10/20/10 Goodbye: Kwaheri

Leaving just after dawn for Nairobi, the tears were doing a decent job holding themselves back. I ducked into the dining hall for my final goodbyes, and no one was willing to buy my story about allergies. Each girl I met at Daraja has touched me deeply, and the letters pressed into my hands in stuffed into my pockets were affirmation that my short time here had left an impact. The evening before, the girls had made good on their promise to teach me how to dance, and the lesson took. A marvelous night, sweaty and filled with hugs and peals of laughter.

I had been asked before I left California whether I expected this experience to completely change my life. The phrase makes me think of an abrupt turn in one's life course, very nearly opposite where a traveler had been previously headed. In that way, teaching Outside The Lens' work at Daraja Academy did not; what it did was galvanize. My first day with the students, I saw clearly how the work I had done previously, the courses of study I have undertaken, and the policy I want to study in graduate school had all positioned me to be right here, right now. Seeing the transformative power of girls' education, grounded in respect for the many cultures contained in Daraja's microcosm, and viewing the world through their lens is exactly what I get to do, and now having seen it work on the ground, all I want is more.