It’s a crisp Mathare morning, a huge sun just beginning to peak over the canopy of corrugated iron rooves that spring up densely along both sides of the river. Benga music drifts from the roadside chipati and mandazi stalls opening up for the day, and from the chang’aa dens that have been open all night. Matatu’s hurtle past on their way to Juja Road, trying to beat the morning rush that will inevitably bring the main route into the city to almost a complete standstill. ‘General’ calls a voice to our left, a man in his late 30s making the most of the morning’s fresh batch of Mandazi. ‘Yo, man’ replies Osalla, giving me a reassuring glance as he smacks the man’s shoulder jovially. Osalla is also in his late 30s. He is not tall, but he exudes confidence. A large panga scar cuts from just below his right eye, all the way down to his chin. He has agreed to act as security so that I can film outside of the school itself. When I am with him, nobody will try anything. I ask him why everyone calls him ‘General’, ‘because I led a militia during the big war in 2007’ he says. He asks me why I have a dark filter on the end of my camera lens, 'so that I continue shooting at 1/120 even when it is very bright', I respond. He thinks about it, and suggests a camera angle he thinks would look good, I shoot it, it is good. Beyond filming, the mornings I spent around Mathare with Osalla were characterised by what I can only really describe as a genuine curiosity about one another’s worlds. He would quiz me constantly about life in Scotland, about the weather and my studies, in return I would try to learn everything I could from him about the informal settlement around me, by now characterised much more by its close-knit community and intricate web of connections than by its poverty or lack of infrastructure.
I have grown up with a story my mum told me about when she first arrived in Nairobi, around my age. A then considerably younger, Dr Wanjiku Kironyo took her to the side and told her that while she was there to volunteer at a the recently established Maji Mazuri children’s home, she was to be under no illusion that she was there to teach. She was there to learn, from Wanjiku, from the staff, and most of all from the residents of the home.
This was 30 years ago, and a lot has changed in the world since then. My mum, and Mama Wanjiku, as she is affectionately called, have aged. Kenya has changed presidents 3 times and the population of Mathare Valley has skyrocketed. I am pleased to say, however, that this central principle of learning that guided my mum during her time in Kenya, has not left Maji Mazuri. I was even more heartened when I looked up what ‘global outlook’ actually meant, to find that it was just this. The idea that anybody, no matter who they are or where they are from, could teach you something.
In some ways, I find the distinction that this is somehow ‘global’, and the focus on learning from people in other parts of the world, somewhat redundant. As I sit here writing this, I am listening in to a trainee barista learning how to make a cortado, which I now know combines equal parts espresso and thinly steamed milk. My point, if it needs clarifying, is that you don’t have to be in an international setting to learn from day-to-day life. Sure, the rate of learning when you are in an unfamiliar environment is going to be higher, there is simply more you need to learn, but the differentiation between having a ‘global outlook’ and simply being constantly open to learning is, for me, a false dichotomy.
I suppose in many ways, having completed my summer one research in the Department of Social Anthropology, my entire Laidlaw experience has centred around learning from the day-to-day. Anthropology is, after all, a practice whose core research method – participant observation – centres, as the name suggests, on living and observing.
Applied to leadership, constant reflection and learning is one of the many skills I have reinforced throughout the Laidlaw period. As we were told repeatedly over the course of the Oxford Character Project, leadership, and indeed character, is ultimately about balance. Character traits can be a curse both if they are too strong or too weak and constant reflection and adjustment is needed to keep them at a happy medium.
Much like Osalla taught me, the Laidlaw programme, for me, has been marked by the idea of compassionate leadership. Compassion, I have learned, can take many different forms. For Osalla - protecting his community from a constant onslaught of politically motivated violence - compassion meant beating his enemies to within an inch of their lives and then sparing them. He told me that everyone deserved a second chance, and showing mercy to his enemies was the only way to end vicious cycles of revenge. For me, having the privilege of the situation I find myself in, compassionate leadership can take a much gentler form. It can mean constantly striving to understand what drives those around you. Not pushing them on hard issues when they are vulnerable, but approaching problems maturely when they are comfortable. International or not, it is impossible to know exactly what experiences lead a person to the point they are at, so we can only strive to be constantly curious about other’s realities.
So, what is next? I’m not going to pretend I’m launching into a life of selfless service for others; indeed, I am always slightly suspicious of anyone who claims to be driven by such performative altruism. Whatever I end up doing, however, I plan to carry forward the lessons I have learned over the last two years. To lead by example, to remain constantly curious about those around me, to work on whatever I do to the best of my ability and to centre compassion in all my relationships.