Author Robin Rosenbluth joins Big Blend Radio's “Table & Compass” Podcast hosts Joelle Machia and Ryan Slough, and Lisa D. Smith, for a conversation about her new memoir, Living with Strangers: Healing a Wounded Heart in a Distant Land (She Writes Press), and the year she spent teaching in Songa, a remote village in northern Kenya.

Robin was eight when her mother died. Her father placed her and her younger sister in foster care, even though relatives had offered to take them. With help from a high school guidance counselor and a few scholarships, she made it to college, and at nineteen she traveled to Kenya to teach elementary school. There, among the Samburu and Rendille people, she found a sense of belonging she had never had before.

Joelle names the UN Sustainable Development Goals that run through the book: quality education (SDG 4), clean water (SDG 6), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), and life on land (SDG 15). From there the conversation moves from a boy who asked only for a jar of water to an adult literacy class taught by candlelight, and ends with a question for every listener: what is one small step we can take?

Listen to the episode below:

Highlights from this episode:

Robin explains how Friends World College, which required students to live in two different cultures before graduating, opened the door. Raised in a white suburban neighborhood, she says her first interracial friendships in a children's shelter showed her how racism shapes society, and she wanted to live in a country run by Black Africans. That led her to a remote settlement near Marsabit, not far from the Ethiopian border, where she was the only white person in the village.

She lived in a tin house for nine months with no electricity or toilets. She collected dry elephant dung for her cooking fire, ate ugali and uji, and walked nine miles to town for fresh food. Even without kitchen tables, Robin says, people gathered on beds, cowhides, and three-legged stools. Lisa shares her own childhood memories of Kenya along the way.

Robin remembers Mama Lachoya, the village midwife who greeted her with a chicken, taught her to weave, and became a surrogate mother, and her neighbor Karaba, who taught her about Rendille culture. After tense moments with Karaba, she repaired the friendship by telling him how much loss she had known and that she did not want to lose him too. That experience, she says, gave her hope that healing was possible.

Joelle asks about a moment in chapter three, when a young boy approached the vehicle and asked only for water. Robin can still picture his smile when a government worker handed him a jar. She talks about the drought that killed crops and thinned the cattle, and why, as she puts it, when you do not have water you do not have life.

Robin went to Songa to teach elementary school, but the woman who first housed her asked to learn to read and write. Soon other adults asked too, and she started an adult literacy class, then a sewing class, and helped neighbors garden. A Kenyan teacher took over the class when she left. She says she went to be part of the community, not to tell it what to do. Along the way she learned that a cup of chai tells you whether you are welcome, that karibu is a farewell meaning you are always welcome to return, and to try not to judge.

Robin draws a line between tourism and connective travel, which means living with people, learning the language, and volunteering. She and the hosts talk about immersive programs for teens and college students, the legacy of Friends World College, which is now LIU Global, and how a semester in Spain showed her son that people there work to live rather than live to work. She also reminds listeners that Africa is a continent of many countries and languages, and urges us to look at our common humanity and build bridges. Ryan adds how the military opened his eyes to people and cultures.

Asked what she would tell her younger self, Robin talks about You Gotta Believe, the organization that finds permanent homes for older foster youth. Her advice: hang in there, find your community, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and remember it only takes one person to believe in you. As she puts it, it is never too late to have a happy childhood.

Robin shares what happened when she returned to northern Kenya in 2010 with The Nature Conservancy and met the Northern Rangelands Trust. Its community conservancies use tourism to pay local people as rangers and to fund schools, including girls' education, health care, and women's cooperatives. Songa joined the conservancy network in 2013, a full-circle moment that left her overjoyed for the people. The episode closes with a call to step out of our comfort zones, connect with neighbors who are different from us at home as well as abroad, and bring out the good china. Inch by inch, it's a cinch.

Learn more about Robin Rosenbluth and her memoir, Living with Strangers: https://www.robinrosenbluth.com/

Read Robin's Substack, My Jagged Journey as a Debut Writer: https://robinrosenbluth.substack.com

Learn more about You Gotta Believe: https://www.yougottabelieve.org

Learn more about the Northern Rangelands Trust: https://www.nrt-kenya.org/

Learn more about the UN Sustainable Development Goals: https://sdgs.un.org/goals

New episodes of Big Blend Radio's “Table & Compass” Podcast air every first Monday, here: https://table-and-compass.podbean.com/

Learn more about Joelle Machia & Ryan Slough, Founders & Publishers of Wanderers Compass: https://www.wandererscompass.com/