A short reflection on my need to recalibrate to the concept of African Time

This week, I am talking with my friend Miruca Gwada, who pastors a youth church in Nairobi. He gives us his perspective on what it's like to be an ambitious and hopeful twenty-something youth in Kenya's hustle capital today.

I talk to my friend Molly and her assistance dog, Piglet, about the issues she faces while traveling around the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Piglet has little to contribute - but Molly tells me a few things that really surprise me.

This is the first episode of The Road to Nairobi — a reflective, story-driven podcast exploring the experiences, questions, and convictions that have gradually shaped one person’s understanding of leadership, faith, and what it means to be useful.

In this opening episode, Ian Westerman introduces himself and the road that has brought him here — from a career as a British Army officer, through academic research and teaching, to years living and working across East Africa.

Along the way, he reflects on a few of the people whose stories stayed with him: a young Afghan interpreter full of hope in 2004, a woman in Kampala writing her story in a cyber café in the evenings, and a flower seller in Nairobi who simply needed someone to believe the next step was possible.

This podcast is not instructional. There are no ten steps to anything. It is simply an honest account of a long journey — and an attempt to make sense of where that journey may now be leading.

Ian’s wife Ronnie joins him briefly at the end of the episode for a conversation about what they saw during their years connected to East Africa, and why they are now preparing to return to Nairobi to build something small and practical called Msaada Kidogo — Swahili for “a little help.”