The IDinsight Africa Summit took place in late November in Chisamba, Zambia.
The Changing Tires Summit took place on the four days immediately following, in Mutinondo, Zambia. We sat around fires eating ravenously out of the same dish. We had our collective breath taken away, again, by the stars. We hiked up the smooth rock hills and saw the green stretching as far as we could see in every direction.
This job and this life, which are closely intertwined, have seemed to pass through distinct phases for us. Phase one was the early heady days in Lusaka, when we were all together, new, bursting with energy, exploring the country. Phase two began when some of us left Lusaka, and consisted of each of us grappling with life either in a new place, or in the same place with new people. Phase three appears to be starting up around now; and to be bringing with it new projects and work travel, increased responsibility, and a growing need to look ahead to the next step. Each phase has seemed to come just a bit too early, before we were quite ready, which of course means that each came at just the right time, before we plateaued. Camping out in Mutinondo let us kick off Phase three, together.
We had spent the last several days at the IDinsight Summit trying to define what it means to be “African;” and what it means to be “world-class.” In Mutinondo, these thoughts seemed to coalesce, and we talked about what we wanted to do; what we wanted to be.
People like to ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. We don’t ask, as much, what they want to do. I doubt that any of us, when asked this question as a kid, said that we wanted to be a consultant. And yet that’s what we have decided we wanted to do, for this frenetic, precious chunk of our lives. But maybe we want to do this without fully being it; to keep a piece of ourselves undefined, for ourselves and for each other. To leave some spark open to light fires in unexpected places.
There are no easy answers and there never will be. What was clear around that fire was that each of us are wildly, aggressively free. We have the opportunity to choose what we will do, what we will be- or to leave some part of that choice open, a while longer. And this world is the staging ground in which we can exercise that freedom.
On the last night, we climbed a hill and saw this sunset, the best that any of us had seen for a long time. It felt like an affirmation, a chance to recognize that we have come some distance; and a challenge, that there is a long way to go, in as many directions as the mind can handle.
We are running. We feel that, if we stop, life’s wave will wash over us and leave us jaded, clip our wings. But sometimes we still get these moments- even if only for one sunset- when we can sit down and ride that wave.