Email: Micah McCoy

Friends,

Well the end of November marks a full three months that I’ve been living and working here in East Africa, and I must say that it has been an interesting ride so far. Upon first arriving here, I and the four other volunteers went through a three-week orientation to Kenya that involved, among other things, slaughtering a sheep. We stayed in a Benedictine monastery during that time in the beautiful, tea-plantation-covered hills of Limuru outside Nairobi. After being properly oriented, we all were placed in our residences for the year and began our jobs. I currently live in the Westlands, a suburb of Nairobi, with another volunteer named Hodari. We live only a ten-minute walk away from the office of the organization where I work, Church World Service. Church World Service is a development organization funded by ecumenical partnership of 35 different Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations in the United States.

These past three months I’ve found my work at CWS to be interesting, exciting, and inspiring. My role here is essentially that of a communications director and PR guy. I travel around to CWS projects with program directors from the office to report on the activities done by our partner organizations in the field. Then I take all of the information, photos, and video back to the office in Nairobi and publish it in our biannual magazine, send out news bulletins, and post content on the Web. In short, I’m the guy responsible for letting the world know what it is we’re doing here at CWS East Africa.

CWS does not directly implement any of its projects. We feel that local organizations are better equipped to do the one-on-one work with the actual people that need assistance. What CWS does is find the organizations that already have the relationships with the communities and are already on the ground doing the work. CWS then provides them with funding so they can expand their services and continue working. CWS projects focus on empowering people so that they lift themselves out of poverty. Our main programs are Improved Livelihoods, a women’s micro-credit  project; Water for Life, which helps provide sources of safe water in water stressed communities; School Safe Zones, providing safe school environments for children; Giving Hope, a program supporting orphans and vulnerable children; Food Security, teaching better agricultural and marketing methods to farmers; and Emergency Response, which responds to flooding and drought crises in the East Africa area.

I think my favorite part about the job is the amount of traveling I get to do. In the past three weeks I’ve been to both Tanzania and Uganda. I also get to interact with and hear the stories of the people who are affected by the work we do. Then I can help them have a voice by writing up what they tell me about their lives and situation. I get to see some of the most beautiful scenery along the road as well: the Great Rift Valley, sunsets in the mountains of Uganda, the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. I see so much of the beauty of Africa and so much of the ugliness caused by the extreme poverty and conflict that sometimes I think I can’t really process it all.

Things aren’t quite as exciting in Nairobi as they are in the field but I’m getting along just fine. I spend most of my free time running, playing guitar, cooking, reading, watching movies, and talking with the other volunteers. I really haven’t found a social group of Kenyans my own age yet, and frankly I’m not sure where to look. I do get along quite well with the folks in my office. Maybe once I really get plugged into a church here I’ll find a group of people my own age. The problem is I’m having trouble finding a church I like. The worship style and the theology are so different than what I’m used to at home. Sometimes I find myself getting exasperated or angry with the preachers because what they are saying is just so far outside my particular brand of liberal Presbyterian Christianity. I’m trying to adjust, but it’s difficult when one simply does not agree with what one has to adjust to.

I suppose that’s it for right now. God bless all y’all. Please pray for Africa, me, and, if you like, the Dallas Cowboys too. (We’re going all the way this year.) Peace to all of you.

Micah McCoy