our Monday meetings to
allow for growth of the group without imposing too many ideas or
reinforcing a hierarchy. I've built relationships and together we
have built a community of understanding and mutual respect and I'm
seeing where me stepping in and taking a more direct leadership role
could have benefits rather than negative consequences. Of course
there is always a balance and I'll strive to find that.

We are far from figuring out a smooth operation of the garden and the
distribution of its food but going through this process has been
important and we'll continue to build off of that. It's something I
need to constantly remind myself of, and be reminded by others, that
out of any project we work on together during this two year period
it's the outlying factors that will have the most lasting effect-
laughing together, celebrating birthdays and new born babies,
scratched up knees and elbows from riding a bike for the first time,
breaking bread together, taking pictures and dancing around like
maniacs at the local bar, escorting a friend to get tested for HIV and
being there for another when death consumes yet another weekend. It's
meeting consistently and following a process from A-Z, hiking to and
from Rundu 8 deep in the back of a truck…these are the things that we
have to hold onto when hiccups happen. And they always will.
:)