 I've had the honor of living here for almost 30 years, and of those 30 years, 12 years in Kenya. What brought me here, initially 100 years ago, but maybe like 1979 was my first trip to Kenya and with a volunteer program called Crossroads Africa. And we went to Machakos, to Katiani, to build a, the Katiani High School. It was literally building the school. It was, obviously none of us were architects, we were all young spry Americans back then, and we were all around the same age. And we were disinstructed, there's a pile of bricks and here's the wall that we're making and it was just carrying these bricks. But it was the exchange in the community that was the idea of the program. And after that, I was hooked on Africa. That experience at the time that it was provided and I was made aware of it was perfect. I was kind of lost. We are people we don't know where we come from, and that is a perspective that's challenged when you don't know. You know who you're, we know who our grandmothers and our great grandmothers, but it stops at a certain point. So the journey to Africa, even if it's a part of Africa that you probably are not from, is an all-encompassing thing, traditional African experience. And once I make that click in my head, then it was a great experience. But initially it wasn't, initially it was, because you're dealing with so much stuff in your head about who you are and stuff like that. And you think like, oh, I get to Africa and I don't know who I am. Yeah, you'll know that you're not as African as you think. And I was just lost and I was made aware of the program. My life definitely changed. I mean, it gave me an orientation for my life, for my career. I continued to, I wanted Africa to be a part of my life. And so, and I was like, this is what I need. And it was what I need because after that, it just gave me a lot of direction. I had left school for a while, that was the term. And I went back and I was like, okay, forget this doctor thing. I didn't want to really be a doctor. And I went to, I focused on international relations. And so that just opened up the rest of the world to me. And what I've always traveled, my parents have always been encouraging of my travels. And so international relations was making more and more sense. I was taking it seriously. After college, I did the Peace Corps and then I went on to work with NGOs that were involved in supporting, or improving the quality of life in certain areas of Africa. Then on to the UN and my last formal, my last formal experience was with the US Agency for International Development. And that's the development arm of the United States government. So, I mean, it oriented me through all of that. I have a very traditional development background and career. Only with the exception that I didn't, you know, I didn't retire from, you know, those things. I, at a certain point, I went into entertainment. But prior to that, prior to the entertainment and my artistic desires, I was on a very traditional development track. We did a lot of community development. A lot of health project support in a very basic level, you know, just in terms of, okay, it's encouraging mothers to have their children vaccinated and understanding when you have, when you're dehydrated, how to rehydrate with materials that are, you know, they're in your kitchen there, pregnant women, maternal health care, that type of thing. So, you know, in one project that I had in Mali, we were, I was responsible for 100 villages and we had a certain message. And through community development agents, we covered those 100 villages, sharing basic community health messages. I think, and as I progressed in my career, I, you know, I have moved on to different positions that gave me a lot of responsibility. At one particular point, I was a donor, you know, that I could direct money to different types of activities. One of the, one of the success stories I would think was just kind of changing or trying to influence a certain think that was happening. We were thinking in like silos and situations that are happening, they are kind of a melting pot of everything. You know, if you're having, if you're having a malnutrition crisis, it's not just the, you know, okay, yeah, okay, food and proper nutrients are not coming to the children or to, are not coming to people or families to the home. But why is that? Then there's an agricultural issue. You know, there's a market issue. There's a war that's going on that is impeding people to get into their fields to plant the food, to have enough for people to eat. And so when that, all of that's going on at the same time, that's where the malnutrition issue may be coming from. So it's not just one thing. And I think that I was in a position where I could influence the fact that we need to be more strategic and thinking not in our own little, you know, purview, but thinking, taking all of those things into consideration, the market, the economics, the war, the access, all that stuff. I was in a country that had the situation where there was a civil war that broke out. Civil wars, when they break out, they're usually kind of, you know, the capital is always the place that one wants to preserve. This one broke out in the capital, okay? And so we were talking, you know, people who were not, you know, who had to leave their homes just like that. And for refugees, that's a human reaction. If there's danger, we're out of here. We're not waiting for somebody to come. We're out of here, you know? And so when they get to there, where are they sleeping? Where are they eating? Where's the food coming from? Where are they drinking? Where are they, what is the hygiene situation? So I was, you know, for the longest time I was in humanitarian assistance and that's the focus of humanitarian assistance is basically keeping people alive. So as a donor, you're not so much in the field as much. You're not so close to the action as much. However, you play a very important role in terms of making sure that the funds are available so that we can help keep people alive. I've always been an artistic person and there's not a whole lot of art when you're in a war zone, you know? And I've been in a number of war zones and it was when I had an opportunity to move to Kenya that I was able to flex more of my artistic interests. Well, I tell you and I will say thank you Kenya because I was truly living my artistic life here. I had a period of living a very artistic life. I was a musical performer, I'm a singer. I acted in a drama for, you know, a TV drama. I had an article, a column that I had in the Nairobian paper for a couple of years. Those were all of my dreams came true. All of my artistic dreams came true. And then I also have taken one of your, one of the sons of the soils here is my husband. I'm married to a wonderful Kenyan man. I've been here for 30 years. What do I have to show for my time? And I've always liked fashion. I've always designed stuff for myself and I wanted to bring something home with me. I wanted to bring something home with me, you know? And it was the fashion that I targeted to bring back because also, you know, by the time I was leaving my body had changed a lot. I was, you know, wider in certain places and bulging in others. And I wanted to, I wanted to, I don't want to hide it. I'll just say I wanted to camouflage it. And so I chose the Hilo style because it did camouflage. The other challenge was fashion of color. So right now, so I will definitely say that Kenya inspired me, you know, for my fashion line. And I called it, I call it Mimi Zuri designs. Now I get people, what does Mimi Zuri mean? And I love to say, it's beautiful me. And so the highlight of the design is that I have jackets, I have tops. They're all loose fitting and they're all high low. And basically how you just, you determine or how you try to design it, I'm sorry, style it. It makes the difference in it. I like to mainly play with the sleeves. I have long sleeves, I have bell sleeves, I have no sleeves. Yeah, it's just basically it's just how you style it is, you know, you make it your own. And the big functionality is that they are reversible. So you are getting two looks in one. Located in Los Angeles. And like I said, I'm inspired. My inspiration definitely came from Kenya. When I come to visit family, I look for fabric that I can't, that I don't see around normally. I like that infusion. I like the particular Kenyan infusion of my inspiration. But I'm based in Los Angeles and that's where I have the production and I do the marketing and selling. Los Angeles is like the leading manufacturing base for the United States and textile. I've been doing this based on African style. So that's the beauty of the melting pot of the world. And I think that I have hit my ceiling. And if I want to become, if I do want to scale up, I got to get an accountant. You know, I got to get a POS system. I got, there's so many, and there's so many stuff, there's a lot of stuff out there for support. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of agencies, you know, that I can get that information and stuff. I belong to the Black Design Collective in Los Angeles. And basically it is a collective of Black designers. And you know, and they're always doing workshops, webinars and things like that to inform, you know, the group in terms of, because we have big designers that are in there, Ruth Carter. Ruth Carter was the costume designer who won an Academy Award for Black Panther. You know, she's part of the collective. Cross colors, the people that created cross colors, they're actually, you know, hands-on in that collective. So it's really, you know, LA is just that, LA is that place. It really is that place. In future, I would like to get from, I would like to expand to a scale up. I would like for a boutique to place an order of 100, 200 pieces. You know, right now I'm kind of one-to-one, you know, I sell it, I'm vending at festivals and things like that. And I'd like to, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to move, not move away, but I'd like to grow into, you know, people placing orders. Oh my God. Okay. We've come from far to arrive at this place. Oceans were crossed with our destiny's trace. Crossing the ocean, I found my way home in a musical rhythm I'm never alone. Just be true to the spirit and our souls will unwind. Let your love run through it. All bright future will find fusions of the mind, fusions from the heart, fusions of love. That's straight from the heart. Coming together, rhythms that bind. Coming together. And that was a song I wrote about my journey of finding my voice in Africa.