So this is the quagmire we're in.

I am a Director who should take responsibility for the community's performance and accountability, yet I should not direct because I might influence the community's true voice.

I am a development professional with over 15 years of experience designing and managing projects who knows that you have to think carefully about questions in implementing new programs. Silly questions about distributing benefits like when? For whom? For how long? But the best thing for me to do, it would appear, is click my heels three times and just expect things to magically get done without sharing any of my experience with the community or asking those important questions. To do so runs the risk of being seen as underhanded, slanted toward my own perspective. Scheduling a meeting to clarify issues - in time to move forward as necessary right away - is rushing to influence, and suspect. In wonder what the accusation would be had I shown no interest and things didn't happen according to Richard's timeline. Would that still be my underhanded fault somehow, or would that be an acceptable response to those who might ask me to account for how the funds were spent?

Like Pam and Pierre Omidyar, I have used a lot of my own money to facilitate community building. Because I could, because I wanted to, and sometimes because I felt I needed to, I've invested thousands of dollars of my own money in trying to build a self-governed community. In Africa. In a mostly war-affected population. But at the end of the day, it's not the 400 people who've learned something about what they are capable of, or earned extra family income over the past 2.5 years thanks to some of my investment, but the car I also bought with my money for my family (1/3 as much as I invested in LiA) that detractors will judge me for (as Richard did in one of the posts I deleted). For some reason, just like the Omidyars, I am not allowed to be a philanthropist with some of my personal funds. I am expected to be a philanthropist with all of it, my own family and personal life be damned. Sorry, but I don't remember ever proclaiming to be a saint. I have tried. I have put my money where my mouth was. I have given Life in Africa my best shot. I have never claimed to have developed a panacaea. Whatever I've done is just one effort among many in this world. At least I can stand tall and say with heartfelt honesty that I tried.

But as deep as the passion that drove me to this point has always been, my soul is now learning to accept - at a very deep level - that I am simply no longer where I belong. It eats me up inside to think that I have become a liability to the communities I've sincerely tried to empower. If I am the person Richard and others have painted me to be, well that's not the person I want to be. And to be honest, it's not the person I know I am. I know my heart, and the God I believe in knows my heart. Intellectually, I have given what I could to building these two communities. I have yearned to let go for a long time. Now I can, so I must. Certainly, if I am in any way hurting the communities that I care so much about, then I should.

Is there anything else that's expected of me? Another objective behind this barrage of personal attacks than to get me to step down and leave the country? Or is it the aim of those who have motives of their own to bring down the entire community? BTW - I wonder which of the children who need school fees in the LiA community would thank their mothers for giving the community's school fees away? It amazes me that these mothers - some of the poorest people on the entire planet - would be considered greedy for wanting their own children to go to school. I guess that's just how some people think. It's not how I think, though. For whatever that's worth.

Everybody complains but quietly because they do not have a better alternative

In other words: in spite of all of Life in Africa's faults, the members keep coming back because there is nothing else quite like it. Hmmm. So again, my personal crime - and that of the other Life in Africa leaders - is that Life in Africa is not yet perfect. Everything else we stand for is false, because we are human - and as such, flawed.

and you take advantage of that

For what imagined benefit, I wonder? Certainly there is no joy any more (people like you, Richard, have successfully killed what little might have remained). I never expected to get any of my money back, and I always knew that to achieve success the community would have to survive without me. So where exactly is the advantage that I am allegedly so eager to manipulate people for? I personally don't see it anywhere, and yet here I stand accused of going to outrageous lengths to abuse, exploit and be underhanded to get it.

It's quite an untenable situation, really. But hey - I've given it my best shot, and now we'll just have to see what happens. I for one am ready to see whether the Life in Africa glue will hold in this ultimate test. Richard and some others would seem to predict - even hope - that the Life in Africa communities will soon sink instead of swim. But with the current transition underway and people like Arnold re-finding themselves in the new leadership roles that are opening up, I think the communities have a pretty good chance. I visited the new center location in Kampala today for the first time and was really impressed. I wasn't involved in the move at all - the community did that themselves, and it all looks great. The Gulu center is busy day and night, every day.

They don't need me. I can go now. And indeed, maybe it's high time that I should.

So I've been thinking a lot - for quite a while, actually - about a pretty significant career change. I'm excited about the new prospects. I was going to talk more about all that in this thread, but I think I'm now done here. My friends have moved on to friendlier pastures and so shall I. Let the detractors who are still here shoot their arrows and lash out with their poisonous tongues. I am no longer in a place in my heart where you can have power over me. And lo and behold, I am not destroyed.

.piece