Introduction

1)The West Has Many Distractions: Focus on That Which Is Important Not That Which Is Urgent

2) Acolyte’s fascinating post on the Dutch missionaries (It’s a three parter and it’s amazing)

The Post Begins Like This……..

Mwangi got in touch with me and asked me to do a guest post. It’s been a minute and a half since I’ve done one, so I dusted off my blogging skills and asked him what he wanted me to blog about and here it is…………

If you could offer anyone migrating over to the West one piece of advice that would make their experience worthwhile what would it be?

Well my answer would be,

“Ask yourself 3 very important questions; Why are you here? What do you want here? How do you intend to get it?”

Why are you here?

Getting to the First World country of choice isn’t an end in itself but a means to an end (Quick note from Mwangi: Hallelujah!Spot on!).

You don’t land at Gatwick, La Guardia, Schipol or Darwin International Airport and find 70 virgins and paradise waiting for you. Au contraire all you have done is gotten past the qualification laps and now the marathon awaits you!

So once again, ask yourself why you are where you are. If all you can say is that you are getting away from the conditions at home be it unemployment, poverty etc then it’s about time you went back to the drawing board and started thinking.

What do you want from your experience abroad?

I’m sure we all remember the old saying, to fail to plan is to plan to fail.

I have met Kenyans who have been out here for over 10 years and we are on the same level. I do know that bad luck happens but if you look at some people it’s obvious that they became complacent with their jobs that could pay the rent and their bills.

Once you fall into that complacence out here you simply become a cog in the machine: just moving but not going anywhere.

If you don’t know what you want you simply aren’t going to look for it. “Life out here isn’t a bed of roses,”, I agree so you have to be aggressive and look out for opportunities no matter what jaded people out here may tell you.

How do you intend to get what brought you out here?

You want the American dream?

That’s great but contrary to public opinion, money isn’t picked on the ground out here. Jobs are hard to come by for Americans let alone foreigners.

Or maybe you came out here to get your degree.

If your fees aren’t being paid; how will you afford school?

Many countries let students work for limited hours per month. Many Kenyans have found out the hard way that these jobs don’t pay enough for fees and upkeep and so hard choices have been made. It took me 3 years to get out here but in taking my time to plan, I got my Master’s degree funded and a cozy monthly allowance that helped me complete my degree in less than 2 years. Had I come out here earlier, rest assured I would still be plugging away.

More on a Personal Note

Yes I’ve gone waaaaaaaay past one piece of advice but since it’s free I might as well share. I also think that you need to have a very strong resolve if you are to make it abroad.

Society out here tends to be very individualistic and not communal like Africa; so your problems are your own; no-one else’s. Even if you have Kenyan friends out here, life gets very lonely because everyone has jobs.In fact some people have more than one so you may not see them for most of the week. Add to the fact that you don’t just drop into someone’s place to say hello unlike back home.

Last but Not Least

The most important thing you can have when you get out here is focus. There are one million and one distractions and obstacles out here.

That is why many people who get here never even get in school when they are dazzled by the things out here. That’s why you need focus and if possible get a good support group of friends who you can rely on and trust.

Anyway, I’m not trying to put anyone off but telling it like it is. With hard work and resolve, there are many opportunities available out here for those who want them. So if you are coming out here, I wish you all the best in your adventure!

Acolyte,

From My part of the world

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Part 10 of the 10 things I wish I knew before I came to Australia

This post is about questions. Who has the answers? YOU. As you go through this post, take a moment and answer as many of these questions as you can honestly. It’s not a quiz so don’t worry about being right or wrong.Hopefully these questions will be the seed that will trigger something special in your mind. We begin with the question:

What Did You Do Today That Really Mattered?

Seriously? Look back over the last 24 hours and ask yourself: ” What did I do today that will matter ten years from now? What did I do today that will make my life and the lives of my neighbors better over the next few years or decades? If you answered, nothing, be scared but don’t be terrified.

Be scared because the last 24 hours have just passed by and they will never return and you did not do all that you could to make the last 24 hours magical. Don’t be terrified because you are not alone, hell, you’re in the majority.

Distractions: There are So Ma….Boy I’m Hungry

Recently, I watched a presentation in which I learned that in a given day the typical westerner is exposed to 3000 marketing messages A DAY. That is 3000 different messages all being sent to you with the intention of taking away your time, attention and money.

Now add to that the various methods of communication. First of all, there’s the Internet, where you can spend literally hours everyday editing your Facebook profile or sending hi5 friend requests or pimping your Myspace profile using videos from Youtube. Then there’s instant forms of communication like cell phones and instant messengers.And really how much of all the stuff that gets communicated through these means really matters?

But of course we are Africans and human beings so eventually we have to meet up and talk face to face. What do we talk about? How to make this world a better place? No, but we will spend hours complaining about what’s wrong with it. How to have better relationships? No, but we will talk about other people’s business and how messed up their relationships are. No, but of course we talk about our lovely continent of Africa and how we will use all that we have learned in the West to make Mama Africa gorgeous? Hell no, instead we spend hours feeling self-important by spouting complex ideas and theories about how the continent is messed up and how we will take advantage of that to make a quick buck.

In short, if you want to live a life where you move from distraction to distraction, it is extremely easy. You can literally live from the cell phone to the gossip session to the Internet to the television and then to bed only to wake up, rinse and repeat for the rest of your life.

You Are On Your Death Bed

But if you were on your death bed would you tell your wife to make sure your hi5 profile picture shows you in the best light. Will you ask your son to make sure he records Desperate Housewives and sends you the tapes in heaven? Will you ask your best friend for gossip about the latest person who has been deported so you can meet the Grim Reaper being up to date on community gossip?

The Pareto Principle

My belief is that in life, the number of areas that truly matter are probably 10 or less ( I have never done an official count). These few, out of the many that exist are the ones that will probably reminisce about in your death bed. I believe they are:

a) Health and taking care of your body; your temple.

b) Emotional health; Creating many barriers to being unhappy and making it as easy as possible for you and everyone you encounter to be happy and have piece of mind.

c) Relationships; You, your family, your community, your country, your continent, your world. How do you relate to it? What do you mean to them? What do they mean to you? Are you a servant to humanity or a liability to society? Are you God’s gift to women or more annoying than a yeast infection? Are you a reflection of just how beautiful one person can get or are you the drama queen whose fault it never is?

d) Having a purpose in life: Why do you get out of bed? What if you had all the money in the world? What would you do then? I heard a story about a man who was the CEO of a large firm that used to buy and sell companies for 100s of millions. Eventually it came time to retire. So he had his party, had his cake and said his goodbyes. Do you know what this man did the first day of his retirement? He went to look for a job. He had no purpose. No life! He was nothing outside of his work. This story could be a good one because he had something that he was so passionate about that he couldn’t bear to live without it or sad because he never really worked on having a life outside of work. What do you think of the story? Do you want to be like him? Don’t you?Why?

Is your work your purpose? Why? Do you have more to your life than just work? I don’t want to answer these questions for you, I put them here to get you thinking.

e) Your spirit: We all know that there is something that lies beyond our understanding and controls the universe and keeps it running like a well oiled clock. How connected do you feel to your God? To your spirit? To that part of you that isn’t your body and isn’t your mind but is always there watching?

I remember a now deceased singer once said that he will not be the next revolutionary but his music will spark the mind of the next revolutionary. My hope is that this article sparks your thinking and begins a revolution within you. Never forget, millions of Africans suffered and died so you could be able to immigrate to the West and learn like the Westerners do and experience what they experience. What will you do with this great gift? Will you use it? Will you abuse it?

As I said, this post is about questions. The answers all lay with you. Anything to add? Leave a comment below or email me at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com. Until the next post

Be blessed + Bless others,

Mwas

Straight off the bat let me apologize for the vulgar language. Though I tend to use profanities in every day life that’s not what I wanted this blog to be about. Every once in a while you come across one of those expressions that just can’t be expressed in any other way.Plus it got your attention didn’t it?

But Before I Get Started

I just wanted to inform other Africans who may think that we Kenyans in the diaspora are doing nothing about the current crisis that there have been a couple of peace marches that have already taken place and I want to honour and salute them.

1) North Texas March

There are approximately 80,000 Kenyans in Dallas Texas (Wow! That’s a lot!! :-O greetings to all y’all Texans reading this). They held a March about a week ago and it made it into the Dallas Morning News. Below is a link to a blog that expounds on the matter:

http://breakingnewskenya.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/kenyans-demonstrate-in-dallas-tx/

2) Melbourne march

About a week ago there was a March right here in Melbourne. As of now all I have is hearsay and I will email the marchers to get more details. What just fascinated the socks of me was the way the Australian media reacted to the demonstrators.

A Brief Digression

I am yet to get confirmation of it but apparently the reason that the peace march wasn’t on the news down under was because they wanted an outright condemnation of the Kenyan government in order for the march to be newsworthy. The marchers refused to be hasty in their criticism, prefering to keep an open mind that says Kibaki might have and might have not rigged the elections….but either way “we want peace!” If it’s true, I guess that’s a fantastic insight into the mind of the Australian mass media.

Secondly, I emailed the Kenyan Red Cross.The public relations officer, who I share a name with, informed me that the Kenya Red Cross had facilities that allow one to make donations (oh, I just noticed it on their homepage. I’m blind, no? They even have links that allow you to become physically involved in the Red Cross; How exciting). They will be setting up Paypal shortly so stay tuned for that if that’s how you want to contribute.

So What Did I Mean By the Title?

I will begin by telling you a story.

The Famine

About…oh….maybe a year ago drought hit Kenya’s North Eastern province hard, again. There were a couple of us concerned folk in the diaspora who decided we would get together and do something about it. So we began by creating a wonderful non profit complete with tax deduction benefits for the donators. The organization had roles; we had a president, a secretary, a meeting secretary or whoever’s job it is to take notes among other absoloutely well labeled roles. The organization had a well planned distribution system: we raise money in Australia and send it to a church in Kenya that was already doing work in North Eastern Kenya. We printed out 1oos upon 100s of brochures and spent hours planning and tactically thinking about where we would distribute our material and the effect it would have.

What was the result? About thirteen dollars, or was it 100? I forget, but either way it wasn’t much. Now mind you I was probably the youngest person at the meeting so we are not talking about a bunch of zealous youths like myself. We are talking about for the most part calm, well-reasoned, sophisticated middle-agers and baby boomers. So this over zealous youth and the adults couldn’t raise more than 13 dollars (by the way the Australian dollar is the unit of currency in Australia if anyone is curious). What I want us to discuss is where I think I, and the group, went wrong and ways you can avoid the pitfalls we did as you go about serving Kenya at this time:

Why are You In This Game?

1) We didn’t spend enough time discussing WHY we were doing it. Solution: Whenever you set out to do something get very strongly associated to the emotional reason YOU want to do it. Truth be told I never truly had a clear idea of why I was part of the group. I suspect the group was also not clear on why we were doing what we were doing.Were we doing it to assuage our guilt by temporarily ending the extreme suffering? (Even if you’re reason isn’t pretty be clear about it, if you don’t like it, find a reason that is more in line with your consscience.) Were we doing this because it was the right thing to do and we wanted to feel like good people? Whatever the payoff is for you and for whatever organization you are a part of , be very clear on it.

What’s the Solution? Not Just the Problem, the Solution?

2) We didn’t have a clear vision of the future we wanted to create .Solution: Whenever you set out to solve a problem, be extremely clear on what solution YOU will bring about. For those of you who have studied transformational psychology or the psychology change you are pretty well rehearsed in this idea. Spend 20% of your time fully understanding what the problem you are trying to solve is and then once you fully understand the problem (or feel you have an alright grip of it), spend 80% of your time on the solution. Did we want to create endless food abundance in Kenya forever? Did we want to be the source of food for the North Eastern region through the famine? Before you engage in any endevour to improve the lives of people be as clear as you can about what you want their lives to be like after you enter their universe. Do you want to take Kenya to a place where the vote counts? Do you want a Kenya where all children have unlimited protection and ability to self-actualize? Do you want all these things?BE CLEAR.

Begin with the end in Mind

3) To paraphrase the great business thinker Dr. Stephen Covey, Begin with the end in mind. From there backwards engineer figuring out what steps will get you and the people you serve from where you are to where you want to be (or rather where you’re going to be). These backward engineered steps, written down are pretty much your plan. A couple of things that can really make the plan great:

a) Put deadlines: Without deadlines there is more likelihood we will slack off or postpone to infinity. We set up and regularly check on our deadlines-I don’t like the term it’s so negative, anyone have any alternatives?-and it’s more likely we’ll get things done.

b) Be flexible in your approach BUT NOT in terms of what you want to achieve: Be willing to change your approach until you get to the destination but do not change your destination. If you want to ensure that children have universal access to joy and happiness then:

Start orphanages, review the education system, take in orphans, lobby and get child laws changed, work with non profits that work on children’s issues……whatever it takes. Don’t be too attached to the way you’ll get there but if I may make only one suggestion in the midst of this rant that you take on, it is be flexible in approach but not about what you want to achieve.

Make it Easier For Yourself

4) Break it down to little steps: I cannot emphasize this one enough. This is particularly important when you are doing something that serves other people. I am inclined to believe that we are predominantly selfish beings who find it pretty easy to do things that we like and things that bring us pleasure especially in the short term. However for a lot of us, engaging in a concentrated effort to bring pleasure to other people feels unnatural and difficult. This is the reason that as you backward engineer your plan, you should break it down to the smallest steps possible. Break your plan down into microsteps with deadlines that are vey close to each other. This way you conquer the mountain ‘one step at a time’ rather than CONQUERING A HHUUUGGGEE MOUNTAIN over a reeeaaalllyyyy llloooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg timeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! In the example of the famine initiative, we could have broken it down to everyone distributing a couple of brochures with our details to two friends and acquantances every day for a week. The second week we could begin leaving one of our group’s posters in a public place-like display boards, telephone poles etc etc- daily. Typically, at some point the power of momentum takes over and it slowly becomes easier to work harder as we go along taking bite size steps.

Take Time to Reflect

4) Daily reflection and review of the goal: The famine project had weekly reviews;I am suggesting that we review and reflect on how close we are to our objectives every morning after waking up. This has really revolutionized my life in terms of what I notice in my day to day life . At the moment my primary interests are health and nutrition, business and personal development. Every morning when I wake up my focus almost immediately switches on to what I want to achieve in these areas. When I walk down the street with my cousin, my cousin will notice that someone is driving a car with great rims and go off on a tangent about how he wants rims like that. I will notice the protein shake in the passenger seat and begin to reflect ( I bore my family to tears when I discuss my interests) on whether he is using dairy products and whether dairy is good for you and what whey is made of etc etc. This is all because every morning that I wake up I am CLEAR about what I want to achieve in this world. So focus daily on how you want to serve and watch yourself notice things you never noticed before……. and by the way if you achieve your deadline, as soon as you do celebrate and have a party!

Clarity is Power

When you live in a country like Australia, it is extremely easy to get distracted. In the US, people are exposed to 10,000 commercial messages a day, and I know Australia isn’t trailing by too far behind.That’s not even mentioning television shows, music among other things. I would urge you to cut through the muck of distractions and keep your focus clear on what gift you have that you can share with Kenya at this time.

I have said this before and I will say this again,” Live by the Pareto Principle.”Clearly focus and be about the 20% of things in life that will bring about 80% of the results. And ultimately what it is more important than serving our fellow man, though we may forget that from time to time.

Half-a** is better than no a**

For those of you who may be wondering, “What does this post have to do with the title?” Simply put, if your heart is in the right place and you are coming from a place of genuinely wanting to serve other people, doing anything, even though it’s a half-hearted, weak attempt is much better than doing nothing at all.

Don’t worry about getting the perfect grandiose plan that will end world hunger and bring justice, peace and understanding to the entire universe.Just one person you save from hunger, sadness, depression, poverty and fear is better than serving no one in the first place.

Tomorrow, I share with you what I have learned from communications I have had with my fellow Kenyans including DEMOSH, a photographer from Kenya who has been right there in Kenya on the ground in the midst of the action (please check out his pictures by clicking on this link).

Hope this has served; leave me a comment and let me know how this article has helped you, anything I have missed or any random thought that pops in your head as you read this.

Be blessed,

Mwangi