I started noticing dry grass as far as Thika, wondering how Mwangi looks like which was rumored as the deepest part of Kitui county. I arrived into the community scared, anxious, tired and more so lonely after being dropped at a stranger’s house as my host family. The smiles on their faces and the hugs made me feel home away from home, I forgot about the hot sun I have this habit of talking to myself and even to the extent of questioning and arguing with myself, so, this day I told me, “Cynthia this is your community, God chose these people for you, you will do it scared but grow stronger day by day just get out of your comfort zone!”. At dinner, I broke the silence with my endless questions, they even started laughing and asking if I didn’t trust the community after answering countless questions.

The first day of deployment is over now what? It’s time to do this. Only one word in my mind, ‘watindata’ a greeting used in the after morning.  When you greet people in the village there is a way, they know this is a stranger. They will murmur and smile at you suspiciously. The homesteads are very far from each I wondered if they knew each other.  I started with making one friend a day, soon they got used to me, I became them, I called the elderly mum and dad. The little children gave me a name ‘Mutanu’ which means a happy person. The groups started calling me Mwalimu. We shared meals and laughter, we cried together in sadness I became family. Before I knew it the integration month ended. I love my community one thing they rarely do is ask me what CorpsAfrica is giving them, should I be worried? Or maybe it is not yet time to ask the question or maybe it is by the grace of God they will never ask the question. The problem is the rising number of marriage proposals I am getting. I tell them let’s see how it goes after my service, I might take one of their girls with me to Busia and we all laugh and forget about the topic. Simple! One secret I learnt about integration is to not know anything even if you know tell them you don’t, they find joy in teaching you and seeing you learn day by day.