Getting It Together

Okay, this is the end of Week 5 of the Internship and I think I have in mind what I will do...

First, let me tell you that I have spent the past 2 weeks visiting clients and working on portfolio analysis for my supervisor. I had the opportunity to visit a total of 5 business (a retail shop, a farmer, carpenter, tailor and a seller of something used to make alcohol) and I realized that I do not know how most of these businesses are ran! My most usefully visit was when I spent 5 hours at the retail shop talking with the owner and helping with his customers about his business and his expansion plans once he receives a loan. My other visits have not been as successful. I really get the impression that because I do not look like a foreigner, people do not believe I only want to help them. When I visited 3 of the other businesses, they seemed to scared of me. I even asked another lady three times if I could visit her and she continued to find ways to avoid me. Because I am primarily targeting the clients that are paying back their loans very poorly, I think they believe that I want to visit their businesses to find what I can repossess to get the money back. So, with that obstacle in my way and my time in Kenya slowly dewindling, I decided to produce a very basic business instruction manual. I remember how at the previous training seminar I was a part of, we covered a wide range of topics in-depth and quickly, and all of the participants only picked up one or two lessons from the entire two-day program. Because of this, I really do not want to hold my own lessons along the same line, in fact, I might not even present anything at all. I want to just create some very simple 1 to 4-page phamphlet that goes over basic essential business topics that are each backed up by Scriptures. With Scriptures, the lessons gain a tremendous amount of validity and people will be more willing to put them into practice. And if nothing else, it is a way to witness and/or strengthen the Christian walk of the people of Kakamega. And thanks to an idea from a fellow intern, I will also find and/or design some posters and phamphlets for our office about business and living positively with HIV.

Also, I have been living in Kenya for over a month now and I am really starting to enjoy it. I think I will miss it when I return home but I hope to utilize some of the lessons I have learned while living here. One of the biggest lessons, or at least biggest differences I have experience here, is how slow life is. Some days I can go to work and by the end of the day, I have done very little. Some nights I sleep over 8-9 hours! It seems that the only guaranteed thing I can look forward to each day is tea time (which is exactly 8:30am and 4:00pm everyday at work). If you know me, you know I am use to driving my car for hours each day getting to school, work or someother place. You know I took on 17 graduate hours last semester while working part-time and controlling my expenses so I could afford to come to Kenya. Now, I just sip tea and do my best to make sure each passing day is useful. I hope to take away from this experience the attitude of relaxing and getting some rest every now and again. We shall see how it goes.

One thing I read recently that really encouraged me while it seemed like I was doing nothing at work was Gal. 6:9 "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."