This is one of my best friends from high school, also named Alli. While studying for a degree in Anthropology at Mt. Holyoke, she spent time in Nairobi working with public health and development. Once she graduated, she moved to Mombasa full time and is now the program coordinator for the Foundation for Sustainable Development, which works with local community organizations all over the world.
As she says:
I work and live where some people come for vacation, and other people don’t get a vacation at all. I get a vacation, but I’m paid under minimum wage, so I might as well just stay here. The tropics ain’t so bad.
I wrote her an email this morning to tell her how inspired I am by her, and how proud I am to have her as a friend. While in Kenya, Alli fell in love with a Frenchman so, in addition to already traveling all over Africa, spent her winter traveling all over Europe. I, meanwhile, have been stuck in that early 20’s/post-college funk where I have no idea what I’m doing with my life and I realize my degree is useless and more often than not I complain about how much life sucks instead of actually doing anything about it.
This isn’t one of those “OMG NYC blows and I’ll never reach my potential and we should all just move to Buffalo” kind of posts. I’m incredibly lucky to live in one of the greatest cities in the world, but it’s only recently that I’ve realized how selfish and small my own point of view is - how can I really appreciate New York if that’s all I know?
Knowing people like Alli is a constant reminder to myself - not only should I be willing to try and better life for other people, but that I need to be willing to try and better my own as well.
