The Plans That I Make

This week, I was once again reminded that my plans do not work well in Kenya. You simply can’t expect to do what you set out to do, and certainly can’t expect to do more than one or two things. Something always seems to go wrong. Somebody inevitably is late, is stranded, forgot, or the power is out, the water is out, the computer is done or the food is bad. It reinforces how little I have control of things here, I can work as hard as I’d like and I still may or may not have finished my work.
For example, I’ve been trying to meet with people from MIDI for the past few weeks. This week I was determined to make it happen. The meeting was originally set for Thursday in Ilkileret (40 minutes from Najile). I hoped to either take the program vehicle into town or have our motorcycle fixed by then. Well, there was a funeral Thursday and nobody showed up at the office. Our bike still has no front brakes and the vehicle had been borrowed to be used for the funeral. I rescheduled to Friday, though it would have to be in Ngong (2 hours from Najile). I came up with a whole new set of things to do in Ngong and how to best get them done on Friday. I even set up my driver and had plans to leave at 9, even though I told the partners I’d be in no earlier than noon. Well at 930 we’re ready to leave when the car brakes done. The front wheel was missing a bolt and therefore scraped against the body. The driver assured me he could get the piece and install it in quickly. He went to Ewuaso to find the piece at 1030. At 1, I hear that they can’t find the piece. At 4pm, they return to the farm.
Now I make a new plan, I’ll take the vehicle tomorrow, if it’s fixed, and we’ll hand out surveys for the research I’m doing. We could visit 4 towns and get a lot of the work done. We called around, got the piece we needed and just needed to pick it up and install it Saturday morning. We agree to meet at 8am. At almost 10, my friend comes with the piece, but the driver is nowhere to be seen and can’t be reached on the phone. Plus, the old bolt was still screwed into its whole, broken. We couldn’t get the bolt out so we were unable to repair the car.
Now, I make a new plan. We’ll just go to Ewuaso, talk to the people there, and I can get groceries. After being persuaded to ride the project motorcycle (instead of walking in the hot sun), we leave around noon. We get to Ewuaso do the interviews, get lunch, and buy groceries. By 1:30 we’re heading out and all is well. Ten minutes out of town, the clutch cable pulls loose and the bike is broken. We walk the bike to my friend’s house, and then carry my groceries back to Najile. We arrive at 3:30, having finally completed one of my plans.
All this to say, I’m starting to understand Maasai proverbs. Many of the proverbs read like, “Whoever has money today won’t tomorrow.” Or “As a bird who flies high has to come to the earth, so must all rich people.” The idea is, people have no control over their wealth, whether they work hard, or not. This is very Un-American, but gives a lot of insight into how things work here. If work doesn’t translate into any sort of financial or material reward, it’s hard to motivate yourself. Being poor here seems to have little to do with laziness, as some in American tend to believe, and a lot more to do with a whole slew of factors outside of your control.