Motioning over to the lush foothills glimmering in the distance, Kokomiano explained that, while a beautiful backdrop for many, these mountains only served as painful memories of the long journeys to find water under the heat of the sun. It wasn’t until he was fifty years old, when TSP drilled the Lengoloo well in his community, that he claims his life changed forever.

Imagine functioning off of one cup of water every day. Whether you’re studying, working, or lounging around the house, the ability to concentrate, be active, and even rest peacefully evaporates just like water in the hot Kenyan sun. For the girls at Nkaroni Girl’s School, this nightmarish scenario is their everyday reality. These inspiring young girls toil through the school year with such minimal water and a slew of other difficulties unimaginable to most in 2022.

The chorus of cheers released by the girls was loud enough to make the donkeys at the other end of the field look up. The excited yelling reverberated from Tipito Girls’ School off of Tipito Mountain, the stunning backdrop, and right back to the new school building. Pauline, the school’s principal, wiped her teary eyes as two girls stepped forward to hand Linda scissors to cut the beautiful ribbon they had hung on the door. The ribbon broke, the door swung open, and the cheering escalated as 12 brand new showers were revealed.

The countdown is on. In 8 hours from the time I write this, I will be boarding a plane from Nairobi to Doha, Qatar, and then from Doha to Boston. I still feel a state of shock as I write these words. I am actually sitting currently at a Java House (Kenyan Starbucks but better) that I was just at 8 days ago with some friends who came and visited me here in Kenya. And how the world has been turned upside down since then. Last Tuesday, I boarded a matatu from Nairobi to head to Mt Kenya to climb the tallest mountain in Kenya (and second in Africa) for both personal pleasure and as well to raise money for The Samburu Project.

In the US, the whole process of mobile money has really come onto the scene in the last 5 years, with more and more people buying smartphones and with more and more service providers upgrading themselves to be able to use this technology. But, what if I told you that there is a country which has been using a form of mobile money for almost 15 years, and all you need is a cellphone and a cell phone connection. No smartphone. No special hardware. And you guessed it, that country is Kenya. Kenya’s largest cell phone provider, Safaricom, introduced its mobile money system, called M-Pesa (m for mobile, pesa means “money” in Swahili) in 2007.

In the moment, the 3 year old child in me was so in awe of a big machine at work, that I failed to comprehend the emotion of the moment. Looking back, I realize that for the members of the community who were there to observe, the moment must have been of monumental emotion. Seeing the water explode out of the ground, like a ray of hope sent from below, showed this community that their lives would be just a bit easier.

Pole, nimepotea. Sorry, I have been lost. It’s been a while since my last blog post, and that has to do mostly with the fact that I have been incredibly busy this past month. Between traveling for work and pleasure and the festive season, I haven’t had the chance to just sit down and write.