It was a great time when we had a break from the community as we attended our first In-service Training (IST 1) which focused on building our capacity to facilitate project identification and develop project proposals with the community members. After the training, I left the appealing training venue with fear and grief, not because I was afraid of resuming my community life nor because I was leaving good food and a comfortable sleeping room, no. Rather, I was failing to figure out how the whole process would go with community members in vernacular language.

It has been a roller coaster ride working with my community members in identifying a project and developing our project proposal together. A week after IST 1, I met with my community members and I facilitated a meeting on project identification which was for the whole community. We did the meeting at our main community meeting venue, under some trees on the ground which is also used as a court for the community. How will I be in the meeting and the tree at the same time? I wondered when I recalled that as a facilitator I have to be both in the meeting and the Mango tree.

I have facilitated most of the meetings we have had, and this has made me understand better the idea of “The Meeting and the Mango Tree”. Sometimes I am in the meeting by presenting some ideas and listening to the ideas of participants, and at the same moment, I get into the tree by observing how everyone participated and then get back to the meeting to ensure that everyone is actively participating accordingly. This has been interesting to me because I am in continuous motion without actually climbing up the tree, even when the meeting venue is not under a tree but I still find myself in an imaginary tree observing how participants are participating in the meeting. 

All in all, I am happy to witness that it is possible to work outside of our comfort zone and develop our communities by starting with what we have, like using community grounds for meetings. Though we had challenges during rainy days in doing our meetings under a tree due to a lack of shelters for conducting meetings we went through the process. During the rainy days, a member of the team found some shelter for us at her Church after one started getting wet one day. I also appreciate the discipline that the community members have been showing by not disturbing our meetings when passing by.

Being the fresh maize and pumpkin season, after getting overwhelmed with climbing up and down the meeting tree, my friends and family in the community always organized some maintenance. “Let us cook and eat pumpkins together, and the Volunteer should come and join us!!!“. This community makes me feel at home.