"How Do You Say 'Destiny' In Kiswahili?"

We were all sweating the day our work and living sites were announced. This was where we would be spending the next 24 months as Peace Corps volunteers, after all. Would they be able to select appropriate sites for all 52 of us? Would there be electricity and Internet access? And how would the sites be divvied up between the older, more experienced of us, and the younger 20-somethings?

As a 50-ish lawyer/writer, ESL teacher, business owner and jewelry designer I wondered how my trainers would match me with my site. Certainly I had many ways to help the people in my prospective community. There were plenty of schools in need of good teachers like me and many struggling businesses that could use my help in drafting legal agreements. I also knew that a major source of income for women’s groups and people living with HIV/AIDS was in making and selling crafts such as jewelry, especially the elaborate beadwork for which Kenyans are known around the world; maybe I could help those artisans with marketing, promotion, and branding.  With so much in my resume to bring to the table, I figured, Peace Corps would surely choose a work site and job appropriate to my skill-set, experience, and personal needs.

So I was a little surprised when I was selected to work in a milk factory. Especially since I was highly allergic to milk and had indicated that on my medical and home-stay preference documents. But as I watched the other trainees receive their own site announcements, an atmosphere of celebration and applause prevailed. I shrugged off any feeling of apprehension: I just had to work with milk; I didn’t have to drink it!

I approached Lewis, the training manager for business, to get my site map and the other specifics and took a deep breath. Who knows? I thought to myself. This could be the start of something completely different for me, a new mid-life career.

“Congratulations, Karen,” Lewis said, handing me a big white envelope. Everyone clapped. I noticed some words - “Kip Karren” - scrawled on the front of the envelope. I thanked him, avoiding the urge to whisper, “Karen has only one ‘r’,” before I walked back to my seat. 

Later, after everyone had gotten their envelopes and had laid out the site maps and began locating and comparing the little dots on the map that held so much mystery and portent for 52 Peace Corps volunteers-in-waiting - “You’re near Mombasa! How’d you manage that?” and “You’re all the way up there? How’ll we ever see each other?” - I pulled Lewis aside.

“Where exactly is that milk factory?” I asked him. “I couldn’t find the name of my village anywhere in my materials.”

“It should be there - on your envelope,” Lewis replied. I studied the envelope, turned it over, looked inside. “Umm, no,” I said. “It’s just got my name and some Kiswahili word I don’t recognize, ‘Kip’.” Another trainee (who’d been told they hadn’t yet decided on a site yet) stood behind me, fidgeting. He made me nervous.

Lewis glanced at the envelope in my hands. “That’s it,” he said, pointing to the writing. “And it’s not in Kiswahili, it’s Kalenjin. ‘Kip’ means ‘of’ in the Kalenjin language.

‘Kip Karren.’ That is where you are going.”

Maybe working in a milk factory wasn’t what I had in mind when Destiny came calling last December in the form of an Invitation from Peace Corps to go to Kenya. Then again, maybe it – Destiny - knew exactly what she was doing.