When I first arrived in the community, I thought I knew what change looked like. But the truth is, I’m learning that the real shift happens not in the solutions we bring, but in the way we see and engage with the world around us.

In the past few months, I’ve gathered more than just stories or milestones; I’ve gained a new way of seeing.

I’ve learned that patience is not something you simply bring into a room; it’s something you build together with others. When I fumbled through my first community trainings, it was not the diagrams or manuals that bridged the gap, it was laughter, pauses, the shared silences, and hands quietly steadying mine when I faltered. The kind of learning that leaves fingerprints, not bullet points.

I’ve learned that leadership is not a sharp voice giving instructions, but a soft hand sketching possibilities. Sitting at a mud-walled committee meeting with village elders, scratching ideas into torn exercise books, has been the real strategy session. Stakeholder engagement isn’t an event; it’s trust woven one fibre at a time, sometimes stretched thin, sometimes patched up when it almost tears.

I’ve learned that resource mobilization isn’t about clever pitches, but about carrying people’s hopes carefully in your voice when you ask. Every call made to a partner, every WhatsApp follow-up, every footstep into a dusty office downtown carried the dreams of a village tucked carefully into my hands. The gravity of that cannot be taught; you have to feel it.

I’ve learned that community development is not a race to erect monuments but a slow faith in seeds you may never see blossom fully. The real report is the one written quietly in how people sit taller at meetings, speak with more certainty, and claim their ideas as their own.

And perhaps most surprisingly, I’ve learned that being alone is not the same as being lonely. In the quiet hours between field visits, in the evenings spent journaling beside a flickering candle lamp, with the numerous backouts, in the endless walks along dusty tracks, you come to meet yourself, the parts you hid in busyness, the strengths you didn’t know you were forging.

Three months remain.

I am not walking away with a list of things I “did.” I am walking forward with lessons etched under my skin.

I’ve learned to stand on shaky ground with steady hands. To design solutions with, not for, a community. To move quietly, even when the temptation is to make noise. To respect the slow, necessary work of building, failing, rethinking, and building again.

There are still trainings to complete, resources to marshal, and a project to see born. But already, I know this:

I was not just sent to deliver change. I was sent to be changed.

And for that, I remain grateful and determined.