First Day of ...

My day started at 6:40 by hitting the snooze (that’s just nearly midnight back home), but I managed to roll myself out of bed and onto a yoga mat for 20 minutes of sun salutations. Apparently they worked, as today ended up having the most beautiful weather I’ve seen in Kenya so far. The last few days have been overcast and a bit humid, with one big storm (we lost electricity for much of Friday night) and lots of scattered showers. Today was sunny, breezy, and blue skied, although of course I spent most of the day in an office.

As I dressed, I debated the decision to bring heels to Kenya. It’s only a five minute walk to work, but the roads are narrow, curvy, chock-full of fast-moving, chaotic traffic (there aren't really right of way rules here, but cars certainly trump people) and generally lack sidewalks. Imagining picking my way through the potholes and mud on the shoulder of the road while contending with NYC-esque walking crowds seemed ridiculous, but so would wearing flats and having my pants trail on the ground. Catherine kindly assured me that no one would think my heels were silly, and that one woman in the office might even get excited about them.

At 8:12 I quickly scurried down to the courtyard of our apartment building, not wanting to be late for my 8:15 pick-up as I had a veritable posse to walk me to my first day of work. There was Amy, already waiting for me at 8:14, my soon-to-be-roommate who I had met in New York briefly before we both started our journeys toward Africa. Of course, Jon would also be meeting me; he’s an Acumen Fund Fellow like Catherine and has been incredibly helpful on every count … first reaching out to me about the opportunity, arranging my housing, taking me out and about on my first day in Kenya (and his last day of vacation), and giving me both taxi numbers and appropriate fare quotes for a variety of distances. And Rohan, another consultant/intern sponsored by his company to do some development work. They range from a week’s experience to eight months, constitute nearly half of the Acumen talent at the moment, all live in my apartment complex, and all wanted to walk to work with me for my first day. With Catherine hugging me and wishing me good luck on my first day as I walked out the door and all the neighborhood kids gathered, it felt more like the first day of kindergarten than the first day of my post-MBA pre-BCG internship.

Have I mentioned how incredibly wonderful the people at Acumen are? It’s not just because they were all willing to walk with me the five minutes down the road. (There’s only one turn, and it’s into the driveway of the office.) The last few days have been such a pleasure chatting and eating out with an exceptionally bright and cheerful bunch that extends beyond my three escorts and beyond the Samra Court Crew. It’s almost like being back in college, with long philosophical conversations about the nature of truth and whether or not humans can ever know it followed by tales of the hippo and flamingo sightings from the most recent hiking trip up into a volcanic crater.

Once I arrived at the office things just started happening. A morning meeting, updates on investments, documents passed along to me, meetings about the nature of my work, lunch with the whole office - whole fish, no cutlery. It was just enough information to give me a real sense of what will come, ease my nerves, and get me really excited about working with such a worthwhile and dynamic organization. I almost didn’t have time to notice just how much faster the internet was at work compared to at home!

So tonight I am tired (possibly still a little jetlagged, I think), but feel truly lucky and looking forward to diving deeper tomorrow.