Returning to Kenya has been a blessing. There is no way to adequately describe the beauty of the flowering trees, the juiciness of the tropical fruit, the majesty of the Maasai Mara, the thick heat of Mombasa, or the hospitality and kindness of the friends we have made. This is my second time to Kenya with a group of Hollins University students. Unlike my wide-eyed experience in 2024, familiarity bred more confidence and capacity to take in more of the stories, language, politics, and culture. I’m becoming better at bargaining, more adventurous in my tastes, and more capable of code-switching between American Lindsey and Kenyan Mwende (meaning “beloved” among the Kamba people, given to me in a special birth ceremony honoring the Kenyatta-Hollins partnership and the company I keep).
Mwende savors hot milk tea (chai) and mandazi in the morning. She relishes the relaxed pace of “Kenyan time,” which grants time to watch the vitality of the skate park in central Nairobi and the serenity of relaxing by water to watch cows, or even hippos, stroll past. She is sometimes quite passive though and mothers students in ways Lindsey would resist, but Mwende remains ever-caring and ever-flexible. Lindsey, on the other hand, skips meals, talks and thinks fast, and insists on independence and intellectual authority. She finds value in workaholism and high achievement, but can be burnt out by a competitive nature and the temptation of nihilism. However, she is also insistent on translating theory to practice, on naming moments and actions that may be small but show our collective humanity, and on leading with joy.
Just as I have been able to sit with the duality of my own identity during this trip, I have also confronted the doubles of Kenya. There is a palpable care for and commitment to the empowerment of the poor and marginalized gender, ethnic, refugee, and religious groups. Healthcare is a human right; diversity and equity are centered in ways the US has scorned; and international cooperation undergirds infrastructure and development projects across the country (including our own project emphasizing handwashing and WaSH efforts).
But there are also less alluring aspects of that tongue-tie me or lead me feeling desperately sad. Poverty, corruption, and resource in-access or depletion mark many citizens’ lives. Women begged for money at the markets to support the well-being and educations of their children. Girls and women remain associated with the domestic with social value defined by marriage and reproduction. This was so even for our PhD-holding partners at Kenyatta (all but one of whom are women and several of whom have reached high into the echelons of the university) and in high levels of government. As with Americans, Kenyan women must navigate a harsh landscape for reproductive and human rights in a world not always compassionate to one’s circumstances. Domestic violence has been justified by many women and men as a means of disciplining bad behavior (though fortunately national statistics show that sentiment is dying off among the younger generations). Family planning services and “child spacing” guidance are luxuries if you can access free or cheap clinic visits, contraception, and pre- and postnatal care. Female genital mutilation, or female circumcision, while outlawed, is still happening. And in my experience as a teacher-scholar in Kenya, despite a “culture of silence” around gender-based violence, “I once was raped,” is not an uncommon response from women if you mention you study or teach about gender issues.
None of this is unique to Kenya. To use a phrase I saw in some Nairobi advertisements, we are “same same, but different.” And despite the social realities above, I feel I’ve learned more about community-building and women’s solidarity in Kenya than anywhere else. We were ushered by, served by, taught by, cared for by, and protected by women who earnestly brought us into their families and homes. The women and men working in reproductive health clinics have developed effective means of public health monitoring and advocacy; have been reporting and prosecuting gender-based violence in greater numbers; and have made leaps and bounds in destigmatizing rape, postpartum depression, childlessness, and mental disability. They do everything from volunteer mobilization to maternity training to smartphone app development for emergency services. It was also primarily women who were the working the schools, clinics, NGOs, slums, [groups of 10 houses], and government offices to ensure access to basic human needs. They have become mothers to many.
We all live negotiated moments and across dualities in some way. Such fracturing can be a burden and a gift. Gloria Anzaldúa understood this, writing in Borderlands/La Frontera of those who inhabit in-between spaces, who must create home not in one fixed place or one sense of self but in the very act of straddling worlds. In our studies, the Hollins group has lived as observers and participants, foreign interlopers and welcome guests. We have also witnessed it in our nations themselves— stunning progress alongside persistent struggles, legislative victories shadowed by lived inequalities, women simultaneously constrained and extraordinarily powerful.
Perhaps the best lesson I can share from my time in Kenya, then, is not to attempt to resolve all ambiguities. Rather, honor the complexity they reveal. Living with duality means refusing easy narratives. It means holding space for both grief and gratitude, for critique and celebration, for the ways we are "same same, but different." It means sharpening our vision, deepening our compassion, and remembering that wholeness might not mean singularity, but the courageous integration of all we are and all we witness.
So let me thank all of our friends in Kenya for bringing us into the fold with love and giving us the opportunity to learn, reflect, and realize our multiplicative selves.