This piece is an uncomfortable confrontation about being a brown researcher working with a group of white researchers in the context of Kenya. I wish there was a simpler way to write about this, but the whole process was a dance between my doubts and my assurances.

This piece is an ongoing reflection on how to do research in contexts where our gaze does not fit; here our gaze is very much external, yet our voices warrant to be heard. How do we become responsible researchers? How do we look at certain realities tainted with a different tone? How do we listen to embodied stories of struggle without reducing them to just any other struggling community? How do we talk about water insecurity beyond the functions and limitations posed by droughts and floods? Hopefully this piece disturbs you as much as I was disturbed, and in our discomfort, may we create more caring spaces for stories “otherwise.”

Maybe you can offer me a hand: Then, we started filming.