One Wild Life

When I set out on this journey, part of me was seeking clarity, seeking solutions and trying to figure out what particularly little contribution I could make to this world. I suppose I was looking for the ‘right’ answers, a way to differentiate the black from the white, clear the path, move on. When I started out, I thought that six months into the journey my head would be a lot clearer, and my own understanding of my contribution more certain. But I’ll be really honest, six months in, and about eighty interviews later, I am even more confused! Why? Because I am realising more and more that there is no right answer. What there are is right intentions, and solutions are driven by those intentions, but everything has its pros and cons. Not one project that I have visited is perfect. Not one person that I have interviewed is without demon or vice. Not one place is free from damage, or pain, or suffering. And now, funnily, when I meet someone who claims they have the right answer, then I start to become suspicious. What is right in one place is not necessarily right in another. What is good for one set of people, may not suit another. Where there have been benefits there have most likely been blunders. Right is becoming more and more relative.

But don’t get me wrong. The confusion in many respects is comforting because I am realising that the pros and cons are part of the package. It’s the way the world works. Where projects and people have been successful it is where they are aware of the positive and negative, and strive to set the balance towards the positive.

Choice is something I am learning more about. But choice in a mental setting. When travelling, I can choose the route, the means, the way. But I am learning that creating a positive experience is also very much about the lens and mind-frame in which I view that experience. If I expect a situation to be bad or difficult, it usually is. If I start thinking that a fourteen-hour bus journey is going to be uncomfortable, it probably will be because that is what I have geared myself up for – but when I am making the choice to put on the open lens, the one which lets me explore and be open to experiences, then things start to shift into positive swing.

So it is about making a choice, and I’ve learned with so many of the people I have interviewed along the way, it has come down to those day-to-day choices to shift things to increase the pros. They didn’t start out with grand plans. They just made choices to do something positive, those choices grew and grew.

So while I remain confused, I am also comforted. Part of me is still looking for clarity, but I think I have shifted from looking for the answer, to looking for direction. I’m not sure whether this journey will lead me in the ‘right’ direction, but one thing for sure is that it is leading me to a better understanding of myself and of others. With four months to go, I still have some time to figure out the directions. It’s not about finding the road map, it’s about creating one.

Now where did I put my markers?

Africa. It sounds quite whole, really. Whole in sense like ‘France’, or ‘Holland,' or ‘Australia’. People sometimes say ‘I’m going to Africa’, or ‘I have been to Africa’ or even worse, ‘I have done Africa’.

But the longer I’ve been here, the less ‘Africa’ as a static description, one which conjures notions of stability, uniformity, or completeness, makes any sense to me. The more I have travelled, the more I have seen how varied it is. How stable in parts and fragile in others. How politics affects governance, and how governance affects boundaries. How those boundaries have been shaped through want and warfare, peace and promise. The place, if anything, is complex.

Very quickly I stopped trying to reach a definition of Africa, because it does not, cannot, and nor do I think should, exist. Definitions limit. They put boundaries on things. ‘Africa’ is a place that does not need to be contained.

Africa is everything.

It is music that makes your soul come alive. It is life that seeps into every open pore. It is death that hangs over cliff edges, so close, always too close.

It is colour, bright, shocking, glaring colour, which adorns every inch of clothing. It is stench, dark smells that rise from the gutters and hover like omens.

It is sunsets, which give new meaning to orange, to golden, to red, to amber.

It is houses of mud, which look like they would either crack in the sun or disintegrate in the rain. It is mansions overlooking lakes, with east and west wings full of empty rooms.

It is knowing that every third or fourth person you see probably has AIDS. It is knowing that the life expectancy of some is twenty-seven. It is knowing that there are men in power lining their coffins with gold-leaf. It is knowing that in some places there are no longer enough trees to make coffins.

It is laughter, resounding around street corners.

It is spontaneity, now.

It is hotels with four poster beds and crisp linen. It is hotels with no doors, no beds, no guests.

It is giraffes and elephants and a myriad of multicoloured butterflies. It is nasty ants, termite hills, mosquitoes. It is malaria and the constant fear of malaria. It is mosquito nets being used as fishing nets. It is condoms being used for making footballs.

It is people who care. It is people who don’t. It is some who try. It is some who don’t know how to try. It is a million angry emotions about to erupt, because they have to go somewhere.

It is hope, despair, frustration, bureaucracy, enchantment, history, death, more death, life teettering on the brink of death, life, more life, and life erupting with potential.

It is all these things, and that is just the beginning.

The first step of any project is to understand the need rather than trying to fulfil your need.

Creative and colourful, the offices of Streetwires, nestled in Cape Town, are no ordinary offices. On the ground floor there is a craft workshop where teams of artists bend, mould and bead wire into the most amazing transformations. On the first floor, a design team, where more experienced and skilled artists get to innovate new wire art designs. Beside that, a shop, where products are displayed and sold, and beside that again, a team of administrators and marketing personnel who keep the business motoring. In between it all, you will find Patrick Schofield, co-founder of Streetwires, a man with an incredible mind and heart, who has poured his passion and business acumen into making the whole thing happen.

Ultimately we want to be able to give a fair wage so that people can build a lifestyle we all would be happy living. Sure, we could get people to work for very little money, but do we want to create that sort of society in South Africa? No, absolutely not! We don’t want sweatshops. So instead we have to look at how to differentiate ourselves. One way comes through fair trade. We are clear about our principles and ask people to pay more for a product that comes from a place where someone is being paid fairly, and so is able to build a life that you would be happy to live.

We also try to lead in the market through design. We have a very sophisticated design culture within South Africa. By fusing traditional cultural elements with modern design, we can create original, contemporary art. Ten years ago, a lot of the craft bought in South Africa was a sympathy purchase, bought out of pity. But if you are trying to create a sustainable income for someone, don’t sell a sympathy product, and don’t buy a sympathy product, because it will only be bought once or twice and that is it. However, through design, you can create craft which is bought because it is beautiful. People will invest in it not out of pity, but because they believe it is worth investing in. That, then, is a lot more sustainable.

It is incredible when you say ‘I want to do something’ and get out there and try it. So I would say to others ‘if you have an idea, then try it, because if you don’t, you will never know what it is like to fail, and if you don’t fail once or twice, you will never appreciate success.’ That is the beauty of failure. What makes an entrepreneur? It is someone who says ‘I have learned from my mistakes and I will use them to grow something better.’ To have the security to know that if you don’t make it, you will try again, that sets people apart.

I believe the way we think determines the way we act. If you think you are powerless, you act powerless, if you think you are powerful you act powerful. It is all in the mind.’

Kagadi, a small town in Western Uganda, may be off the beaten track, but what is happening there in the form of Uganda Rural Development and Training (URDT), has more than a few things to show ‘mainstream’ development.

‘Awakening the sleeping genius in each of us’ heads the administration building, a motto filtering through all its programmes. Established in 1987 through the visionary leadership of Mwalimu Musheshe, URDT is based on a belief that individuals, when connected with their own goals and visions, are motivated to develop both themselves and their environment. They believe that only when the development process moves from  ‘reactive’ to ‘creative’, and when people are viewed as ‘active’ rather than ‘passive’, will lasting change take place. URDT facilitates this planning at a village and individual level, and has built up a host of complementary projects to support the vision.

The programmes are designed to demonstrate the interrelationship between the various development disciplines, including: health, education, nutrition, sanitation, rural technologies, and income generation.

It took a while to track down Mwalimu, and figure out where Kagadi actually was. I couldn’t locate it on any maps and nobody I spoke to in Kampala knew where it was. But persistence paid off. After lots of emails and phone calls I did eventually get to speak to Mwalimu, who gave me directions: ‘east to Hoima, south on the road to Fort Portal. Get off the bus when you see the big radio tower.’ Sure enough, there was the tower, and I was very glad to have stepped off that bus.

We started URDT with a view that development can be very different from the stereotype of ‘people are poor, let us help them’. Our motto instead reads ‘Awakening the sleeping genius in each of us’. We believe that people have inherent wisdom and power within but they sometimes need help to discover and unleash it. That really is what we are doing here: we are endeavouring to create a centre of excellence by tapping into the experiences of the rural communities. We use their experiences to inform our plans, curriculum and community interventions.

Historically, development is compartmentalised. People are agriculturalists, or health officers, or environmentalists – each working on separate projects. But this is not how families and communities are organized or operate, at least in Uganda. In a typical village here, a single household produces its own food and sells the excess in markets. So they are both agriculturalists and sales people. If a child in the home becomes sick, a family member will go to the bush and get some herbs to make medicine. So they also have local health expertise. In fact, they are experts in so many areas. So the challenge for us was to  develop individuals who have a holistic approach to development and to make connections between their areas of knowledge. That is what was lacking in our development process: the connections.

Picture this: a river that smells like stagnated slurry, once brown but now indigo blue, dyed from the washout of industrial waste. Channels of mud and raw sewage mixing with water. Plastic bags serving as toilets, flung into the air, tossed in the hope that they will just disappear. But they don’t. A single step brings you through it: over mango pips, rubbish, wrappers, dust, festering flies, the rising mound of plastic bags. There is a young boy asleep in a wheelbarrow. Another plays with a pair of scissors. There is a main thoroughfare, lined with small kiosks, each decked with variants of rusted corrugated iron. A mobile phone rings with a techno ringtone, or maybe it is Wham: it is hard to tell.

The picture is hard to forget. Once you see it, once you smell it, the memory is there to stay. That is where my journey really began, in the Mukuru kwa Ruben slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. I was told that there are approximately 100,000 inhabitants in the slum. But it is hard to tell. Who counts anyway? There is a sense that this is a forgotten place, a place where the rest of the world stood on, forgetting to lend a hand to help it up again. But between the rubbish and the waste, the sewage and the smell, there is a sanctuary. It is called Gatoto Community Primary School, and it is run by a dynamic team of teachers including head teacher, Betty Nyagoha. It is a large open space, with classrooms, a library, a music hall, and latrines. There is garden planted, and more trees on the way.

I say my journey really started with that ‘Begin it’ quote. And it did. But in other ways it started here at Gatoto, back in 2004 when I first met Betty and visited the school as part of my previous work. Back then, Betty and the pupils at the school struck me with their hope and optimism. Despite the surrounding conditions, and despite all the things that they could legitimately complain about, they didn’t complain. Instead they believe that things can be better, and they work to make them so. Gatoto is an example of what raw belief can do.

‘I knew there was a problem, I knew there was a solution and I knew I could do it. The other choice was to sit back and complain that nobody was doing anything’.

Tara Cunningham is the founder of Release Speech Therapy, an organization that provides holistic care and education for children with language difficulties. Her model is to bring children and their carers into the classes together, equipping both to develop language skills. Despite not having a background in language therapy, Tara saw a critical need for language services. Knowing she had enough managerial, business and marketing experience to start an organisation, she trusted enough to find the right people along the way to fill in the gaps. One of those is Jennifer Wetter, a speech therapist, who has been working alongside Tara to develop the organisation. Tara and Jen work as fuel and engine, and it was hard to know really which was which.

Tara’s optimism is infectious. She has a giddy, almost childlike charm, which is intensified when she is speaking about the positive impact Release has had on children who attend the classes. She has certainly come a long way from her early career ambitions – to be a US senator on Capitol Hill.

“We want to do ourselves out of our job. A lot of social entrepreneurs are not getting money for the work they do. It is very hard because we are told ‘success equals money’. I’m not getting paid much but I have never worked harder and I have never tried harder for success. The business may stay afloat but as social entrepreneurs it doesn’t mean that you are washing your own back with cash! You become secondary to the cause.

I think the real litmus test of how a society is working is how you work with the lowest people on the totem pole, your most vulnerable people. In Ireland, we should be ashamed; we have a disgraceful record in our ability to provide services and support to people with disabilities. Sometimes I get so mad, but that in turn motivates me to do this.

I could never have done it without (my husband) Mark or without Jen, the speech and language therapist whom I first hired from the States – not in a million years.

They are incredible people. The people you have around you are so important. Now I feel it is too late for me to pull out of this – we have come so far. But really I would just love for the government to say ‘we are taking it off you’. Then I could become a housewife, or work in an accessory shop, or in ten years’ time I could even be a soccer mom!”

In the end my journey took me across five continents in eleven months. I started off with interviews in Ireland and then headed down to East Africa, landing firstly in Nairobi. Then it was on to Cape Town via Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. From there it was to Asia, spending three months in India, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Then to Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa. The last leg of the journey took me to the United States – West Coast first, with San Francisco – then to the East Coast trio of Washington, New York and Boston.

The travel was as intense as it was rewarding, but it was not always easy with an oversized rucksack and with laptop and camera at the ready.

There were lots of trains, buses, planes, boats, bikes, pick-ups, rickshaws, taxis and even canoes. I walked a lot, sometimes much more than I ever intended to. I got lost – a lot – constantly testing my already dubious sense of direction. But no matter how many times I got lost, I would – usually with the help of a stranger – always find my way again.

I travelled over rough terrain and smooth terrain, sometimes over roads that bore the label of road but really did not deserve it. There were times when I was lonely, times when I was not.

I was confronted with poverty and a scale of problems that I never thought existed.

I was in slums and five-star hotels, sometimes on the same day.

There was heat that made me want to drop, humidity that made me think I was evaporating and tiredness that made me want never to get up. Sometimes I liked the food. Sometimes the food didn’t like me. I laughed. I cried. I cheered. I danced. I swam. I sang. I listened. I shared. I smiled. A lot.

I stayed in hotels and hostels, in people’s homes, in bus stations, train stations, tents and airports.

There were moments of intense happiness and moments intense pain.

But along the way, as I travelled over those bumpy roads, meeting changemaker after changemaker, visiting project after project, in the fivestar hotel and in the slums, in Ireland or in India, my understanding of myself and the world was altered. I did things I never knew I could. I went to places I never knew existed. I met people who I never realised would change me.

Travel does this to you. It enriches as it shakes. Perceptions start to shift and alter. You start to shift and alter. You take a step and the world unfolds with colour and learning. You take a step and the world takes the next ten.

The world? Well, it’s the people you meet along the way who point you in the right direction. Or a book you read which clarifies a point. Or a film you see which sparks a train of new thought. Or that kid you play football with. Or that mother you make eye contact with. Or that beggar you pass on the street. Or the visionary who believes, and continues to believe, that the world can and should be a better place.

Along the way I was certainly inspired, and life may just never be the same again.

This journey started life as a fridge magnet. On it was written the following:
 

Whatever you Do

Or Dream YOU CAN

BEGIN IT.

BOLDNESS HAS

GENIUS, POWER

AND MAGIC IN IT. [GOETHE]
 

The quote, living on my fridge door, was a reminder of a dream I had. It was a dream that would not go away, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. Every time I looked at the fridge door out the dream would pop. ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can do . . .’ For months and months it lingered and intensified. ‘Begin it . . .’

It was the type of dream that told me there is something better than this; that the world doesn’t have to be the way it is. It told me that there were parts of myself yet to discover. It told me that there are ideas that could shape me, places I could learn from, people who could teach me. It seemed to know that life could be richer, better, fuller, not just for me, but for everyone.

But it was an annoying dream. Because I was too busy. Because I didn’t have the money. Because I was frightened of pushing myself. Because I didn’t want to do it alone. Because I was scared of how it would change me. But the dream insisted.

‘Begin it.’

Every time I opened the fridge door, there it was: three-inches square and staring me in the face.

‘Begin it.’

It was telling me to wake up to possibilities. I wanted to ignore it but it was calling me to venture, to explore, to learn, to ask questions, to tell stories . . .

‘Begin it.’

‘But I am nervous . . .’

‘But I don’t have all the skills . . .’

‘But I don’t think I can do it . . .’

‘But why me . . .’

‘Begin it.’

So I began.

Two and a half years on, that was the best advice I ever got from a fridge magnet. Never before did I realise that a three-inch square could be so powerful. Never did I realise that the people I would encounter along the way would change the way I think and feel so dramatically.