For the first months of my PhD programme, I have felt like a couch potato deciding to climb a mountain. I started out with a goal and a pretty good idea of what I would need to do to achieve it. As I commenced on this venture I soon realised that this was going to be a bit more challenging than it is depicted in the movies. Similar to the couch potato getting up and starting to exercise in preparation for the climb, my brain and body have slowly been forced out of their rut and converted into a new shape.
Since my last encounter with academia, nine years ago, I have found that my brain works differently; my ability to absorb new information is far slower than I recall, however drawing parallels to existing concepts uncovered to be at lightning speed. A tangential way of thinking works quite well for the ethnographic research I am working on. Despite the frustration and mental exhaustion, this is above all else an exhilarating challenge! The Global Challenge Research Fund Centre for Doctoral Training at Durham University has given me an opportunity to follow my dream and pursue an enduring passion for gender advocacy.
My research on the transport sector as a gendered employment has opened my eyes to things I had never previously considered, an aspect of my life that I take very much for granted. I have never thought of the reasons why some people simply didn’t use public transport until I learned of the impact that so called mild harassment; constant, overwhelming and unceasing, had on their perception of safety and security on these means of transport. I had never considered the self-regulation of my own circumscribed rules and movements around my hometown of Nairobi. Limits on where I could go and when, how and with whom were largely self-enforced by this point in my life. I had seldom previously thought to question some very routine choices in my own life, let alone wider policy and infrastructure decisions within my home country and the greater sub-Saharan Africa. This has been an invaluable experience and a mind-blowing ride.
In closing, notwithstanding my bewildered demands for British weather (food and culture) to make sense, and my ongoing battle with my ever-spawning pile of reference material, this is an adventure. The journey to achieving my PhD seems arduous, but the apex of this mountain promises to be the beginning of the rest of my life. That, dear reader, is worth the climb!
Nyaboke Omwega
Postgraduate Student, Department of Anthropology
Durham University GCRF CDT
Disclaimer: This author has no intention of climbing any actual mountains.
Photo by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash
