Six Weeks Later

It's hard to believe that six weeks at Acumen are over. I'm blogging this entry from Java House, Upper Hill, which was the very first place I went when I arrived in Nairobi (to have lunch with Catherine and Jon) and (as often seems to happen) that first visit simultaneously feels like ages ago and days ago.

My time at Acumen was short. Short like a Coro field placement. And like a field placement I'm struck by how much I was actually able to learn and accomplish in such a short time, and disappointed that I'm leaving just as I've sorted out what kind of opportunity I've had at my fingertips, and just as I know enough to take fuller advantage of it. But most of all, I'm amazed at how an opportunity that came about almost accidentally ended up being such the right thing in ways I could have never anticipated. I think it might have been life changing, in the way that my Project 55 internship at Oxfam America was life changing, fundamentally broadening my perspective and altering my outlook on what possibilities exist for what to do with my one precious life.

Looking back, the experiences are similar to my first day on any of my field placements or my first day of anything (school, work): look around, listen, and try to understand.

The Acumen Fund East Africa office currently employs two full-time people (a country manager and portfolio associate) with a part-time administrative assistant and an Acumen Fund Fellow also spending variable amounts of time in the office. These employees work in a single brightly painted room (perhaps 15-20' x 10') with three desks, two of which are pushed together to create a two-person work station.

Except, for the summer (or in Nairobi's case, winter), the office routinely housed eight people -- six people around the two-person work station pictured above (now pulled away from the wall to create more seating space) in addition to the two at the single person work station.

Even with all of these extra bodies, the office was always busy. The team is simultaneously searching for new potential investments (developing the pipeline), evaluating the pipeling (doing due diligence), presenting potential investments to the investment committee, developing knowledge on each of Acumen's five sectors (health, energy, housing, water/sanitation, and agriculture), and developing knowledge of the local market (East Africa, not just Kenya).

(Acumen Intern, Amy, fielding two calls at once)

So despite the juggling of responsibilities the office was always lively, to say the least.

My first few days were full of heady idealism about the power of these ideas to change the world ... excitement that I still carry, but the subsequent weeks demonstrated where theory meets practice and the compromises that often result. But rather than sowing discouragement, this realization helped me to think about what kinds of roles I may be interested in the future (probably not pure theory, despite how tidy and satisfying it might be) and showed me that the social venture space, while maturing, has not yet been solved. While this uncertainty might have frustrated me as recently as a few years ago, now it excites me. Rather than seeing all the reasons why it won't work, I'm starting to see the possibilities for what has potential to work. I'm actually enjoying the tensions inherent being in the middle of this kind "messy" work and the thoughts they provoke. I'm much more comfortable with the idea that there is not one "right" solution, and that an approach involving a portfolio of entrepreneurial options, some of which will fail, is at a minimum a great way to test what might work.

Acumen's blended model (business and social impact) allowed me the opportunity to live out parts of my heart, mind, and life that have to date been compartmentalized. I was allowed to really dig deep and use skills acquired at HBS that I never anticipated needing again while satisfying my passion for and experience in social justice work. I'm not sure I believed this combination was possible before, and I'll admit (again) that it was intoxicating, even while I was still deciding how I felt about the blended model. And, learning about NGOs in Kenya pushed me to truly consider some of the harshest criticisms levied against non-profit and government systems that for so long I've defensively discounted.*

But more profound is the change that I know I've undergone as a person, but can't articulate neatly.

All summer I've struggled with the idea of primary v. secondary source information. There's an inefficiency to requiring primary source information, but a depth and relevance that you lose with secondary sources. I can read about Africa in the news, in books, through Catherine's emails and blog posts ... but I could never fully understand it without coming here myself. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm both unsurprised and frustrated at my need to go and see with my own eyes the same observations that others have made before me in order to internalize them. But, I do know that the simple act of coming to Kenya and spending a chunk of time here has affected me deeply, as a person who sees the world through the lenses of her past experiences, one of which now includes six weeks embedded in a culture and context quite different from her own, one of which now includes first hand experience with the challenges of international poverty.

Which leads to my greatest regret. I think I spent far too much time in the office. I didn't create enough opportunities in the field and was either too exhausted or too timid to venture out and take full advantage of living in Nairobi - whether that was exploring the city or the region or the country. There's still a bit of time, in which I will relish being an observer and trying to soak in as much as I can, but hopefully it's a lesson I've learned for the last time and can finally internalize.

Coming here and doing precisely this may be one of the best decisions I could have made for myself. I don't yet know what to do with what I've learned about development, Kenya, or myself, but I know that I'm better for the knowledge and the experience.

* Before any of my dear friends and allies in the nonprofit and public arenas pillory me for my conversion to extreme capitalism, I have not decided yet where I stand ... but am more rationally thinking about the underlying arguments. I'm still a moderate, believing that these sectors each have their place, but not one can address the issues we face alone.