Meditation on my upcoming journey to East Africa.

There are a lot of things going through my mind as I prepare to leave for my 10 week service learning project in Nairobi, Kenya this summer. I am scared, nervous, excited, anxious and all around just in awe of the experience that is about to unfold before me.

   One thing that still looms in the back of my mind is the idea of meaning and purpose of what I am about to embark on. I know that many have been concerned for my safety while others have questioned the basic premise for why I would put myself in such a certain position. Why not something more...mainstream.

  There is a part of me that says and agrees that this is not the most traditional route to follow, nor is it an issue that is popular around the world. I could say I am traveling to the west Nile to combat environmentalism, or to Ghana to combat malnutrition, or even to South america to provide medical support for the debilitated, and most would say...wow, way to go.

   So in a traditional sense I understand, while at the same time I can't help but want to underscore just how important I believe that the work I am about to embark on  is to the general peace and stability of the world. I think it says a lot that the world isn't talking as much about these issues. Africa is becoming progressively more and more a hotbed of homophobia that is being fueled by religious extremists from the west.

  In a way the social issues of the west have made visible in other parts of the world these vulnerable populations and have sparked much more violent responses from local communities who either do not understand or who see these influences as Western culture rather than human dignity and worth.

  Thus I believe strongly that not only is it the right thing to do by working on gender and sexuality issues abroad, but I believe in a way that it is my responsibility to lend in whatever way I can the resources at my disposal to assist my fellow person around the world who are facing similar hostilities that I have once faced, or who through because of my own countries visibility now face persecution in their own ways in their native lands.

  At the end of the day for me, this experience is and never will be about homosexuality or the connotations surrounding this minority population. It is about the greater dignity of the human being that exists within every single person on this earth, even in those individuals who are cast aside most by their society.  It is about the inherent worth that exists in every person that I believe ought to be respected because we could just as easily have been that minority person. In another time, in another place, we may have been that castaway.

  Homosexuality itself makes up a much larger picture when we take a moment to step back and recognize the greater picture that it plays within the greater world. This is not about sex, this is about the right to love fully and unconditionally another human being. This is about the capacity to care and to have concern for the worth of another and to honor those connections in every way possible. What does it mean when two people can fall hopelessly in love with one another, to care for each other for all the right reasons and to be able to connect on such deep and intimate levels? What does this mean for humanity itself when we instill in our children that to love another person who is like you or similar to you is wrong? How does embracing the possibility of love impact the greater attitudes we have for the rest of the world?

 It's just a thought.  But one I've put a lot of time and energy into. I care about this not because I'm so centered in identity politics, particularly those of the LGBT community, but rather the greater humanity that I have discovered through the love I have felt for my fellow person. I am here because of Ubuntu, because if I take away your right to fall in love with the person you deeply connect with the most, then I deny myself that same ability.

 So off to Kenya!