Mwethya

For me the word of the trip so far was been Mwethya. Mwethya is the kikamba word for working together as a community on a common task and it is one of the core parts of the Utooni philosophy. Building sand dams doesn’t start when the shovels start flying or when Utooni shows up. Rather, they start when the community comes together and forms a self-help group to address their common problems.  It seems that the news of Sand Dams travels by mouth and are so popular that Utooni has a 5 year waiting list of groups that have approached them wanting to build a sand dam.  Utooni is strict about how the process works. It is not about building a sand dam as efficiently as possible. It is about the community coming together and working together to make their community a better place.   There are many wonderful things about how Utooni works but for me the real highlight has been the opportunity to see Mwethya in action.  We got to see women’s pride in having been part of building the sand dam that has dramatically reduced the distance that they have to go to get water. We came across a large group of community members digging terraces like they do every Tuesday and looking like they were having a great time while doing it. It sounded more like a social occasion than a day at work despite the fact they had been working since early in the morning.    To me, however, today was really the time the idea of Mwethya came together as our group worked together with the community group on a sand dam.  It was exciting to see hundreds of people working together passing rocks up and down hills, moving sand, shoveling cement…. There were many people from young school children to old women all coming together from their everyday lives to work for the good of their community.  I thoroughly enjoyed joining in to the line-ups and experiencing working as one to accomplish daunting tasks like moving a huge pile of rocks down the hill in a surprisingly short period of time.   It has struck me that us being here is part of the Mwethya that is already occurring.  It really feels like we are here representing all the Canadians that are concerned with the lives of Kenyans and all the people who have given money for these projects. This is a great responsibility for us and is also a great honour. It also makes me wonder what we else we can accomplish together. What could we accomplish if groups of people back home gave up one day a week for the betterment of our communities?  Where are the other places that the global community can come together in a constructive way?  And how can we make working together quite as joyful as working here?

Cara Baergen