Host: Jon Goode
Jon: [00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Jon Goode. This week we have a story from The Moth's Global Program about home and how complicated that word can be.
For me personally, for most of my life, home was Richmond, Virginia, and more specifically, the house I grew up in on the south side of Richmond. That was home. Then at some point I realized that actually what home was for me was my mother. Wherever my mother was, that was home. Then I got a bit older, graduated high school, went off to college and college felt a lot like home. My dorm room, the friends I'd made, the community I'd created felt like home to me. Graduated college, moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Home with the lemon pepper wings, all flats fried hard. And Atlanta felt like home. Lemon pepper wings always feel like home.
I met a very nice young lady. We got married, and she became home. Wherever she was, was home for me. The marriage did not work out [chuckles] as half of marriages in America do not. And then, I discovered the most important thing, that actually home was wherever I was, that the most consistent thing in all of these places I considered home was me. And if I could just accept that I was home, then I could never lose home again.
Our story this week is from Andrew Mude. Andrew told this story at a global community showcase in partnership with the Aspen Institute's New Voices Fellowship. The theme that night in Washington, D.C. was Frontlines. Here's Andrew, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Andrew: [00:01:56] It was a hot, but breezy morning in mid-January of 2010. We were in Marsabit Town, a small, dusty mountain oasis amidst the sprawling arid rangelands of Marsabit District in northern Kenya. We were in a church that was filled to the rafters with local leaders and curious community members who must have heard from the radio or the well-oiled grapevine that there was a livestock insurance program that was about to be launched, and that it would be graced by dignitaries that are quite rare in this remote rural town. Up on the podium in the front of the church were the VIPs. There was the Minister of Livestock, the local Member of Parliament, the Director General of my Home Institute, the CEO of an insurance company and a couple others waiting to make their remarks.
My team and I sat on the front row in honor for spearheading the research and development program that gave rise to this livestock insurance initiative. But we had done our work, and so we're sitting back and waiting for the show to carry on. I'd already started daydreaming about the after-party my colleagues and I had set up. We would go and pat ourselves on the back, exhale, have a good time, and the next morning we'd pack our bags and head back to the city, Nairobi. On the mic was the CEO of Kenya's fastest-growing bank and the agent, the agent for the insurance product. He was a master of ceremony. And so, he launches right into the event.
“Welcome,” he says, "I'm very excited to be here in front of you to bring for you this product that we believe is going to solve some of the main challenges that you have as a community. We know here that livestock is so important for you. It's the main source of nutrition for your kids, it's the main source of income for school and many of your other needs. But we know that year after year you live in fear of the regular droughts that come and wipe away this asset and you have to start all over again. And so, with this livestock insurance program, we'll give you a chance to be compensated when you have this loss to help you get up and recover quite quickly."
“But more,” he says, "I am proud because this product that I'm bringing is a product that was designed and developed by a son of this area. Andrew," he looks over to me, "Please come on stage and welcome the community and explain to them in local language what it is that you have brought to them." Local language? [audience laughter] Someone must have told the CEO that I was from Marsabit, but they forgot a crucial fact that I didn't know the local language. I hadn't grown up there, but my parents were born in Marsabit, both of them. They grew up there, but they were fortunate to be amongst the first to be schooled in the area by missionaries when schooling was still a novel concept. They were actually the first boy and girl in the area to finish high school and they moved to Nairobi, they went to college, they fell in love, got married, got jobs, had kids, the typical middle-class trajectory.
And then my dad, he became a diplomat. At the age of nine, we left the country. And for the next decade, we traveled four different countries across four different continents. I graduated high school when we were at the United Arab Emirates, and then I came here to the United States, actually attended Gettysburg College not far from here. When I graduated there, I moved to upstate New York, Cornell University, where I got my PhD, and then I was done. I was tired of all this moving and migrating. I was tired of not having a place in which I had memories that spanned for more than a couple of years amongst familiar people in the same place.
And so, I decided it was time to move back to Nairobi. I was lucky, because I got a job as a junior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute. It was great because my dad had just retired, they had moved back, most of my siblings were in Nairobi. So, it was great as a place to go back and really put down my roots. I went back and this crazy thing happens. The first assignment I get leads me right to the heartland of my roots, to Marsabit town. I was excited to go and that it was temporary, because Marsabit is harsh, harsh country. It's far, difficult to get to, infrastructure deficient, not many roads, if any. And the population, the livestock herding population that’s there, they spend many weeks of a year traveling long distances in search of water and forage for their livestock.
Well, I would have to track them as a researcher to understand what their challenges were. But I was excited. I was young, I was adventurous and really this gave me an opportunity to go back to my roots, to learn where we came from and where my parents grew up and got reacquainted with my relatives. And now, here I am in the church, a day that's supposed to be triumphant and my vulnerability is exposed. In this part of the world, ethnicity and its language is a really fundamental part of identity. It is how you break the ice, how you tell stories, how you get deep. And here I am trying to reconnect, trying to get back to my roots, and I'm lacking this critical source of legitimacy and this key to people's hearts.
And so, I'm getting close to the microphone. All of a sudden, the heat, it's like the breeze that was previously flowing in through the rafters had abandoned me [audience laughter] or had paused, waiting to see what would happen. And not blessed with any hair on my head, [audience laughter] I really had nothing to hold back the rapidly gathering sweat on my temple. [audience laughter] I'm at the mic and I've grabbed it. I have to think of something to say. "Dado," I say. "Dado," the community responds. I relax a bit, because in this part of the country, the greetings are a series of answer-response pairs. So, at least I know I can engage the crowd. [audience laughter]
"Babaro," I say. "Babaro," they respond. “Dagini sambad badad que sambad.” And that's it. [audience laughter] That's all I know. And then, silence. An extended silence, a bit of muttering in the crowd. And so, finally, I have to fess up. "Sorry," I say. "I hope you allow me to address you in English. You know, the members of this community that migrate, my parents also migrated in search of opportunity. But they went a bit too far, crossing the oceans and the mountains. [audience laughter] And in the process, we did lose some things. As you can see, I lost the language. But at least, we didn't lose the way back home. And in coming home, I have brought you something that I hope at least will compensate for the loss in language."
As I looked out to the church, the congregation, and I could see some of my aunts and aunties amongst the community members, the dignitaries, my team, I felt myself reaching out for a source of identity that was beyond language. I found myself really wanting to communicate to them how valuable their lives were to me and how important their welfare was. And so, without really realizing it or understanding what the implications were, I made a promise to commit to them, and I said, "You know, this thing we bring to you, I'll keep coming back and we'll make sure that it makes the difference that we think it will and we'll learn more about you and understand your issues, so that we can better the products we bring to your service."
Now, about eight years later, I can say that I've been going back to Marsabit quite regularly, a lot more regularly than I'd ever imagined. Marsabit ended up becoming the anchor or the laboratory of my work, my team's work. The people, the pastoralist herders, became the focal point of our work. On that day at the church meant a difference to me. I think it made me a more impactful scientist, because I became more intimately involved with the community that was my focus. And more than that, I think I can now say with confidence and with pride that I have a place I can call home.
[cheers and applause]
Jon: [00:11:34] That was Andrew Mude. Andrew has nearly 15 years of experience as a scientist, program manager and practitioner in development economics. Andrew currently works at the African Development Bank, where he continues to build technology and financial systems to create real change to agriculture in Africa. Andrew was also the 2016 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, which recognizes exceptional science-based achievements in international agriculture and food production by an individual under 40.
We followed up with Andrew to hear about the years since his story. Here's Andrew.
Andrew: [00:12:17] So, my story was set about 10 years ago now. And so much has
happened since that hot January morning in northern Kenya. While I still have a way to go before I can claim command of the language, my sense of identity is more certain in my engagement with the community, more familial and at ease. Certainly, my work is much more impact-oriented and people-centered than I believe it otherwise would have been. So, perhaps, that's why I was comfortable in finally moving further afield almost 12 years after I settled back home in Kenya. I guess once a nomad, always a nomad.
So, together with my wife and two kids, we now live in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, where we moved in January 2019, so I could take up a position at the African Development Bank. My passion remains, and I believe will always remain, in agriculture. So, 10 years hence, I hope to have plenty more stories of community impact and transformation to share.
Jon: [00:13:24] That was Andrew Mude. You can learn more about The Moth's Global Program on our website, themoth.org/global-community.
That's all for this week. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Julia: [00:13:43] Jon Goode is the regular host of The Moth StorySLAM in Atlanta, and an Emmy-nominated writer raised in Richmond, Virginia. Jon's debut novel, Midas, is available now wherever you purchase your books.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell, with Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and recording help from Tiffany Goode. Andrew Mude's story was directed by Larry Rosen.
The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.