Cool Water House [Nairobi 1]
Cool Water House
The city name “Nairobi” comes from the Maasai phrase ‘Enkare Nyrobi’, which translates to “cool water.”1 Eason and I named our summer house the Cool Water House. And to the city’s credit, it was always perfectly around 22C and lush with green vegetation, truly an oasis. The city itself was vibrant, lean and hungry for more. It reminded me of New York and seeing the young population working extremely hard inspired boundless hope for the future of Africa in me. However dark the times, however blatant the corruption, I could see a path illuminated by the incredible souls around me, for as Desmond Tutu said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.” I think we Americans collectively have something to reflect on here as well.
My summer abroad was incredibly formative for me. Walking around the city, talking to people, and work has had a strong influence on my ideologies and plans. My career trajectory took a big turn because of it, more in another post.
My world view has drastically shifted to include developing countries in the picture as well. As a byproduct of growing up quite sheltered in US and Taiwan, I never understood what mass poverty actually entailed until I was there. Many things I took as self evident was thrown out the window, my assumptions about the world were challenged on multiple levels.
It was only now that I realized that I was not living in this world, I was living in only first-world countries. Sure, while I could name most countries on a map, the majority of countries were’t on my map of the world. Recognizing the existence of something is not equivalent to keeping them in mind. With the internet, there’s nothing you can’t find online. You can read stories, watch videos, and hear testimonies; but it took me seeing it in person to make it real for me. My hope in sharing these stories is that I can use my voice to showcase the humans behind the statistics who’s incredible experiences have shaped me so much.
This is the first in a recurring series of posts where I will publish a collection of my stories of my time there.