Saturday, October 5, 2019

My first month in Shianda village

Habari zenu? How are you all?

After my first month in Shianda, a rural area in Western Kenya, I would love to share with you some of my feelings and experiences J let me introduce myself first!

My name is Inma Ortiz, I’m 28 years old and I was born in a village of Cordoba, in the south of Spain. I studied Psychology and later on International Development and I specialized on gender issues. I have been in the field before in Kenya and Tanzania that’s why I’m so happy to be back in these amazing lands.

As an EU Aid Volunteer, my duty here is to start a gender project, together with my colleague Marion, mostly advocating for gender equality and raising awareness to prevent violence against women and girls. This first month we have been meeting the WEFOCO team, different schools and groups, sharing, observing and doing some sort of needs assessments with the different collectives we will work with. The identification of the needs it is really useful and crucial before starting any project, especially when the context is new. So…let us start the action properly and then we will share how it goes!

For now, I would love to share how it actually is to live in Shianda for me. Before coming I was living in a city and I was really tired of it, looking forward to live in a more peaceful and natural environment. And…here I am!! :D I find my life here simple and humble, a way more sustainable and respectful with the Earth. What do I mean? Let me share some examples…

At home, we do not have running water so we have a water tank outside and we collect water from the tank with a bucket to take it inside, for shower, toilet, kitchen…everything! The truth is you get used to it very quickly and, at the same time, it makes you aware of the water amount you use, you become more careful. With my flatmate Andreia, we are reusing the water in all the ways we can to not waste it. During late afternoon and evenings it usually rain, what do we do apart from enjoying the fresh air? We collect the rain water.

What about eating? We get our veggies and fruits every two-three days from the market, it means we eat fresh food, then the waste becomes compost and/or food for the chickens we have in our garden, a beautiful cycle isn’t it? Legumes, rice, pasta, oil, soap…most of the things we need we find them in the local market as well. When avoiding supermarkets, apart from supporting small businesses you are avoiding plastic waste, in fact, I’m producing so little non-organic waste. In Shianda , there is not a waste management system so people just burn the trash; as an alternative, Andreia and I always think if it can be reused and we usually find what do with it- it boost your creativity!

Apart from these pieces of my daily life, I’m connecting with nature more, it cycles, understanding we are nature too and we should learn to live all together, in harmony.

Life is simple, the reality is that we do not need so much; we just need to value the ones we have and give thanks every day. Let’s be conscious, every change starts with you!