Snapshot of my day

I’m on a flight from Mogadishu to Nairobi (27 Nov.). I feel like it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to stop and think given the busy week I’ve had. 

Every once in a while, I like to record the events of one of my days it to remind me someday in the future of what my life was like. While this particular day was not noteworthy (like meeting Jane Goodall or arriving on the summit Kilimanjaro), it does provide a glimpse into what I do for a living.  

 

sunrise in Mogadishu (from our roof)

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of the call to prayer, as I often do in Mogadishu. It’s not thunderingly loud but it’s audible enough to wake a light sleeper like me. In fact there are several early morning calls and they are not all at the same time. This one, from a mosque closer to where I stay, was around 4am. As is the case often with me, I was not able to return to sleep. Once my mind begins thinking about the obligations ahead, I’m generally doomed. After a vain attempt at going back to sleep, I got up and officially began my day.

First thing is a cold shower. We don’t have hot water in our guesthouse so I’m used to it by now. Usually it’s quite hot and humid so the adjustment to the cool water isn’t bad.  This time, however, it’s rainy season and both the weather and the water coming out of the pipes were cooler. Feels good when your body adjusts to it but it’s a bit unpleasant in the beginning. 

My dad is currently in the hospital so I used the early morning to catch up on what was going on and any other emails that came in during the night. The communication tools are so much better than they were when I first moved overseas in the late 80’s. Back then it was basically a letter or an occasional expensive phone call. Thankfully it’s much easier to maintain close contact with family and friends. 

I also get quite a few emails from NY and, as morning hits in East Africa, the night owls on the East Coast are finishing up and going to bed. So I usually scan for messages that are more urgent or possibly quickly addressed. The rest I leave for later since I have other things I need to do to prepare for the day.

The focus of this week has been senior management meetings. A couple of times a year I pull together top leadership our various field locations and Nairobi for face to face meetings. We meet bi-weekly electronically but this is more of a 3-day retreat where we (about 20 of us) dig a bit deeper into thornier issues and sort out the way forward. We discussed our flood response in southwest Somalia. We sorted out some supply chain issues. Implementation of a new enterprise management system. Etc. For an extrovert, it’s an energizing time since the days are long and full. For an introvert, it can suck the life out of you. 

The official meetings ended at 4pm and I was escorted to a meeting of our women at work group. I started our organization’s first such group in Burundi back in 2011. At the time we had a rather masculine leadership team, most of whom I inherited when I arrived in 2010. The purpose of the W@W group was primarily to give women a greater voice in the organization. I knew I couldn’t go through and start removing male staff, for legal reasons if nothing else. In the end the group was a huge success and they are still thriving today. In fact W@W is now a global initiative for our organization after its humble beginnings back in Bujumbura.

About 20 or so women dressed in their colorful hijabs were all crammed into a rather small office. It was an impressive sight, to be honest. There are some strong willed ladies in our organization and I can see that they’ll be taking full advantage of this group to make sure that the interests of women are recognized and addressed. 

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long. After less than fifteen minutes I was pulled away to a phone interview with a US-based news organization. It’s hard to say how often I get contacted for such interviews but it happens from time to time, particularly when there is an acute humanitarian situation unfolding. In this case the topic was the flooding in southwest Somalia.

The call lasted for about 20 minutes and afterwards I was told that the article is likely to be published in the next couple of days. They said they’d send me the link once its posted. Since NY set up the interview, they generally receive the link and push it out through various outlets. 

At this point I hoping to have some down time before a call with NY at 6:30pm. This would not happen as I was pulled into a meeting with HR to discuss a rather sensitive personnel situation.

Finally I was back in my room to take the evening phone meeting. In fact, in spite of the inconvenience of the timing, it was a particularly interesting discussion. This task force deals with sticky humanitarian access issues. For example, one challenge we face is when donor governments, particularly the US but not only the US, place certain restrictions on what type of support can be provided and to whom. They call the shots since it’s their funding. But sometimes these restrictions can be somewhat politically motivated. It can relate to access to reproductive health services or potential unintended support to people associated with terrorist groups or something else. It’s up to us to determine how we feel about the restrictions, whether or not they are in line with international humanitarian law or whether they might compromise our own principles as a humanitarian organization in making sure people in need get the support they desperately need.

As interesting as the call was, I was happy when it reached its end and I could shut my brain down for the day. I clicked on a US football game (streaming TV was something that I was unable to do my residence in Mogadishu a couple years ago) and went to the staff mess to serve up some dinner. Camel. Some fish. Rice, of course. A few veggies for decoration.

I was off to bed early as is my norm. I need to sleep with the AC on. Can't open windows due to the mosquitoes (the screens on the windows are weathered to the point of not being functional and it's too hot anyway). The white sound of the AC and the cool room help me sleep. I did hear a couple of nearby gunshots but it wasn't the kind of thing that sounded hostile. Soon I would drift off to sleep, happy that I would be back with the family the next day.

Jenn

The last couple of months have been rather eventful. And some of it not in a good way. Last week a friend of mine was killed in NY. She was 42 and died at the hand of her husband, along with her daughter. I don’t really have anything profound to say about it. It was gruesome. Well publicized. It defies explanation. 

Jenn's (in the middle) birthday 2006

We’ve known Jenn since before Priya and I were even a couple back in 2005. We were all living and working in Dar es Salaam. We were part of an expat community that used to have dinner together, go to the beach, etc. Jenn was pretty gregarious and had lots of friends, seemingly could get along with about anybody. It was hard not to like her.

Jenn & me Feb. 2006

Other than social functions, the first real activity I remember doing with her was taking diving lessons. We both received our PADI certification north of Dar at White Sands Resort. I’d been wanting to do it for some time and Priya was already certified. Dar is an exceptional place to learn given the beautiful, turquoise Indian Ocean waters. We ended up joining with a few other people who were interested and all did the lessons at the same time in February 2006. As I remember it, this is sort of where we turned the corner from being acquaintances to friends.

Mt. Meru, Tanzania, April 2006

Around that time I told her that my family was planning on coming to visit me in Tanzania. While in the US over the holidays that year I had pitched the idea and there was some interest. We hadn’t honed in on a date but we were talking about later that same year. I didn’t know how long I was going to be living in Africa and I put the pressure on saying that they shouldn’t miss their opportunity to come while I was living in Dar.

Mt. Meru

One of the things that was on my bucket list, even before I moved to Tanzania, was to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Jenn said it was on her list as well and I told her that we should consider pulling some people together and make it happen, if indeed my family did come. To begin setting ourselves up for the big climb we quickly starting talking about climbing Tanzania’s second highest mountain, Mt. Meru. A couple of months later Jenn, Priya, our friend Joey and I set out for Arusha. (I took down my blog entries from prior to 2010 so I can’t reference it here but it was a fun and eventful 3-4 days.)

Mt. Kilimanjaro pre-hike dinner

By then Jenn was locked in on the idea of climbing Kili. And my family had firmed up their travel plans by mid-year and the trip was set for November 2016. My brother was the only family member opting in on the climb and he arrived first. The rest of the family would arrive a week later for a safari and then a couple days in Zanzibar. 

Curtis met us in Arusha and our climbing team had assembled. It was Jenn, Curtis, Priya, a Tanzanian friend, Meja, and me. It was a rainy, yet mostly enjoyable hike. I say mostly because Priya became sick on the third day of the climb and, accompanied by a guide and Meja, who simply threw in the towel, headed down and were unable to summit.

rain...

Mt. Kilimanjaro

But Jenn showed some fortitude and was every bit as strong as I was on that last push to the top (my brother was considerably more fit than we were). Supposedly only about half the people that start out make it all the way and we ended up with three making it out of five. Would have been great for all of us to summit but oh well. (Again, my (more detailed) blog on the climb is archived but not posted so you’ll just have to use your imagination.)

on top

In 2007, Priya and I moved to Kibondo in northwest Tanzania. During that time we were a bit disconnected from the Dar es Salaam friends but by 2008 we were back in town and picked up where we left off, albeit with a different employer. We would hang out with Jenn off and on until she left for the US. I don’t remember exactly when she left but as I recall it was late 2009, before we moved to Burundi in 2010.

at our friends' wedding in Tanzania

But Jenn and I stayed in touch while I was in Burundi. In fact, she began working in the same building as my organization’s headquarters in NY so we would usually meet for coffee when I was in the City, for a while it was about twice a year. I was happy when she told me that she had met someone and that things were getting serious. Priya came with me to NY on a couple of occasions and November 2012 we had dinner with them in Harlem. He seemed pretty cool and there obviously was no reason to think that at some point things would take such a dark turn.

Harlem, 2012 (Kiran as a baby)

The last time I saw her was last year when I was in NY for meetings. We had coffee together on 42^nd Street. She seemed good, as usual. We talked about careers, parenting, etc. She said that the next time I come, I absolutely had to bring Priya and the girls. Better yet, she said, I needed to move to HQ so we could hang out in the City. 

She’ll never know my girls. I’m sad. And angry. No woman should have to go through what she went through, not only how it ended but in the months and years prior. Shouldn’t happen to anyone but particularly someone who dedicated her career to women’s protection and empowerment. 

I will miss her.

New York, 2018

Cathy visit

In addition to travel back and forth to Somalia, we had some things going on in Nairobi as well. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries, we often have birthday party invitations. Now that the girls are older, this is something that they can often attend on their own. In the past, for example when we were in Bujumbura, we usually needed to accompany them – or at least Priya did. I often went as well, particularly if it was at the home of friends of ours or if our friends were also attending.

this was one of those good kiddie birthday parties

Admittedly there were some other pretty boring parties. The essential was that the kids usually had a great time but often I knew no one and the only people I had something in common with were my wife and daughters. Thankfully we had children during the age of the smart phone.

an Idaho plate in a Nairobi bowling alley 🙂

Also as I’ve mentioned, these parties are usually rather significant events with bouncy castles, clowns and so forth. It’s a bit over the top but the children enjoy them and the parental peer pressure means that it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

visiting the giraffes

We also had a visit by our friend Cathy. We were friends in Dar es Salaam from back in 2005. After we left Tanzania in 2010, she visited us in Burundi in 2012. After she left Tanzania, she worked in Mozambique for several years. She’s still there but looking to move on. As she is between jobs, she was able to take some time to visit us in Nairobi.

There is no shortage of things to do with visitors to this city. Indeed, the rains have begun and you sort of need to adjust accordingly. We all appreciated good food so we exposed her to some of the culinary delights that Nairobi has to offer. The city is not really known for food but if you explore a bit, there are some really good places to eat.

yummy lunch

One activity we’ve done a few times, either as a family or with visitors, is the giraffe center. It’s located about a half hour from our place with good traffic. Founded in 1979, the center was created to protect the Rothschild giraffe, a subspecies of giraffe found only in the grasslands of East Africa. At the time of the creation of the center, there were apparently only about 180 left. As the species has been protected, the population has grown to over 300, most of whom have been reintroduced to national parks in Kenya.