Living in a Compound

We live in a compound with a lot of other Americans who are working for the same program. Some are long-term (more than 10 months); most are short-term (less than 3 months), rotating through here as party of medical school or residency. There’s safety and comfort being surrounded by the familiar and separated from the rest of the city by walls and watchmen. We eat tacos and spaghetti for dinner. We talk about Top Chef and watch Monday Night Football on DVR. I appreciate all of this, and am happy that we didn’t have to find and furnish an apartment or learn our way around the city on our own.

But the attitude that living in a compound encourages is discouraging to me. I feel more expat, more foreign, and more separate. It’s easy to retreat to this island community, but I want to get outside of our gates. Maybe I’ve read too many Peace Corps books where the isolation of being the only American in a tiny village in Togo forces you to learn the language and get to know the community. Or maybe it’s just an idealized expectation of being overseas – to cross the divide of being a foreigner just a little bit.

In any case, I hope that we can get to know more Kenyans and that eventually, our time here will feel less like time away from home and more like time in a second home.