S1E71 · Kelly Horton: Punched by a silverback

Good morning humans, or good afternoon depending on what time it is you are listening to this podcast. It's actually afternoon here so I probably shouldn't have started with good morning. Oh well. Welcome to another episode of the Virtus Performance podcast. I hope you're all having a spectacular day so far, or I hope you've got an epic day ahead of you, and I mean that sincerely. Today's episode, number 72, is with someone who I haven't seen for a couple of years, Callie Horton. Callie and I went to school together back in the day at Frankston High School.

We also worked together at Rebel Sport in Frankston, however I haven't seen Callie in a couple of years as she has been living and working abroad in Rwanda, which is just next to Uganda for those unsure of their African geography. Callie has been working over there with a company called Earth Systems, so you guys can jump onto the Instagrams and the web pages to learn a little bit more about Earth Systems. Callie dove into what her role currently consists of, we talked about what it's like living in Africa and what it's like coming home, obviously

with a lot of misconceptions and preconceptions that a lot of us Westerners would hold around different areas of the world that we have absolutely no experience over, so today's conversation was a bit of a catch up for me and Cal, but it was also a good chance to hear her story, what she's been doing and experiencing and living over the last couple of years, and I guess what the plan is for the future a little bit as well. She also told a story about how a silverback punched her, which is up there on one of

the best stories I've ever heard, which I will share the clip of that incident in the show notes so you guys can get around that. That's it, let's get into it. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Kelly, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Shouldn't you be in Africa? Yeah, well that's what everyone says.

Normally I am. Yeah, I've come back to see the family and enjoy this delightful spring weather. I know, how wonderful is it? It's a little colder than what I'm used to. Yeah, we'll talk about that. First question for you. Yes. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What gets me out of bed in the morning? Well, I think for me, I'm in a pretty unique situation where I work in a developing country and I get to run a business under the banner of a bigger Australian business with a team full of young Rwandans

and these are people in their mid-twenties who went to university mostly in Rwanda, so I'm in Uganda and we used to have a wonderful team member who went to uni in the US, but they are trying to be the next generation of environmental professionals in Rwanda and the standards are not great. So I guess for me what gets me out of bed is this opportunity to try and improve things by giving good jobs and helping these young professionals to be better at what they're doing for themselves and for Rwanda, which is a pretty lofty ambition. It's the best kind of ambition, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. What makes someone who grows up in this end of the world, down the Moorish Peninsula, want to move over to Rwanda to change the world over there? I'm not really changing the world, I think that's the first misconception we've got here. What makes someone want to move from here? Well, life is pretty good here, but I think we get pretty comfortable and I always wanted to work overseas. I worked in West Africa in 2012, which I loved, but I came back after about six months. It was only a short stint and

then at the middle to end of 2015, I had the opportunity to go back and open this branch of the company that I worked for in Rwanda and I was really excited, took it with both hands because it meant that I got to create something, I got to challenge myself in a new context that I'd never experienced before. I'd been to East Africa, I'd been to Africa maybe four or five times before this big move, I guess. So I guess it was kind of, I was looking at how I was living my life when I

lived in Melbourne's inner suburbs and I went to the same three or four cafes every weekend for brunch and I went to the same three or four bars every Friday, Saturday night and I just went, "Am I really happy? Am I learning? Am I challenged? Probably not." And then I started thinking, "Okay, well, when was the last time I felt this challenge and this excitement?" And I talked to a few friends about this and it might sound really weird, but sometimes when you live in these situations abroad, something will happen and you'll just think, "Oh my God, this is bizarre.

I can't believe this is my life." It used to happen to me when I was in Senegal and I'd be driving the work car to the supermarket between a couple of donkey carts and buses and just things everywhere and I'm on this road driving to a French supermarket of all things and you just have this moment of, "This is so weird." And all of a sudden here I was living this life where on the weekends we'd have a potluck brunch on the rooftop overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and then we'd go surfing and it was such a change.

And so I guess in Rwanda, there's lots of stuff you can do on the weekend here, but we can go and hike a volcano if we want to or go and see some chimpanzees or I don't know, go exploring on Lake Kivu, this is the big lake between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. You can fly to Kenya, you can fly to Uganda. The other weekend I was in a swamp looking for endangered shoebill storks, which looks like these really weird dinosaur muppet-like birds. If you Google them, they're so weird, but it was cool because you don't, I guess- It's normal here.

Well, no. Yeah. To go birdwatching in Rwanda or Uganda is not that weird, whereas here if someone said, "I'm going birdwatching on the weekend," people would probably be like, "Oh, okay." I guess seagulls down the beach or- Yeah, well, I mean, I'm sure there's some cool birds on the beach or- Shout out to all the Australian birds. So what are the, because we were just having a chat, what are the main misconceptions people have about Rwanda and about that part of the world coming from such a, I guess, sheltered part of the world that we live in?

For us, we haven't grown up, well, there are people that have different circumstances for sure, but for the most part, people have grown up in safety. People have grown up being able to go to school. People have grown up knowing that there's going to be food on the table and a warm bed. And in Rwanda, anyone who is over the age of say like 28 probably remembers the genocide in 1994. And so there's this huge portion of society that lost friends, family. There are people who were perpetrators of violence. Rwanda has done a lot for reconciliation.

It's not perfect, but they've done a lot and there's this being, this real concerted effort to overcome differences between people. So I guess one of the misconceptions I think is people are like, "Oh, who-tos and twitsies, that's a thing." But it's not. It's not a thing. We're in Rwanda now because there's been this huge effort of reconciliation. It's been communities sitting down and talking within their communities to overcome it. Maybe Australia could take some lessons from that. I don't know. You don't have to have two sides that fight against each other all the time. Whoa, who would have thought that you could actually try and reconcile ideas and come together as different people?

That seems moderately sarcastic. Funny what conversation does. But I think that people think perhaps that it's dangerous. Rwanda certainly is not dangerous at all. I walk home from parties. Weirdly, a lot of my friends and I live in the same neighborhood, so it's not that far, but we can walk home at night without fear of any trouble. We take motorbikes to work, motorbike taxis. That's really normal. That's cool. It's slightly dangerous. Yeah. But it's not like I have to walk five kilometers to get to anywhere because there's no roads. We have actually great roads. Other things people think Africa in general is very dirty.

Some places are. I'm not going to deny it. But Rwanda has made a really big effort to reduce single-use plastic, especially plastic bags. There's none. You cannot buy one. So they're doing better than us. Well, yeah. Significantly. I just told Coles Willy's thing was going on, and I'm going, "Wow, we're here in Rwanda." We don't even have the choice, and since I've been there for three years, we've never had the choice to have a plastic bag. You can have paper bags. I usually take bags in my handbag or whatever if I need to get something. If you don't have that, you take a paper bag, and then you reuse it.

Yeah. So it's not what you think. Rwanda is very green. It's very modern. Rwanda is really trying to pitch itself as the Singapore of Africa. So we have fiber internet that's super fast. Better than us. Yeah, in many places, that's a bit all. So it's really, life is not this typical third-world life for me. I don't live in worse conditions than I would live anywhere else. There are obviously people who are not living that life. There's those more affluent areas everywhere you go, though, so it's not just ... But I think the poverty is a little bit different.

Rwanda is an interesting case because of the volcanic region. There's a lot of areas with really fantastic soil, and so a lot of people will say, "You won't be hungry, but you might have no money," because you drop a seed and it will grow. That's the reality. Yeah. Some avocados fall off my neighbor's tree into my garden. My dog eats during avocado season, maybe four a day. Some fall into my veggie patch and rot, and then they grow into seedlings. Yeah, yeah. How about that? Just straight away. There you go. Because everything's so fertile. But there are parts of the country that are not like that.

There are parts of the country that experience drought, and people struggle, and so it's an interesting one because I think you have to find a way to, I guess, reconcile your existence in that situation. I live a pretty good life, and there are people who are struggling. How do I try and make the most benefit to a country in that way? Because if I ran around and tried to give everyone a bottle of water, it wouldn't really achieve much. Explain your role at the moment with what you're doing and what you've done over the last three years.

My title is the country manager of Earth Systems. It's an environmental consulting firm. It's been running for 25 years, starting in Australia, in Melbourne. I started working with them when I was still in my undergrad. I was an intern in my third year, and I kind of never left. One of those ones. I did leave once, and then I came back to take this role in Rwanda. So my current role now is basically to set up a branch of the company in Rwanda to build a team of highly skilled environmental professionals and to deliver international quality environmental consulting work, which I can explain more, but with a local team.

In environmental consulting, what we really do is if you want to build, say, a hydropower plant, you might be a private developer, you have to get permission from the government to do that. So you need to write this document called an environmental impact assessment, and we do that, but we're more expensive. So we often get it after someone's done a bad job at it, and then we do it again. The other reason that people will come to us rather than a more cost-effective local consultant is because you are getting external finance. So a lot of

the time you're getting finance from, say, a fund that has certain environmental standards, you're getting finance from an international bank that has certain environmental and social standards, and so in which case you need someone who can make sure you can comply. And if you can't comply, you won't get the cash, which is a pretty strong incentive. My personal opinion is that the industry is a bit flawed, because you do all these documents, you submit them, you tick the box, and then you carry on, and no one really follows up. Sometimes they do, but they don't necessarily, but that's something I hope to try and work on in my career.

What are the changes you've seen over the last three years? In Rwanda. In Rwanda, yeah. It is growing like crazy. There is always something under construction. Rwanda's, like I said, trying to pitch itself as the Singapore of Africa, and they're trying to pitch itself as a luxury tourism destination as well as a conference destination. So if you need a hotel, come to Kigali, Rwanda, because there are so many. They're popping up everywhere. We've got the first Marriott in sub-Saharan Africa, very fancy, and there are all of these very, very boutique little lodges popping up around

the gorilla, the mountains where the gorillas are, because basically, if you want to see gorillas, there are three places you can go, Rwanda, Uganda, and the DRC. DRC's out of the question after some British tourists got kidnapped there a few months ago, and that's all closed, you cannot go to the DRC. Rwanda, it's 1,500 US dollars per person, irrespective of whether you're a foreigner, a resident, or a Rwandan. Really? Yeah, it changed. That's interesting, because you think it would be more expensive for westerners to come over. It used to be. So it used to be 750 for a foreigner, and 50,000 Rwandan francs, which is about 80 bucks for a Rwandan.

But they changed it. Yeah. So it's part of this, I think they're trying to raise revenue and also maybe reduce the number of people going to the park, which is a bit of a double-edged sword, because I think with conservation in many of these regions, people are like, "Oh, it's awesome that gorillas exist, but I don't really care, because I've never seen them." But then when you go and you see them, and how precarious and tiny this little patch of forest is that they live in, you kind of feel more compelled to speak up about it and do something about it.

So the less people that go, the less people who will feel that real connection, which is concerning. Yeah, of course. Have you seen them? Yeah, I'm actually a bit of a brat, I've seen them three times now. I went before the price hike, and my parents visited in July, and we went to Uganda to see them, and then I recently did a volcano hike, and we were spoiled with a bonus gorilla sighting. Amazing. So that was only $60, and we got to see gorillas. Good. That's the way, just go hiking volcanoes. Just go hiking volcanoes, and you might see them.

What was it like seeing gorillas, because it's something that I would love to do? The first time, it was a real relief in one aspect, because we'd hiked in pouring rain. Actually, it was two years ago to the day, almost, today, that I first went, and it poured rain, we hiked for five hours through the jungle, and this group of gorillas that we wanted to see were on the run, because the silverback had been trying to steal females from another group, and their silverback was after him. As you do. So they were pretty deep in

the forest, but when we found them, it was just the rain, the cold, nothing mattered, and it was just so fascinating to see these almost mystical kind of creatures, because, you know, I think they're pretty respected animals in the scheme of the animal kingdom, and they're so human, there's so many parts of them that are very human. There are things that are less human, like the silverback who punched me. Yeah? Yeah, it's on YouTube. We'll find that video. It was a silverback, and I was taking photos of two other little gorillas that were sort of

snuggling, because it was a bit cold, they were very cute, and then the silverback got up and ran towards me, and it's all on, it was all on this GoPro. I'll have to link, I will link this video into the notes, that's insane. It's very funny, so we were, I mean, I got more than my money's worth, I guess. Yeah, yeah definitely. To be punched. To be sucker punched by a silverback is a pretty cool story. If you see the video, it hits me to the ground, it was, yeah, it was fine. I was okay, you can hear the guards and the park personnel laughing when that happened.

Well that's good, that's good. It could have been very bad, but they tell you, don't look them in the eye, don't run, and so I can't even think what I did, because what goes through your head when a silverback gorilla's running at you? Probably nothing. Yeah, there's like 250 kilograms of muscle, and I don't, you can't, you can't do anything. That's amazing. That's um, that's a cool story, that's something that you'll be able to tell over and over and over again. I'm really waiting for the next time I have to play that Two Truths and a Lie, because I've got so many weird stories that, you know, how will you ever?

I can imagine over the last couple of years you've probably got a few stories to tell. So what's it like, go back to your work for a second, what's it like, kind of, I guess, being like an incubator for young professionals over there? You know, it's a really interesting responsibility. These are young people who went to university and trained as environmental engineers and scientists. I have a guy on my team who's an IT professional. I guess for me, something that I've observed in Rwanda is that people want to follow instructions a lot of the time, and so it's challenging people to speak up.

People don't want to have confrontation. It's a very non-confrontational, very polite, very respectful, kind of, you know, obviously not everyone, but in general, Rwandans are very polite and very respectful. I try to encourage my team to challenge when they think something is wrong, and so it's a constant sort of, okay, well, you know, this is my idea. What's your idea? Well, I don't have any ideas today. What's your idea? I guess I was like prodding them to get them to say what I think. Yeah, and to think of things without needing my help, because I'm not going to be in that office forever.

I probably won't choose to live in Rwanda for the rest of my life. No offense to Rwanda, but there are other places I can go. I'd love to live in a place with a beach, personally, so that's one of the big things is getting people to take a bit more initiative and not be afraid to push with their ideas. If you have an idea, you don't have to be quiet about it. I want to apologize for the drilling going on upstairs. I think they're putting desks together, so apologies for those listening at home. Think of it as like background noise, like nice background noise.

What were you talking about? We were talking about, I guess, the responsibilities, so I think that's one of them. The other one is making sure the team is ready for whatever comes next for them. It's not 1980, people change jobs. I am very, very aware of that, and I want to make sure that they're happy where they are and learning and preparing for wherever they want to go next. I try to have, I guess, semi-regular check-ins of what are you thinking, what are the things you think you're missing, how can I help you get there, whether it's a public speaking course or, I don't know, we've done some leadership stuff, English, communications programs.

What's it like being a leader in an environment where people weren't, I guess, brought up the same way as you? Because I think that would be the most challenging part. Yeah, there's a lot of challenges because you have to really strive to understand the cultural context is the first one. I grew up in a family that really encouraged me to speak my mind and not feel like I had any advantage or disadvantage because of my gender or whatever. So you go into this context where, I guess, girls live at home until they are married, men move out probably in their mid to late 20s until they get married when they live with their wife, and there's not very much differentiation.

So people live with their family, there's a lot of family responsibility. You know, we've had situations where people have to go and look after their grandparents which are quite far away because they're the eldest child at home, and that's just their responsibility. And so you have to kind of find ways to, okay, how are we going to work around this? We want to maintain our international professionalism but also adapt to the local cultural relevance, I guess, and so that can be tough because there are things that you think, well, just tell your mum, no, you can't go and look after your grandma, like you've got a job.

You would not have that conversation here in many, many families because I think people would say, well, you know, okay, you've got to go to work, we'll work something out. But there you don't necessarily have the health insurance that allows granny to go and be in a nursing home. There are no nursing homes, really, I think there's a couple starting to pop up but it's very much, I think, a Western phenomenon to have nursing homes for older people. And so this family unit is so critical, you know, so if someone in my team is sick, then maybe their siblings will stay home and take care of them.

It's just how it is. Have you found, obviously, like what happened in '94, have you found that certain families don't have that cohesive unit like others do? Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, a lot of people lost their parents, a lot of people lost a parent, a lot of people lost a sibling. The demographics, I'd have to confirm, but most of the population is very young. It's not quite as striking as Uganda where something like 75% of the population is under the age of 25. Wow. Yeah, it's insane. But in Rwanda, it's certainly a young population.

There's a lot of people in their sort of 30s and 40s who are not around who didn't get to go to university or school because of what was going on in Rwanda because it wasn't just 1994. There was also the reconstruction after that and there was all the lead up in the 90s. A lot of people left. Yeah, it's not just the switch that's flicked. It was in a way, but there was a lot before that, so even through the 80s, people were leaving. Most of my team were born in other countries. Yeah, okay. And then they've come back to Rwanda.

Yeah. I was surprised. They told me they came back in 1994. Once there was liberation, everyone said, "Right, we're out of here, we're going back to Rwanda." Wow. But I think that says a lot about what life as a refugee is like. Yeah, I guess it's always that yearning to go home, I can imagine. Yeah, and I think that when you're a refugee in another country, it's probably not the best circumstances. 100%. So if you can get home- Yeah, if you can get home, then that's ideal, but they had to wait until it was safe, obviously.

Yeah. What are the main differences in terms of way of life that you've observed? Just day-to-day stuff? Way of life for Rwanda? Yeah, between. I guess comparison between Rwanda and- Well, I guess the big one is the family stuff. I guess it depends if you're looking at an urban Rwandan versus a rural Rwandan because there's a huge divide between- Are you urban? Do you live in- Yeah, I live in the capital city. For an urban Rwandan, obviously, there's a lot of socioeconomic differences. Yeah. So there are people who are struggling in Rwanda, in Kigali, the capital city, they might have a job where they're earning 25,000 Rwandan francs, which is about $45 a month.

$45 a month to clean the streets, which is below the average salary, I guess. This average salary for a Rwandan is, I think, something like 40,000 Rwandan francs a month, which is very low. That is 65 Australian, maybe. Yeah, that's extremely low. Someone's going to be really good at maths and listen to this and be like, "Your calculations are way out." Yeah. Quick maths, out of plan. I'll back you in. So I guess there's a lot of people who hustle. So for example, one of the weirder things about my life is I have a housekeeper who works in my house.

And it's hard when you first move somewhere and that's the expectation, but you are a source of employment at the end of the day. So I have a lovely man who works in my house and I've known him for two years. And he also is a fantastic gardener. So when he finishes his work, he goes and does gardening for a lot of my friends, actually. He makes everyone their beautiful vegetable gardens. And so he earns extra cash by doing that. And so he has a salaried role, but he also goes and makes extra money because

I guess for him as the eldest in his family, he has a lot of responsibility for as much as he has his own wife and children. He still is expected to look after his mum and his other siblings. And so, you know, what he earns for his own family is not just for his own family as it might be in a typical family on the peninsula. Seems like a very selfless culture. Yeah, definitely. People are very, very, very giving. Very giving. And I think that a lot of people who've traveled in the developing world will

have observed that for themselves is in the generosity, but you know what they say, the reason rich people are rich is because they don't give anything away. Possibly. That's a good one way to look at it, definitely. So I guess there's certainly this, a sense of hospitality and you help each other to an extent, you know, to an extent, if it's probably to the detriment of your family, you probably would stop. Humans of New York has been the guy from that has been traveling around Africa and he's, I think he was just in Rwanda, he

hasn't shared the posts yet, but I think it's reasonable for him to leave the country where he's going to have all these statements before he starts publishing them. That's quite fair. But there's been some from Nigeria recently and that are in the same vein. And if you follow that, you will have been seeing that there are these people who have nothing but because of circumstances that have occurred in their lives, they want to make sure that they are doing something for others too. Definitely. It was definitely something, you know, personal experience around traveling through Southeast Asia and through South America.

It seems the more, I guess, more poverty you come across, the more care and love and sense of community that you feel. Yeah. And I think, you know, back to your earlier question about why did I go there? That's one of the reasons, is this sense of community. People don't just value what they have. What they have is one thing, but there's more value placed on relationships, friendships, family relationships. Or you can give a connection, which is definitely something that we miss a lot, this part of the world. For sure. You know, and I think for me, when I was here, I miss that.

And so I tried to make friends with all my neighbors in my apartment. How'd that go down? I made some really nice friends. I'm still in touch with a couple of the guys who used to live across the hall. And the girls who lived downstairs, they were lovely people. And you know, it was kind of nice to have these friends in your building. I lived alone for a while and so it was also really nice to be able to go and ask for help with something if I needed it, you know. So that was nice

because I think that there's a lot of people all over the world who are lonely and on the margins of society and at risk of many different terrible things. And so it doesn't take that much to reach out. What's it been like with all the friends you grew up with and the friends you made before you went over? Have you maintained a lot of those friendships? I guess like people drop off anyway as we get older. So that's an interesting one. Every time I come home, I get a bit nervous about coming home. And when I say come home, I mean come here.

I guess I have two homes. It gets a bit confusing. I always get a bit nervous because you don't quite know because I guess in your late twenties like me now, people are getting married, having families, people are doing lots of different things. I've chosen one path. Other people are choosing other paths. Would we have remained friends if I was here? I don't know. This said, there are some people that I think I will always be friends with no matter what. Shout out to you, Jodie. This is a shout out bell. Oh, thank you. You can post that if you shout out to anyone else.

Thank you. All right. I'll keep that in mind. Good for you, Jodie. So it's one of those things, but then rather than feeling sad, if there's someone who I thought I would be able to catch up with and you can't, it's life. Maybe we wouldn't have been friends if I was here anyway. And I have lots of amazing friends where I am and friends that will be friends for a long time. One of the really interesting things about living as an expat, which I don't really like that word because it's a bit loaded, I try to say foreigner, but other people seem to resonate more with expat.

I'm a migrant, really. You meet a lot of other people who come from all over the world. I've got friends from Mauritius, from Indonesia, from the UK and the US, of course, and Canada. But also from, I don't know, Russia, random, all kinds of crazy places. But the thing that drives most people there, which makes people really, really, really interesting when you're a fellow foreigner, everyone's there for something they're really passionate about. So you end up with this mix of varying levels of crazy people, good crazy for the most part. There are some like proper crazy people, I shouldn't say that, that's not me.

People who probably you wouldn't be friends with at home anyway. But everyone's there because they're passionate about something, whether it's, you know, I've got friends who work in developing a global university of the University of Global Health Equity. So they're running courses in public health in Rwanda. So you can go into a master's there. They're going to start training doctors through this program. It's supported from the US. I've got friends who work for a US slash Rwandan architecture firm and they're building schools and hospitals. I've got a friend who's a vet. She is an amazing vet.

And she has built a business there. She's from Indonesia. And everyone needs a lot of people have pets when they live in Rwanda because we all have giant yards. So she is the go to person and she just loves animals. Everyone has a side hustle. Do you have a side hustle? Yeah, I sell plants. I try to propagate and sell like tropical plants that are harder to find in Rwanda. What's that like? What's that like? Well, it's pretty passive. They usually just grow by themselves. That's good. You know, I have a friend who works in solar energy and he used to live in Uganda and there's this street food called a Rolex, which is like rolled eggs, Rolex.

And so it's a chapati with scrambled eggs, like an omelet and some vegetables. And basically you heat the chapati, you cook the egg with some vegetables in it and roll it up into this like a burrito kind of thing. So it's called a Rolex. So he started a business called Now Now Rolex. He started with catering at parties where he would start up and he would make a Mexican Rolex with chili con carne and avocado. And then he would do a French one with camembert, you know, and so he's built this little business now he has a shop front so you can get it delivered on a motorbike if you really need your Rolex.

So everyone, you know, there's in that business alone, this is a Texan guy who works in renewables now runs a food and beverage service operator and he employs maybe six or seven Rwandans to make these Rolexes and they still go and cater events. So it's really cool. You know, you can start these weird little businesses on the side because there's just so much potential. There's so much, so much, so much potential and you just have to, if you can work out the right people to work with, then you can create something really, really interesting. That's awesome.

And this is a bit of a weird question, a bit of a big question, but take it wherever you want. You've obviously achieved and experienced heaps over the last three years. What's the intention or the focus or the goals for the next three years? Intention of the goals for the next three years. So I think for me, I feel like my time in Rwanda is coming to a close and I'm looking at moving to Kenya. My partner works in renewables there and he's been offered a four year contract. I'm not following him girls. Don't follow your boyfriend.

And so we want to be in the same place. It's one of those weird things. And I don't know, look, if you experienced this when you're a young woman, you want to pursue your career, but you also want to have your relationship. And I think in a lot of cases, you're pulled two different ways. And I know that I have always been like, Korea, Korea, Korea, Korea, screw the boyfriend, but you know, I don't know, maybe it's cause I'm going to be 30 in a year. It's just a number, right? It's just a number. But I think also I've put so much time into my career that maybe I want to put some time into me.

What do I want for a more holistic life? Because I think when people have always asked me, what do you want for the next three years? I just think about my job and what I'm going to achieve at work. And so I want to go to Kenya. I want to move closer to my dream of trying to change the environmental consulting industry so that the approvals and the finance is less linked to just having a document at the beginning and more staggered across the lifetime of the project. Yeah, because at the moment you can have all these beautiful documents that I've slaved over with a bunch of other professionals for months and they never look at them.

They gathered us on a shelf. That drives me nuts because what is my skill worth? You know, like I didn't spend all this time training and learning and talking to people and trying to learn and learn and learn and to create this document. Exactly. So it's really frustrating to me that that is the way things are. So I hope somehow to find out a way to do that. And I think it's through finance, project finance, because it's going to be pretty hard to change policy across every country in the world. So if private finance, for example, could adopt a new strategy, that would mean even if you can get government approval, you can't get money.

It's such an interesting one where like, because money evidently kind of just ends up winning no matter what. So I guess it's really not a bad tact to follow that. I just feel like all of the governments in the world are going to be a pretty hard nut to crack. Yeah, that's probably fair. So if you can change the way finance is distributed in a way that makes sense to the finance people in terms of risk management. It's got to work money wise, right? Exactly. Exactly. So if you just say, look, you can't just give all the money at the start because they might do bad things to the environment.

No one will listen. But if you can frame it in a way that means something to that person. And I think that's probably one of the other big lessons that I've learned over the time that I've been in Rwanda is how you frame something changes everything. So you know, sometimes we have a huge problem with a project and everyone gets a bit disillusioned and you turn around and you go, you know what, this project is going to allow access for thousands of people. We can't lose hope here because this is a really, you know what, there's going to be a few things that we probably don't like that are going to happen along the way.

We can do our best to mitigate those, but ultimately this is a huge project for this country. I guess you have your ideal outcome and then it's about ebbing and flowing as close to it as possible. Yeah, I mean there's mitigation hierarchy that we have to follow where you try to avoid impact, minimise impact, mitigate residual impact, and if you can't, particularly with biodiversity related issues, offset. So for example, if your desk here is a forest and I want to put a road through it and I can't go anywhere else, what I might do after

the project is work out how much road and how much land I took with the road and then I'll extend the borders of the forest, try and grow it out so that there's more habitat and I'll probably put a couple of little animal bridges across. Are these things that have been happening for a period of time or are they things that are starting to happen in terms of, because that's a really interesting analogy, example, having a road and extending the forest, is that something that happens? It is something that happens. It's probably become more prevalent

in the last 10 years, which sounds pretty dumb because I've only been working for 10 years so, but I think it's becoming more of a requirement. So the rules change and the requirements get more stringent and as a result people have to consider offsetting. It is the last resort, you try to avoid, minimise all of the other things before you have to offset because offsetting is very expensive and people don't like to spend money on things. It's only the place we live and stuff. Yeah, yeah. But you know, particularly working in East Africa where there's

a lot of, I guess endangered species, flora and fauna, you know, these projects we work on, there's birds again, grey crown cranes, the national bird of Uganda, we're looking at a project that runs through some wetlands, what are we going to do to help make sure the grey crown cranes aren't affected? To be honest, there's really not that much we can do. But just make sure that there are safe wetland areas for them to live. But you know, particularly when it comes to mammals and other land-based animals, that's pretty critical because if you put a road through and they can't get across, then you've got two discrete populations, which is very bad for genetics.

Definitely. So, you know, there's a lot of, and that's only one element, then it's like what do they eat? And maybe the thing they eat in the wet season only grows on that side of the road and, you know. Yeah, and there's so many different elements that you're probably not going to be aware of until down the track anyway when you start seeing the result of... Yeah, well, we have to be pretty comprehensive, we look at air quality, noise, vibration, surface water, groundwater, ecosystem services, which is an interesting one, biodiversity, we look at community health and safety, we look at workforce health and safety.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How long does it take to, and this is probably an ambiguous question, but to put together a document to allow us to have any... It depends on the size of the project. Months? Yeah, typically months. If it's a really big project, it might take more than a year. Just depends on, you know, in a lot of cases you have to do wet season and dry season studies because things are quite different, so it can take a long time. I can imagine, yeah. Depending on what time of year you start and, yeah. What's been the kind of pathway you took through school and uni and things like that to get to this point?

We went to school together, you probably remember how irritating I was. Nah. We were fine. No, we enjoyed you so much we worked together as well. Yeah, we did. Back in the old days at Rebel. No, shout out. Oh, we have to do the bell? Yeah, we did. To Rebel Sport. What was my pathway? Well, I was pretty nerdy in school and I just wanted to be out of school and uni actually and work because I just sort of had this idea of what I wanted to do. And I actually thought I wanted to be a sport psychologist for a short time.

Really? Yeah, I did. I did work experience with the Clean Ocean Foundation and I don't know if they really run in the same capacity they used to, but they were trying to close the Gunner Matter Outfall. Yeah. And so here I was, 15 years old, sitting in this tiny office out the back of Mornington and calling politicians for sound bites about things that they had said about the Gunner Matter Outfall. And I was working with this guy, Mark, who was an environmental scientist and he was so cool. And I was just like, wow, I really feel like I'm doing something.

Here I am, a 15 year old girl from Frankston High and I am sitting in this office calling politicians and I feel like I'm actually helping. And so then I was kind of addicted to this feeling of like, oh, actually I can do something. Yeah, that's cool. And then I got to go to South East Asia with World Vision, which was an interesting trip. And I look back now and it was really a deep dive into bad development. You know, we went to villages in Vietnam and they'd be like, oh, look at the latrines we built here.

And we'd say, oh, show us your latrines and they'd say, oh, the storage shed. Yeah, these are great. They keep all our tools dry. They were not culturally appropriate for that particular part of Vietnam. That'd be a learning experience with yourself around like, okay, we've got to be aware of the different cultures that we're actually moving into. Absolutely. And that trip really cemented my passion for social justice. And so I ended up going to study a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science at Monash where I did environmental science, natural resource management for my science, as well as a bit of ecology.

And then my arts, I did international development and politics. So a bit of a blend, but ultimately I think my arts degree taught me how to critically analyse and think and then the science degree teaches you more of the logic. Correct. Um, and so I'm quite lucky that I get to use a lot of the stuff I learned at uni in my day to day job. And then from there I got an internship in my third year. I sent letters like with stamps. I went and identified a bunch of companies online that looked interesting to me and I sent letters and it sounds so old fashioned now, but that must've been in 2010 it might've been that I did that.

And I got an internship with this company where I still work. Um, and yeah, it must've been, must've been the letter, but, um, I'll never forget though. I sat down with, uh, the man who is now my boss and he basically said, oh, you know, you've got all these skills that we like and things that you've done, um, we'd like to offer you an internship. And I was so surprised I called him later that day just to confirm that he did mean it. Were you kidding or? I was freaking out so much about this cause it was my first sort of foray into the professional world.

Um, and so, you know, but I think I wouldn't, I mean, would I be where I was? I learned French in school, which has been a massive, massive asset, and I'm so glad I did it. Um, it allowed me to work in West Africa. There are a number of people in Rwanda who speak French. They formally spoke French up until about 2007, I think where they changed English, joined the Commonwealth. They don't like French very much in Rwanda. Um, so the language skills have been hugely beneficial, but I think the thing is even if I don't know exactly where I want to go next, I try to do the sort of peripheral things to get me there.

So I'm learning Swahili. Cool. Yeah. I speak a little bit of Swahili is what I said, so nothing, nothing groundbreaking. Um, so that's been really interesting because, you know, in Rwanda, I don't speak it very much, but if I go to Tanzania, I practice it all the time. That's cool. Which is really fun. Um, I was traveling through Kenya on my way here and I got to ask the lady in Swahili where I had to go to get my boarding pass, except I don't know the vocab for boarding pass. So it was kind of like all Swahili and then I was like, boarding pass.

She appreciated it and she helped me. So, you know, doing that, I'm doing a Coursera. I even got through the first week and I've continued. Can you believe it? What's that? Fill me in. It's like a, um, one of those MOOCs. What is it? What does that stand for? The Open Online Courses. So I'm doing one of these internet courses on project finance because if I want to understand how I can change project finance, I have to actually understand project finance, you know, so I don't know exactly where is next, but I don't think these things are going to hinder my progress.

No, certainly not. And the other thing is also networks, really, really, really, really important and I think you have to go into every interaction positively, which sounds like something you'd read on Instagram. Yeah, I might put it in a little square and put it up for you with a nice background. Beautiful, thank you. We're all in a rainforest. Thank you. This is a really important point, though. Like, what are the things that you've learned about networking? Because obviously, communication is of utmost importance in what you do. Yeah. And so many, like, we have a lot of interns come through, we have a mentorship program and a lot of students come out and they lack the ability to network correctly.

And when I say correctly, I mean, actually hold a conversation because you genuinely have interest with the other person, not just, "Oh, this might help me with my career." Yeah. It needs to be deeper than that. Well, I think, for me, I meet so many interesting people all the time. I have been very lucky to, maybe not always lucky, maybe sometimes it was me pushing for it, but... It's funny how that and luck seem to be one in the same. Very intertwined, yeah, to be in situations where you get to meet people who are perhaps more in line with your thinking.

Yeah. So, you know, I talked about some of my friends in Rwanda before, these are people that maybe we don't work together in the immediate time. But if I hear of something, I'll call them, for example. So I guess it's finding ways to surround yourself with people who are in line with, well, not always in line, also challenging your perceptions and thoughts and visions. If you're not challenging yourself, then you're probably going down a really dark road. But what would be the biggest tip? I guess making sure you're putting yourself out there into those scenarios where you can meet those people, because I think a lot of people go, "Oh, I don't really have a...

I wouldn't have a network to speak of because I don't see it." But it's not always where you think, you know, you might go to a conference and talk to someone where you're in line to get lunch, and then you're not necessarily sitting down and targeting that person. And then they might say, "Oh, you know, you really ought to..." Or I'll say to them, "Oh, you really ought to talk to this person that I know because I think they could really help you." And I think networking is not always about you, it's about connecting other people.

And I personally really enjoy the connecting of other people. You know, you've known me a long time. I'm on a podcast. I'm just talking. Just a conversation, right? I enjoy putting people into meeting and introducing other people. I love it when you just see someone you need to meet, and then they hit it off. That's right. And it's a really great... You get a little kick out of it because it's like, "Yes, I helped that person." I did that. "I helped that person. Yes." And I don't expect anything in return, but there will be certain times where I'll say to someone, "Oh, you're doing that work.

You know, I read this really interesting article. Let me grab your card and I'll email it to you." Or there's this thing, and enough time has passed that I've been in the region that I'm starting to see these little benefits, which is really cool. And people that I know... It's not calmer. It just comes back eventually. Yeah. And so, you know, a project opportunity might come up that's not quite right for their company, and then I'll get an email saying, "Hey, Kelly, I came across this. Do you think this is something you guys would be interested in?"

Yeah. Or I'll get a call and saying, "Oh, look, we've got this project coming up. We need someone to do this. I was thinking of you. Can I give you a number to this person?" Absolutely. And even if I'm not the right person, maybe I know the right person. And so, it's been really nice in that way that we can work together. And my partner works in renewables. We carry each other's cards because we meet people all the time. We go, "You should meet this person!" That's some good teamwork. I love that. It's really nerdy. I always run out of my cards, though, and then I just get left with his, which is really bad.

So, I need to get better at that. So, your partner lives in Kenya at the moment? He actually lives in Uganda. So... What's that like? Having a medium distance relationship. It's not quite long. It's a 45-minute flight. What's it like? It's easier when we're in the same time zone, which we are not right now. Look, it's not my first choice to live in different countries, but right now, it's where we need to be and we make it work. It's not that far to fly in between. We go to other places. He's Irish. We went to Ireland.

He came to Australia for Christmas with my family. You make it work. It's a bit weird because when you have a new partner and you introduce them to the family, you'd sort of like, after a few months, bring them to have dinner with your parents, maybe, and then you'd leave. But when you live abroad and you want to introduce the parents, you literally go and stay at their house for a week. And so, it's pretty intense. Yeah. All at once. Yeah. But that's, I mean, it's part and parcel of what you choose. And it's fine. Most of the time.

Most of the time. Yeah. I guess it's a decision. But living separately is good and bad. I was like, "Yeah, I had a lot of work in Uganda this year, so I was there for the better part of the first half of this year." Which is great because then I got to stay with him and have a bit more normalcy because I think there is this risk when you live in different countries of having fantastic weekends or even different cities. Yeah. You know, you fly down and you have an awesome weekend, then you go back and you have your normal life.

Yeah. And I think that if you just have that, that can be very risky. Day to day consistency. Well, the day to day stuff might, you might finally get into the same place and do the day to day and be like, "Oh my God, you're so boring." Yeah. Yeah. You'd hope that wouldn't happen very quickly. Because it is almost like if you were just spending weekends, it's a different life and different expectation. Exactly. Exactly. I get up really early. He doesn't. Yeah. On the weekends, we can deal with that. Yeah. But during the week, he's like, "Oh my God, why are you awake?"

Because I've got to go to work. Yeah. I've got to start, you know. So it's really interesting. We were lucky to have that. Definitely. But, you know, long, I know people who have partners in Europe and they live in Rwanda, so I'm conscious of that must be way harder. Being in Uganda is quite fine, you know. It's not my top choice, but it's quite fine. We see each other at least once a month. It works. Good. It's good. I think, you know, across the other side of the world, for a lot of the year. Family is a tough one, particularly when things are going wrong at either side.

Yeah. And I think you don't realize how much you lean on your family until you can't. Definitely. And so I think from, you know, there's two sides of this. There's what I feel and what my family feels. My family, they're not shy about how much they want me to come back. But I think they also do respect my choices. And they came to visit, which was fantastic, in July, and they traveled around East Africa. And I think having had a feel for what it is, they probably understand a bit more and meeting some of my friends and understanding, okay, she's okay, you know.

She's okay. Because, you know, for my parents, people go, oh my God, your daughter lives in Africa. I wouldn't let my daughter live in Africa. And they go, well, she's 29. We can't really stop her, you know. She's in charge. Yeah. We can't really stop her. And if we tried, that would probably be really bad for our relationship. Oh, yeah. And people go, oh God, that must be so bad for you. And that doesn't really help. So all the people who say that to my parents, please stop it, never do that again. You know, and

earlier on, you know, my grandma would say things like, why don't you move to a normal country like England or France, you know, because that's, I think, easier to relate to. Yeah. It's much easier to relate to. And if you haven't experienced it, you know, we don't know exactly exactly. So then it's just like weird, unknown. And you know, is Kelly going to be safe? I think for me, the experience and other people who are living away from their families, even interstate and stuff like that people, it doesn't have to be quite as far. Yeah. You have to learn to one, depend on yourself and two, build a really good network of friends who are like family.

Yeah. When you have a bad day, you need to have friends that you can, for me personally, not everyone. Yeah. I think everyone needs that connection in some way. Yes. And it might just be having people to be with or be around. Yeah. I've got friends that I can say, can we go to the tapas place after work today? And they'll go, absolutely. We'll be there. Okay, Sangria helps in a lot of situations. You know, sometimes it's so frustrating because things that you take for granted as easy and normal things here, going to pay a bill, for example, here, you might just jump online, put in your card details.

Okay, fair, fair enough. But you know, I know you're only half joking, I saw that in your eyes. But you can't just jump online and pay a bill online. You usually would have to go to the bank, line up in a queue, hand over cash, get a receipt, then you have to either go and deliver that receipt as proof of payment to show it's been paid. Or some companies are really in the future now and you can email them a picture, which is wild. How about that? I realized that in South America, that some of the countries like Peru and Bolivia, they had the same deal.

So Monday morning, the banks would just be like... Pay at the end of the month when everyone's getting paid. It's insane. It's insane. And there are countries that are trying to be cashless, which is really cool. But the infrastructure just isn't there. And it's so cash oriented. I come here and I withdraw a bunch of cash, even though I don't need to and PayPass is faster. I only just realized that. PayPass freaks me out every time. It's so fast. It's scary though, because it's like an imaginary number that you see in your bank account and then it's gone because of PayPass.

Yeah. I find it very weird because I'm so not used to it. I'm so used to handing over cash and carrying around a bazillion coins. So there are things like that. So many subtle differences that you just get home and you'd be like, this is different. This is weird. Yeah. It's a real cash economy. There is mobile money, which is really cool, which we don't have, which is when I can send you money from an account that I hold with my phone number. So I could just type into my phone, I want to send this number 20 bucks and then I send it to you.

I guess some of the banks are doing things and like Venmo and these things that they have in the US is sort of similar. I think the ComBank app now you can just like send someone's number of money and stuff. That's weird. It has been revolutionary because if we have to pay, for example, electricity in advance, so you buy a voucher for a certain number of credits. And then when that expires, you have no power until you go and buy more credit. And so sometimes you'll wake up early on a Saturday morning. Every fourth Saturday of the month is called Umuganda and people go and clean the streets.

It's compulsory. And so they might, you know, plant up a nature strip or fix a wall that fell down or patch holes. And everyone does it. Yep. It's amazing. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty awesome actually. Cool to watch. Cool to see and help. You probably couldn't just watch it. You know, while you're rebuilding the wall, it'd be cool to take half a breath and just go look at everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's really interesting. But if your power runs out during Umuganda, there's nowhere to go and get it. But if you have mobile money, you can send money and buy the tokens over your phone, like using your phone.

So there are some cool things there and it means that people are sort of not just hoarding cash. They can put money into their number and have a semblance of a bank account, which is still a thing that most people, well, not most, but many people don't have. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's something that we take for granted as an enormous. It's so normal to have a bank account, but there it's, um, it's not necessarily. Yeah. It's super different. All right. I've got a bunch of questions for you. Okay. Now you can dive into an answer or you can keep it short and sharp.

Okay. Have you had a defining moment? A defining moment? Um, I don't think so because I feel like if you had a defining moment, it would come to you straight away. Good answer. Yeah. Now you've, you say you've got heaps of cool stories, what's like the one story that you're like that was insane or outrageous or? The gorilla is up there. The gorilla punch was up there. Next one. I will share that video. I think the weird stories are things like, you know, I was walking down the street and some people decided they wanted to make a music video on that street and then they asked my friends and I to participate in their music video, which was so weird.

You know, you're just walking down the street and then all of a sudden you're in a music video because you're just there and just weird stuff like that happens all the time. I've got one of my friends who's in this hilarious music video where she is the star of the music video. It's called Mrs. Platinum. She's going to kill me for mentioning this. I'll share that one too. Yeah. Um, but she was approached at a bar by this guy who said, look, I'm a musician and I want to make this music video and I want you to be the star of it.

As you do. As you do. But then there's also other weird and crazy moments where, you know, you, I don't know, you have an interaction with someone that you didn't expect, you know, and I won't go into any personal details, but sometimes someone will open up to you and tell you the story of what happened to them in the genocide and that's really moving because that takes a lot of trust, there's a, there's a lot of mistrust in Rwanda after that. And so I think, you know, the stories of where your friendship deepens enough with somebody that they feel like they can talk to you about that is really important.

Another cool story is we set up a thing called green drinks in Rwanda. Green drinks is like an international environmental networking event and someone had started running it when I had just arrived in early 2016 and now it runs every month. We just had an event last week that I sadly missed with the European Union sponsoring it and there was a little theater performance about how to make sustainable choices. And then there was a panel discussion with different members of government, private sector, NGOs about what people can, you know, the choices people can make. So it's really cool.

So the next one we have is Year of the Bird with Birdlife International and Nat Geo sponsoring it. And so it's really cool. We meet a lot of really interesting people through that and then we have a great team of volunteers who contribute to the advertising and finding people to talk and that's awesome. So that's been a really cool thing that I might not have been able to ever do here. Yeah. Yeah. I think having someone like that be able to get legs and then keep growing and growing growing is pretty cool. Yeah. And it really fosters this really cool sense of community and sense of actually making a difference and doing things to make a difference.

Yeah. And I think as well, I mean, I think everyone contributes to their community in some way. I think you've created a community with Virtus from what I can see having been in the gym today. Yeah. It seems really awesome. I see a lot of Instagram stories, but it seems like people are really behind it. You know, people feel like they belong to something. And I think so. And I think like the reason why we wanted to create a community was because, you know, apart from, you know, football clubs and once you leave school, there isn't all that many community groups that dive deeper than just the time you spend together.

Yeah. And I think it's important to be able to find a group of people or a place or both where you can be yourself and have those times where you need to talk to someone or when you need to support someone else or whatever. Which is awesome. It's been very cool. And I think from that, having that network of people that you can depend on is really important. And when you move to a new city, irrespective of whether it's in a new country or the same country or whatever, you've got to find a way to find that.

And so for me, I did a lot of volunteer work in the community in Frankston for many years. And then I didn't have that anymore when I was in Rwanda. And I was kind of like, okay, well. What was your first step, apart from obviously the little work community you would have had? What was your first step in finding a community or building one? I think it was seeking out where are the people who have the same sort of interests as me. So, you know, green drinks appealed to me being an environmental scientist. And then I wanted to get involved in something, not just participate, but actually be part of it.

And so that was really part of it. You know, I see people and they go, "You're the green drinks girl." Not the only one. There are many of us, but yes. And so it's a start. Then people will approach you and talk to you about whatever, you know, they might go, "I really liked that session you had on the lion reintroduction in the national park." Or, "Have you considered doing this?" And then people will come up to you and go, "Actually, I do this and I think it would be really cool." And you go, "Absolutely. That's the idea.

We should definitely have this as a topic." And so, again, it's networking, it's meeting people, it's generating discussion about something that's important to you. And I think that that's really fulfilling for me. And it gives me a sort of sense of being part of the fabric of the broader community. Because it's very easy to sit on the periphery. Yeah, let's see, and then you've stood up and taken a dive into that community and that environment and you're reaping the benefits. Yeah. It's kind of that beautiful symbiotic relationship. That's my mum. That's lovely. Well done. What are you grateful for?

What am I grateful for? So many things. I'm really grateful that I have the opportunity to go and live in a place like Rwanda because of my passport, because of my education, because of my family and my friends and the community that I grew up in that said, "This is possible." I grew up with a lot of, "You can do anything." Oh, yeah, that's for mum and dad. I'm really grateful for that support. And I'm also just really grateful that I get to have the choices that I have. I think that was something that struck

me when I first started traveling is that a lot of people don't get choice in their life and we are so spoiled for choice in Australia. We have great education systems that we all participate in. We have so many opportunities and we have so much choice. If I wanted to be a hairdresser, I could have done that. If I wanted to be a nurse, I could have done that. If I wanted to be a pilot, I could have done that. Didn't want to do those things. I like what I do now, but people want to do those things, which is what is so awesome.

So I'm really grateful that I've had the choices and the opportunities to make those choices to get where I am now. I like that. I like that a lot. If you were going to give 15-year-old Kel one piece of advice, what would it be? 15-year-old Kelly. You can have all of the things you want. I think when I was younger, I didn't. When I was 15, I still wanted to do the environment stuff. I actually thought about living in Africa when I was that young. That's how it happened. But I think when I thought of it in my mind, I was like, "I'll live in Africa, but I'll work.

I'll volunteer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." You don't have to sacrifice all of your personal aspirations in order to do something that feels fulfilling. So I think I had this idea in my head and I think a lot of people would do this, "Oh, we'll go to Africa and we'll volunteer," which is fine, but make smart choices about what you're volunteering about because if you're building wells, there are people who could also build wells and get paid for it and that's a really important source of income. So I think 15-year-old me was kind of

like, "I'll sacrifice having a family and having a partner and all of those things because that won't happen for me if I make those choices." And I think the other thing that I would say is don't care so much what people think. I was pretty vocal in high school about the things that I deemed important, which rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. I probably was too young to understand maybe if I framed it differently, it would have been an easier sell, but I think I took a lot of it to heart. It's amazing how often that one comes up, but that's not interesting in the answers.

Yeah, I bet it is, but I'm glad that I, despite that, I kept pushing because I think once you put yourself into, I mean, I went to uni and then you're surrounded by a bunch of nerds who are passionate about bugs and all kinds of random stuff, and then you're not so weird anymore. There's another one of the passionate humans. Exactly, exactly. You just have to find the people who are there with you. Maybe me talking about hungry Cambodian kids in high school didn't quite get me there. Pretty hard to resonate with that when you're sitting in a cold, what would we call that?

I can't even think of the name of the place where we used to sit for the assemblies in high school. The hall? Well, yeah, the hall. That would be it. The hall. I was sitting in a cold hall and there I am going, "Hungry Cambodian kids, you've got to do something!" And everyone's like, "Look, I just want to go to recess, why are you here? This is really annoying, hurry up." Not a great sell, and I beat myself up about that for a long time of, "Why won't people listen?" But I think things change, people

just care about different things, you can't expect everyone to care about what you care about, and if we all cared about the same things, things would probably be bad. Yeah, that would be weird. Yeah, don't freak me out. What is success to you? Good question. You know, I think success is a really interesting thing because a lot of people think it's about money or having a nice house or being comfortable, but I think success for me is, I hope when I retire, which seems like a pretty long way away, I look back and I think that I did something that contributed to making the world slightly better.

I hope that I can say that I live with, I guess, courage to push through what people might say is wrong or too hard or too challenging or too complex to try and find a way. You know, I feel like I should have some kind of quote, but I don't. Yeah, I think success for me will be, I mean, it's a process, and I think I'm probably wrong in my, like, in the future, success will be this, because I think we can have success every day. So I don't really have a clear cut answer for you, but I think that everyone's version is different.

I think success is just working on the process. Yeah. As long as I'm trying to get where I think I need to be, which is unclear as well. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Are you going to move forward regardless? We are. Last question. Yep. If this was the last time you ever saw me, which it won't be, so stress-less. Yeah, I'm not worried. Good. If there was only one piece of tangible advice I could use for the rest of my life, what would it be? Keep pushing. Things go wrong in life, and things are sometimes really difficult, but the people who are stronger are the ones that push through it.

I think we can fall into a little hole, but you've built a network around you, and you can use that network and push. Good. You're very, very visionary. Oh, stop it. First and last time I would be called visionary. I like it. No, well, I think you've created a community. What you've done is really cool and exciting. Thanks. I appreciate that. You should be very proud of yourself. I'm proud of them. They're a good squad. With that, too. That's pretty critical. How can people learn more about you and follow you and follow Earth Systems and stuff like that?

I have some website, www.earthsystemsafrica.com, it's our Africa stuff, me personally. I don't know. I mean, you can follow me on Instagram, but it's mostly pictures of my dog and water lilies. I don't think anyone hates dogs or water lilies, so done. I'm sure you can link these things, and they can watch the video of the gorilla, because that is exciting. I'm definitely going to put this video on the gorilla. Cal, thanks for coming on. You're so welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming all the way from Rwanda for this. Yeah. This was actually the main reason I came back.

Good for me.