Finding Firsts in Nairobi

I’m 20, and my summer with gui2de has been the first time I’ve really lived outside of my Nashville-DC world on my own—first time doing all my grocery shopping, cooking all my meals, having a real commute. All the little tastes of adulting. The twist is that those firsts are coming 8,000 miles from home in Nairobi and, again, on my own. Not in New York or Chicago or SF with some college or high school buddies; I boarded my plane not personally knowing any of the people that have come to color my summer. 

And I think there was some magic behind that. There’s something about a ‘first’ or really any risk that shakes you out of autopilot. The same way our eyes open wide at the start of college, or the sense of awakeness we get when starting a new job, a new relationship. For me this summer, it was living in a completely new part of the world in a new job with new people in a new city with a new cultural and economic rhythm. So it might not be surprising to say that it was a summer that went on to stretch my small Nashville-DC world into something much more capacious.

I was wide awake. And I was wide awake in a place very worth paying close attention to. I wasn’t just being sensitized to the dull drain of a grocery line after work; I spent 100 hours in the field helping to interview urban refugees and Kenyans about their economic livelihoods, visiting health facilities to better understand on-ground realities of the maternal health journey, and simply talking with anyone and everyone I could.

I saw oppressive problems. I saw a lot of resilience and joy. I met new people and connected over beautiful similarities. I met new people and felt my profound ignorance of what it really means to live their lives. 

The work, the daily routines, the travel—what you live makes you think, and the combination of my jolted-up awareness and a whole lot of raw exposure forced me to seriously consider some questions: What goals are worth serving with my work? Does the hand I’ve been dealt come with a duty? What responsibilities do I have as an outsider acting in another’s home? What’s at the base of a happy life?

These aren’t the kind of questions anyone’s answering at 20, and while the summer helped me get a little more data behind them, I unsurprisingly left with more to question than I had started with. But I’d like to think that there’s an inherent value in the way the experience foregrounds these kinds of asymptotic questions, that there’s something in just turning them over. Thinking about them may not give you an answer, but it certainly helps keep out the gunk.

What may be most important is the way this summer is going to stick with me—and that means something more to me than having good memories. I couldn’t articulate exactly how or what, but there’s a way that when you take risks in an impressionable window you can really build something into your identity. The experience can become a real source of confidence and a part of the lens through which you navigate what’s ahead; my friends here joke that we’re going to be a foot taller when we get back to campus. 

So when I think about this summer and what I’ve internalized, I imagine that the little bits of data filling in the base of those big questions will come to mean more to me over time. A trust in myself to navigate new, unfamiliar challenges. A wider perspective and deeper empathy. The feeling of being part of a team deeply bought into something greater than their own comfort—seeing people choose to spend their energy explicitly in service of others. Whatever comes next, I can trust those instincts will be speaking a little louder within me.

There’s a lot of talk about what an undergrad education is about. To me, this is it. The gui2de summer internship is one of the rare experiences that delivers, at an elite level, on both poles of that conversation—the career preparation and holistic development. 

Other students can testify in more detail to the work experience itself, but the opportunity to contribute to live RCTs with gui2de’s team and partners is unprecedented experience for undergrads in a space that can otherwise be difficult to substantively penetrate. More than that, it’s a field that you have to actually experience. You can’t learn if development is for you by reading papers; you have to go do the work. And in going out and doing the work, you experience the core promise of a liberal arts education—that our learning is also about shaping who we are, not just what we do.

If you are a self-driven undergrad interested in development, especially if you don’t have any international experience, take on the challenge. You won’t forget it. 

P.S. Try to beat my stats:

• Laptops left in Ubers: 1
• Mountains >17,000 ft climbed: 2
• Number of times leaving the office after Alex: 0
• Ugali-and-nothing-else: 1
• Fine: 3

Written by Luke Keller (C’28)