Blog 4. Olapa Launch

Mornings and evenings are like rush hour in areas where wild life in Africa is able to roam freely. Animals that stay awake all night are going to sleep, while others, those who just woke up, are on their way out. That is why we were able to say good morning to many elephants, colourful birds and zebras, and good night to a staring hyena while driving by in the morning. At one point we stood standstill for almost five minutes. Not due to a traffic jam. No, it was a herd of impalas that flew by in front of our car - one after the other - just like they belonged to a ballerina group that were training their “Jeté” or “ballet leap”. I didn’t know some antelopes could jump that high for that long!

Luckily we had time to pick up the box carrying the t-shirts before heading out. Shirts that were supposed to have arrived the evening before, but instead kept me awake at night worrying. All was produced in only three and half days.  A sketch was sent over to my friend Sara in Madrid, who shortly returned it back in the form of a professional logo of the Olapa Project. The shirts were later printed in Nairobi and arrived in the last moment, only minutes before we had to leave to make it in time. As the hostess, I couldn’t be late.

Some weeks earlier Jacob had introduced me to another Sara, his sister, who is addressed honorable. She happens to be the Member of the Parliament of Laikipia County, the area where we are starting our project. Having government approval is important and necessary, and she didn’t let us down; she promised to give the project her full support. Sara also demonstrated, like so many other empowered African women I have met, to be one of the strongest and most confident women I have met.

As we drove over a flat empty savannah area to the community centre, I saw Jacobs Land-Rover behind some few mud houses. A short distance away stood several Acacia trees. They were planted like they followed the new Covid-19 laws of distance. Only that this species grow this way naturally, each allowing the other to spread its branches freely, almost like wings. We also saw people. Not the hundred that we had invited, but many more. A rumor must have spread about a launch of something new, something that might bring change. But perhaps they didn’t only come out of curiosity; perhaps it was also about a possible launch-lunch (we did slaughter three goats and served potatoes and rice after the event).

The word launch is often used for sending something off in a catapulting and dramatic way, like a rocket. But we wanted instead to inform and set our project in motion. More like a fleet of sailing boats with determined directions and goals. That will, if all goes after plan, like any kind of movement, spread from one area and village and county to another, until we reach Kenya’s northern boarder with Ethiopia.

As I came closer I noticed that the women and men were sitting apart under the trees. The younger and elder women were divided further by age span. The men were organized the same way. Now I remembered that the Maasai and Samburu tribe divide themselves into groups. But I didn’t have time to think more about gender roles before we heard a loud noise in the sky. To every ones surprise we saw a small-four-seated helicopter landing some 100 meters away.

Four white people stepped out. They looked like they were starring in a modern version of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford’s movie Out of Africa. The super-cool-in-looks-and-all newcomers were the guests of honour. The couple from NY (I had googled that one is a filmmaker) and their teenage daughter, were spending their holiday in Kenya. The pilot turned out to be a white Kenyan from the area, he knew Jacob well.

And it just happened that the Americans spent their vacation in this exact same area where we are working. And they had coincidentally, just like things fall into place at the right time at times, contacted me some weeks earlier asking if we could meet. They wanted to learn more about menstrual cup projects. To ensure their attendance we adjusted the date of the launch after their availability.

And they arrived right on time. After short greetings and introductions we were asked to take our place, the event was about to start. We were showed to a tree standing in the front and middle. The branches covered some empty plastic chairs and four traditional low wooden stools. The stools have a special meaning in the Samburu and Maasai culture. Only older men can sit and own them. Younger men aren’t allowed and absolutely no woman. The thought is apparently so remote that Jacob laughed when I asked about it. But this was a special day and we had special visitors; the mini-throne-stools were brought to honor our guests. I was sitting on one too.

The Elders and Jacob had planned the event. I thought it might involve traditional African dances, the ones you see in movies. But instead it became a real information and awareness meeting. One person after another spoke. Jacobs’s sister, the honourable Sara, couldn’t make it but sent a representative. Someone from the Ministry of Health was there also. And two persons from each age and gender group from the area. All that was said was translated simultaneously into English so our guests and I would understand.

Jacob spoke long in the beginning introducing our project and I said something briefly at the end. The event was planned to be short, less than an hour, but turned out to last more than two hours. Luckily the trees cast dense shadows. But they couldn’t protect us from the rising temperature that grows higher by the minute around noon and areas that are close to the equator.

I had seen it before in Kenya. When given a chance to speak many take the opportunity in an almost desperate way ending up speaking too long. The meeting of awareness to inform about the Olapa project, menstrual cups and the support program for adolescents became a meeting of mutual sharing. And both the women and men from the area demonstrated gratitude and interest for our project. But they also spoke at length about their other desperate and dire needs and challenges (like the water shortage, see blog 3, and the high level of poverty).

And I get it, children and adults in this area suffer, struggle and all too many die unnecessarily, deaths that are easily avoidable. And we humans are wired to fight for our survival. The persons who spoke didn’t share light sentiments. Like warriors they stood up and spoke to protect, improve and save their families and children’s lives. And if there is something I have learned from working with aid for more than 10 years: getting out of poverty is extremely hard - and I want to push on the word extremely once more - and it has little to nothing to do with talent or will.

When I later wrote and thanked our American guests for coming I remembered the first time my two daughters visited Kenya a decade ago. They were eight and ten years old at the time. We had just visited one school distributing old toys from classmates in Sweden and had finalized another meeting at a local ghetto radio station in another informal settlement, when I noticed how my youngest one was getting really tired. Both of them were getting too much attention – like they were real super-pop-stars with people gathering and pushing around our car, showing how rare it is that white children spend time in these areas. But of course, being in such a different world for the first time is also tiring; I wanted to call it a day.

But it was then our host said something that I have never forgotten. He begged us to go as planned to a school with aids orphans. I agreed after understanding what a difference it could mean. That it might give some of the young children hope. And this is what I wrote to our guests of honour after the launch of the Olapa project, when thanking them for taking time to attend and listen so attentively to all who spoke. By doing this they showed that people from as far as the other side of the world cared.

I will never forget one of the speakers. He was about 80 years old or perhaps more. Even if he was skinny and wrinkled like most old persons there was something special about him; he looked like he had a great sense of humour and style. I think it was how he moved. Like a demonstration of the theory - or is it a fact – that humans communicate 25 % with words and the rest through body language. And if we also communicate with how we are dressed this contributed; the man wore his old clothes elegantly with the traditional scarf wrapped around his shoulders while swinging his traditional stick.  

He also communicated memorably about his life. How he had seen airplanes and helicopters fly by high up in the sky ever since he was a little boy, and that they had always seemed unreachable and untouchable. Like symbols of dreams and different worlds. And that today was the first time one had landed close by. And not only had it landed right here, but also, the people inside had come to meet him and his people. He was grateful. 

Later as Jacob and me were waiving our goodbye′s to our guests and the helicopters – another one had joined during the launch – we agreed that the event had been a success and we were happy. The Olapa project is now officially launched after being bounced off in a soft-and-steady-slow-determined kind of motion: Laikipia North, here we come!  Merry Christmas.