Kewa hapo, kewa sasa: Be here, be present

Kewa hapo, kewa sasa, popote ulipo, kewa hapo

Be here, be present. wherever you are, be there.

Those are the words etched in the travel journals given to us by our trip leaders, Meg and Josh. And those are the words that opened up OG’s first ever Gender and Human Rights program.

I’ve been with OG now for almost a year and as one of the very few staff who has never actually been on any of our programs, I’m filled with a sense of great anticipation, nervousness, and excitement. My journey with OG has been a constant unfolding throughout the year and I find myself with a number of questions: Will I be impacted in the same way our participants have been? What new things will I learn about development, travel and tourism, and ultimately, myself? How will this change my perspective of an organization I’ve come to love and admire so much? It’s an odd position to be in: to know the inner workings of OG so well and to know what to expect from these programs and yet, to know nothing at all. You can’t ever really predict what happens on the road anyway.

Three days in and I find myself viewing this experience from the point of view of a participant, a trip leader (from the bits of training I picked up during our trip leader retreat), and of course, as my usual OG role of Communications Coordinator. My mind is always on the go and it’s going to be quite the ride to have all these perspectives floating around somewhere in the back on my head.

But as the lovely and always wise Jo Sorrentino emailed me this morning, “there are a million perspectives, but Justine is #1. Don’t get caught in analysis paralysis”.

Kewa hapo, kewa sasa. Be here, be present.