I’m spending this year as an Acumen Fund Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya. After spending two months in New York in training with the Acumen team, the fellows - some of the most incredible individuals I have ever met - have spread out around the world to work with AF’s investees.
I am working with SHeF (Sustainable Healthcare Foundation) – a non-profit franchise model of health care which runs 65 rural health clinics owned and managed by local nurses. I begin my work tomorrow. For those of you interested in learning more about them, check out this PBS documentary.
I boarded my flight to Nairobi after a hectic final 72 hours in NY, with Acumen’s annual Investor Gathering and Gala, and last-minute packing and preparations. Five years ago I sat on the exact same flight, headed to East Africa (Uganda) for the first time. I was anxious and couldn’t sit still. Some of it was Lariam, the anti-malarial that makes many - including me - crazy. It was also the circumstances: An attack on the refugee camp where I was working just before my departure, separation from my family and friends for an unfamiliar world, and a desire to change the world without the slightest idea how to do it.
This time around, I had a strange sense of calm. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion: I hadn’t slept in almost 40 hours. And the fact that I’m not taking Lariam. But it is also a different sense of purpose/possibility, a stronger set of tools and resources to achieve that purpose, the fellowship that we have built in our first two months at Acumen, and the happiness and comfort in coming back to East Africa. I am here because of the experiences of my first year in Uganda. But I feel a world of difference.
That’s not to say that this will not be a year of ups and downs and challenges, but I couldn’t be more excited about my work with Acumen and SHeF and these first few weeks of listening, observing and learning. My initial days of exploring the city have already been an adventure. It feels great to be back in East Africa, though Nairobi is very different than any place I’ve ever lived here, even than Kampala and Dar-es-Salaam. I love the first few days in a new city when everything – from buying fruit to accessing money – is new and unknown.
Nairobi is a city of contrasts. One minute I am standing in an electronics store buying a phone card, surrounded by flat-screen TV’s, DVD players, and digital cameras. The next I am walking out to find a (grand)mother and her child sitting in the mud asking for money. I think these contrasts will be what I struggle with the most.
The other fellows and I plan to write fairly regularly – we’ve started a group blog, (and some fellows, like Jon Yates, have their own individual blogs as well), which will be linked to the main Acumen blog. The title, Immersion, comes from a Tillie Olsen story (O Yes) that we read during our first few days at Acumen.You’ll see that we are really just getting started, but I hope you’ll read/comment/post as the year goes on.
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