2005 Africa Trip

 CHAPTER 1

For the last month life has been a funnel and I have been a marble.

In a normal routine our lives (hopefully) spin like a marble in large graceful circles. But when we plan for a life-changing event like our wedding, a due date for our child, or a move across the other side of the world, that pleasantly large and comfortable circle of life begins to constrict towards the impending hole. We must say goodbye to our old way of doing things, the death of a season of our lives. We “tie up loose ends”, have our last day at work or school, and say goodbye to our friends and family.</p>
<p>My world shrunk smaller and smaller as I spun faster and faster as gravity pulled me toward that black hole. And before I knew it there I sat on the tarmac in SeaTac and in the hole, a little light headed but peaceful. All the contexts, relationships, certainties, and routines were all gone, dead. From that point on there were new contexts to be formed, new relationship to be developed, new certainties to be trusted in, and the beginning of new routines to spin graceful circles.

Anna Schuler, my travel companion, and I arrived in Heathrow in the early morning mist and in the haze of a sleeping pill hangover shuffled through customs. Even now I still can’t recall when and where we picked up our bags and got on a train into London. But we were feeling adventurous despite being disoriented, and decided to take a walk through London before going to L’Abri. We climbed up the stairs out of the dank Tube, and met a sunny London morning. As I walked along the busy streets with my backpack, wheeled suitcase, and a guitar in toe, I looked over at Anna who looked like Alice in a Wonderland with her eyes in complete awe of the world around her.  After strolling through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, past Big Ben, and over the Themes we got on a southbound train in Waterloo.

The train ride through the English countryside is an experience I doubt I will never grow tired of. Green rolling pastures with pockets of sheep or horses, an occasional man with a hoe tilling his vegetable garden, and the village parishes with their gray ancient steeples.  When we arrived in the little town of Liss, which is the stop for L’Abri, we decided to take the walk to L’Abri rather than take a taxi. So there I was lugging my wheeled suitcase through the grass alongside the busy road, and carrying my guitar over my shoulder.  Adrenaline was clearly the prime motivator. We arrived in time for a lunch discussion on the question of “What is joy?”, and I tried as best I could to stay up the rest of the day despite the heavy eyelids, and the floating feeling due to over-stimulation. After the first two days we decided that we would cancel our trip to Scotland and let L’Abri soak into our bones, instead of taking the two grueling overnight bus rides.

Life at L’Abri is delightfully rhythmic, following the wisdom of monasteries in the patterns created throughout the day: a liturgical approach to everyday life, cultivating stability and growth. Wake, prayer, study, tea, more study, lunch discussion, work, tea, work, and supper. Each day the same cycle occurs, and at the same time the larger weekly cycle is guiding each evening in a series of lectures, movies, free time or a pint at the pub. It gives a solidarity of the community, a common rhythm that we all participate in, like playing music together where each person is playing their part: melody, harmony, bass, percussion. Our families, our communities, and L’Abri are full of broken people, but when there is a external pattern the song goes on regardless of mistakes made by some of us. We hold each other up and carry on through until the end, together.

On Thursdays is the day off for L’Abri students where there is time and space given for exploration outside or reflection inside. We took a trip with a small thin young cheerful Canadian named Dave to the neighboring town of Petersfield. He had a bushy tuff of loose curls, and his eyes would squint so much when he smiled you couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed. We walked into the village chapel at the edge of the Village Square where there is for some unknown reason a huge stature of William the third. The ancient 15^th century church had been recently restored and along with the detailed stained glass and plaques of the dearly beloved who had long been buried in the cemetery behind the church, was a huge organ that took up the whole left side of the building.

A man in a smart dark navy blue suit walked stiffly up to the organ and sat down and plunked a few keys. I walked over to him. “Do you play?” I asked, standing behind him. He was typing something into his cell phone and glanced over his shoulder. He muttered something to the affect of “yes”, but was clearly more focused on his text message than the American visitor. I sat down and watched him. He had a mustache and a great flow of hair that fell to the side of his face. He began playing an old Elgar piece swaying a little. His eyebrows directed the music: up, down, a minor note, a high harmony.  When he got to the bottom of the sheet music he whipped the page over like he was flogging his wild organ horse and on he road like a strange cowboy. A wrong note would emerge in the constellation of sounds, and in a fury he would stop and mutter some curses that echoed in the empty room and grabbing his pencil scribbled on the sheet like he was disciplining a naughty schoolboy. Then plunk plunk, tweeter tweeter, the wild cowboy was riding through his magical sky of music through the stained glass and ancient church arches. The night before I left L’Abri, I tossed and turned in my upper bunk hoping for some relief from the worries and anxious thoughts tumbling through my head. This was the flip side of being in “the hole”.  There was such freedom, anything was possible, everything was still to be determined, and nothing certain.

We said goodbye to the friends we had made at L’Abri, and took the train back up through the English countryside to London. An old friend from Bainbridge Roise Ludow met us at the Waterloo station and we took the Tube to her apartment in the north end of the city. She lives in a small flat in the cozy neighborhood of Crouch End. If hobbits had to live in London they would probably live in Crouch End and feel quite at home.

We spent the next day walking around the city and ended up in a church on the eastside that evening. It was a newly planted Anglican Church started to reach out to the artistic community of east London. It met in a gorgeous old cathedral with a painted blue ceiling towering far above the wooden pews and the construction in progress being done on the floors. The music was a combination of new songs and old hymns that I had never heard before. A big piano sat to one side and a drummer and bassist played behind. Two young women sang. One played a violin and the other a cello. The music was somehow mixed perfectly to create a sound so light and graceful but at the same time powerful and substantial. And when I closed my eyes the sounds and harmonies somehow gave me hope in the glory of what is to come. It was a glimpse. Then I opened my eyes and the mystical feeling left and I was just standing with a bunch of ordinary people singing a song.

The next day we said goodbye to Roise and headed to the airport. I was surprised to find that the plane to Nairobi was 95% white. I had underestimated the poverty that the whole country is in. Travel, much less on an airplane, is a pipe dream for most people here. The eight-hour flight to Nairobi passed fast enough, and there I was landing in Kenya. As we walked through the airport, we passed a white washed room to one side and looking in we saw a bunch of men lounging about in strange turbans, dark beards, and loose white shirts. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing there just laying around. We purchased our visas and made our way through the old hallways to the luggage claim. After picking up our bags we passed through the sliding doors out of “Airport Land” into the enveloping Kenyan night.

We were met by a chubby African man who limply shook our hands and avoided direct eye contact. He led us out to his rental car. He popped the trunk and I was about to hoist my suitcase into the back when a boy emerged out of the darkness and grabbed my bag. I thought he was a thief trying to take off with my bag, and I pulled it towards me. He then pushed the bag into the trunk, and I realized he was a guy trying to make a few shillings helping Westerners with their luggage. Our chubby chauffeur waved him off and we sped away. We were taken to the African Inland Mission to spend the night at their hotel for missionaries. We were tired and it didn’t take long for us to fall asleep.

We woke at 5am and I watched my first African sunrise. (I’ll tell you a secret: it was a lot like sunrises anywhere else in the world.) I had breakfast with an older couple from Illinois whose three sons worked as missionaries in Tanzania. The husband was apparently very excited about going to the dentist that morning. “We can get crowns here for $55, whereas in Illinois we have to pay $1,400. He’s a dentist for missionaries.” He said, as he chewed a piece of toast.  It was like he was part of an elitist club. But then again, maybe he was. “Come darling, we better go brush our teeth.” He got up and led his submissive and quite wife out the door.

Our African driver drove us into the city to drop us off at the bus station. We needed to get some Kenyan currency, so he stopped at a casino on the way to the bus depot. It seemed like it was just above board, and could drop fairly easily after midnight. We changed some US money into Kenyan shillings, probably at a horrific exchange rate, and jumped back into the car. Some song about Jesus was playing on the top-forty radio station, and we drove through the bustling streets literally weaving between bikes and pedestrians in suits.

Easy Coach is the top-notch bus line in Kenya. We boarded the bus at about 9am after limply shaking the hand of our chubby driver. We had seats at the very front kitty corner from the driver in front of the door. Our fellow passengers were mostly rich businessmen or wealthy Africans. It seemed like they put us in the best seats because we were white. But I couldn’t tell if they did it because they wanted us to have a comfortable ride, or because we were some sort of advertisement for everyone we passed “Hey we are so good, the Musungu (the Swahili name for “gringo”) even ride with us!”.

It took us about fifteen minutes to get out of the station. A young man with a NYC hat on our bus suddenly remembered he had forgotten to switch cell phone batteries with his mother. He rushed off the bus as the bus backed up, and frantically dialed a number into his cell phone while he desperately looked around for his mom. Somehow he found her and they stood next to the bus as the bus began to pull away from the station trying to pull the batteries out of their phones. His father, who was also on the bus, then came up and shouted at his son. “What are you doing? Get on the bus!” The young man finally jumped on.  Then as the bus was just about to pull into the busy traffic, there was some more yelling and an old “mama” climbed aboard followed by her luggage. Then some more yelling and the door opening and closing and two more people rushed on. Then as the driver pulled out into the street, a man banged on the door, more yelling, but the driver had had enough and pulled away.

It was a seven-hour bus ride from Nairobi to Kisumu, and I’ve never in all my life been on a bus ride like it. The road itself is an experience in and of itself. Just imagine a concrete jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing. Then have it go through a 10 magnitude earthquake to give it a few ripples and there you have the great transcontinental highway. It is one of the only road that leads into the interior of Africa from Kenya. So all semi-trucks, which account for all the industrial transportation in the country because air is too expensive and rail is too unreliable, are slowly rumbling along at 10 mph on the one lane highway. Then add a panicked attitude to every driver to race every other driver on the road. So every car is swerving into the other lane hoping they’ll be able to pass. Then add livestock alongside the road: countless herds of sheep, goats, and cows, chickens, dogs and donkeys. We almost hit just about every kind of animal at least once. Then add some wild animals like a herd of zebra hanging out along the road and a troop of baboons, rolling tea green tea fields as far as the eye can see, a rainstorm, 8,000 ft. mountain views of the Rift Valley, and men on bicycles with their wives sitting behind them, and you get an idea of what it was like.

The extreme poverty in Africa is breath taking. Driving past slums or just any normal village, seeing the handicap and the children barely clothed begging for money, smelling the reeking smoldering fires along the road and the awful pungent smell of every town from the human waste...how is one to respond? I found myself feeling a combination of callousness and disgust. How could I take in the pain around me for what it really is, without being crushed by it? It is truly terrible.  Wouldn’t I just fall apart? I remember that when I was a young boy, I was terrified of nursing homes. They were awful places where old people suffer and die. When my mom and I would drive by one, I would look the other way and pretend it wasn’t there. Being exposed to these scenes was a similar experience, but I couldn’t turn my head. I felt disgust for how dirty and smelly these people were. But remembered something from the Brothers Karamazov where Alyosha feels guilty for his other brothers, like it was him that had committed their sins. I then realized, “If were to live in this place, I would create just as much ugliness and waste as these people. I am really not that different from them. What I am seeing is a reflection of my own potential.” I am still in the process of understanding what this means.

Being in Africa is like seeing life through a magnifying glass: the misery and beauty are both magnified beyond what they normally are in Seattle. As I described above, the human suffering here is staggering, but the beauty here is also astonishing. Yesterday Anna and I stood in the lawn and listened to the continuously rumbling, boiling, rolling thunder and watched a huge rain cloud barrel down the valley. I recalled the Psalms that describes the earth “groaning” in anticipation for redemption. It was like the sky was seeing the pain down here on earth and cried out on our behalf.

CHAPTER 2

I walked into the well house for the first time the day after I arrived. The large red metal door opened up into a small concrete room with a high 15ft ceiling. Bed sheets hung loosely over the windows, a small ragged calendar hung from a hook above the window, a couch faced two reclining chairs under the window in between a coffee table, and a refrigerator and a makeshift kitchen counter sat against the opposite wall. “I’ve got to get a picture on these walls”, I immediately though. The blank pale walls stared back at me. “We’ve never had anything on us,” they solemnly replied.

I walked into the adjacent room where I would be sleeping. A bunk bed on the right, a large open space to the left, shelves on the wall, and then I turned around and looked above the door. 9 feet up was a tiny bunk that looked like it would fit a child. My mouth dropped open. “What! I’ve got to sleep in there! It looks like a coffin!” I climbed the little ladder attached to the wall up to the “nest” and looked in. A few mosquitoes came out of the dirty green mosquito net to greet me, and the grimy bed sheets lay lazily on the foam mattress. The walls around the bed were a dirty gray that once was a brilliant white.

I peeked my head into the bathroom and found a small sink, a shower, and a toilet crammed into a 5X5-ft. concrete closet. The shower curtain hung from pieces of used twine, and shirts and underwear were draped over the showerhead to keep the water from spraying too much. The floor was a dark gray stained permanently, I imagined, with dirt.

I walked out of the well house a bit concerned. I began to recite in my head my rights as an American: the right to comfort, the right to luxury, the right to cleanliness, the right to a beautiful bedroom, and the right to individual space. “Am I really expected to live in such conditions?”, I unhappily asked myself. “This is outrageous! Maybe I can move to a different location where I will have more space and be more comfortable.” I discussed my concern with Jeff that evening about the small size of the bunk. He said, “Well, just go over there a lot this week and spend some time there. And don’t worry we can fix something up for you. There is lots of space here.”

I walked the compound after my tour of the well house. Small neat houses with red trim and blue tin roofs were placed intermittently around the two hubs of the farm: the dairy and the workshop. Walking into the workshop I met a man named Peter…Peter the carpenter. He had a scraggily mustache and an obvious overbite that you could see when he smiled, which was almost constantly. “Hey man!”, he would say laughing, doing a little dance. Later that night when I was at the well house he came in. After a short chat he said, “My friend, can you do a favor for me?” “What is it?”, I asked. “Could you bring your gee tar over so that I could play?” “You know how to play?”, I asked in mild surprise. He scrunched up in face and squirmed, “Ah, you know man. Yes, of course!” I brought my guitar over and handed it over to him. “Oh yea, man. This is nice!” He started a play. The strings buzzed and the chords all sounded out of tune. Then he started to sing, “Omiah lemieh samile.” His voice was even worse then his guitar playing. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. He was dead serious, “Eh voo salamah nee.”

A few days later I went into Kisumu and went shopping for some provisions. Paint, malaria prevention medicine, a new mattress, a fan and some chocolate. I painted two bands of blue on the high ceiling in the well house in both the living room and in the bedroom. I went on and painted the bathroom walls and ceiling the same blue, and then took a sander to the dirty grout on the shower walls. I took out the old mattress in the “nest”, and cleaned with bleach the whole area, installed a wall fan and a new blue mosquito net, shoved the new mattress up and there it was. And though my first night in the nest was a bit uncomfortable and sleepless, the following night I was out like baby.

Humans are the most adaptable creatures on the planet, able to thrive in more environments and climates then any other. After the first few days, I felt my body quickly adjusting to the heat, the smells, tastes and slower rhythm of African life. I realized after being in some homes around in the community that my nest is a palace compared to the average bed in Kenya. And as I found that the more I spent time in the well house, and invested my time and energy into it, my “rights” became trivial and unimportant. But at the same time, I wasn’t completely ready to adopt the Kenyan aesthetic standard as my own. The Kenyan mindset is primarily concerned with survival, and is does not have time, resources, and moreover money, to be preoccupied with making their lives full of beautiful things. If I can leave this place a little more pleasant and beautiful, then everyone will be better off than before. Thus, I felt that by starting my work here with creating a more beautiful home, I would be enhancing the spiritual and mental health of those that live and visit that place. 

“Would it be possible,” I asked Dismyss the dairy manager, “to milk a cow this evening?” Dismyss’ eyebrows were constantly furrowed, and he spoke quickly with articulate and clear words. “Hmm. Well, what I will have you do is milk the goats first. And after you have graduated from the goats, I will let you milk a cow.” Milking a goat was a very natural experience. As I crouched next to the goat with an udder in my hand, squeezing from top to bottom, the sound of the squirts ringing in the aluminum milk pale, the smell of goat hair in my mouth and nose, I thought, “This feels as normal to me as eating macaroni and cheese, or building a fire in the fireplace.” “Okay, how about you begin on Jeanne.” Dismyss said waving me over to a big old brown and white cow. “I will have someone start her, and then you can finish.” They tied the back legs to the stall, and wiping some greasy goo on the udders, started pulling the milk out down into the buckets. I squatted next to the cow and watched for a few minutes. Then, I was waved towards the cow. I got down next to it, and started pulling on the udders. Jeanne was the oldest cow they had, and the udders were covered with bumps that felt like warts. It seemed like the cows was just about dry and nothing much was coming out, but on I went alternating between the four tits. On the other side of the cows enclosure, a cow started pooping that splattered on the concrete floor onto my back and my legs. “Benjamin, you get an A for effort, but a D for performance”, Dismyss said with a smile. “Ah, thanks”, I said but feeling like I had played a rigged poker game. “You should go back to the goats, and get better at them before you milk another cow.”

My "Nest" looking up from the floor

Though on the one hand I’m being challenged and my comfort zone pushed, I still lead a relatively comfortable life. By Kenyan standards I am very wealthy and can afford the best the economy has to offer. The best store in Kisumu is called “Nakumat”, which only the rich and muzungus (whites) go to. But by American standards, it is like shopping at WalMart. And though driving in a car is a standard we all take for granted in the States, it is a big deal to drive a car in Kenya. I would guess that only about 5-10% of the population drive. So it is very strange to be treated so differently than in America. I feel the stares of jealousy driving through me, the resent poisoning their eyes, envy and mistrust guarding themselves.

We (the Krugars, Heidi and Wolfgang, Anna, and I), went to a wonderful little restaurant in Kisumu called “Kay’s” for dinner the other night. For $13, we had drinks, appetizers, a delicious entrée, and desert. Lexi and I joked the whole night together, and I didn’t laugh so much in weeks. On our way home, Katta and Lexi said, “Ben, you’ve gotta play this game with us. What you do is hold on to this metal bar and when I say ‘READY HUP!’ you gotta start jumping up and down in your seat.” Jeff would drive the van a little faster than normal and he would aim at the potholes at a terrific speed. “READY HUP!”, Lexi would yell and then Whimm Bang Bong and we were flying up and down screaming and laughing holding on for dear life. We slowed down as we approached a group of people on the side of the road. There was probably about thirty of them, all dressed in white robes and hats. Some of them were holding candles. They looked like strange ghosts out there walking around in the sugar cane fields. “What are those people doing?”, I asked. “They’re probably that cult that lives in the hills. They think that their Messiah will appear in these hills.” Africa is a place of such dramatic contradictions.

CHAPTER 3

George, one of the fathers on the farm, knocked on our door. He’s a big man with a big silent smile and dark quiet eyes. He came in and sat down in the chair next to me. “So I trying to find someone to give a talk at the boys high school next to us. They have a Christian Union meeting on Saturday nights, and then a mandatory chapel meeting Sunday mornings. Do you want to do it?” My head spun and I searched the ceiling for an answer. “I can try.” I said with not much conviction. “There are about 400 students, and on Saturday nights they have the night off. About 50 boys choose to go to the Christian meeting, and the rest have a disco. It is like spiritual warfare.” When I heard this, I realized that there was a complex subculture going on there that I would need to become familiar with before I jumped into the frying pan. “George, I don’t think I will talk this week, but I would like to go with you to see what it’s like.”

We walked out of the compound gate, being let out by one of the security guards dressed in combat boots and a dark green uniform. We walked for some time along the road to the adjacent lot to our farm. We entered through a small door and was greeted by a group of guards. We met the headmaster and he led us through the school campus. We approached a large cluster of buildings. Off to the left there was a music blaring from inside the cafeteria. Clusters of boys hung around outside socializing.

We moved toward the right and into a classroom. I walked into the room and the group was in the middle of a spirited song. Everyone was singing and swinging back and forth with squeezed eyes, some with arms raised. We sat down in the front. They finished their song and then took turns sharing Scripture and encouraging each other. As they spoke, Bob Marley sang about one love in the distance. “We must stay strong. Some of us used to go to the disco to listen to secular music and dance, but now we all know that we should gather together to offer our praises to our God.” 

The headmaster stood up, “It is so encouraging to see so many of you tonight. This coming week is finals week for many of you, and remember that if you don’t have time to pray it means that your commitment to God will be compromised.”

After the meeting, we walked back to the gate and I strained to look into the cafeteria to see what great evil could possibly exist there. I was drawn to the music and to see what a disco at an all boys school in the middle of Africa looked like. But I sensed the moral determination of George and the headmaster from their deliberate strides away from the dance, and thought it best not to challenge them…yet anyway.

The headmaster guided us out to the field to let us go a quicker way back. He stopped in the middle of the field and started to look around and whistling. This continued for sometime, and then a figure emerged from the woodpile 20 meters away. The man wore a camouflaged poncho and looked half-asleep. He shook our hands and escorted us through the field to the fence. We were then greeted by one of our security guards who carried a home-made bow, and razor hunting arrows. “Why are there so many security guards around here?” I asked George. “A few years ago, a group of Nandi men came down here at night. They were trying to steel cattle from the boys school. There was just one guard watching the cows. They cornered him and knifed him across the neck and he died. So now we have more security around our cows, and the boys school got rid of their cows.”

“How was your time?” Washington, my roommate, asked looking up from a table full of papers. Washington is twenty six, sleeps on the bottom bunk, is silent and pleasant, has a warm smile and a bright laugh, and works late and gets up early. He gets up at 5:30am, turns up the radio, takes a shower and finishes up his lesson plan. I usually put in my earplugs at about this point and sleep in until 6:40, where I’ll have just enough time to see him off for the day. He works at a private Christian primary school called “Disciples Of Mercy” (or DOM) down the street.

“It was okay.” I answered him. “They had a tight sense of community there and I was impressed that so many people were willing to share. But I really didn’t like how they created a dilemma between Christian fellowship and going to the disco. Both are so good, and to say that you have to choose between one or the other, I think is wrong. There is nothing bad about listening to good “secular” music and dancing. I’d like to go back and talk to them.”

“How possible would it be to make yogurt and sell it around here?” I asked Dismas as we sat in my house. His eyes brightened, “Very possible! Very possible! We have the milk already, and it would just be a matter of going through the process. We have all the equipment already and there is even a refrigerator in the farm store.” “Well, lets do it!” I said. “We can double the value of the milk if we sell it as yogurt!” The next day we went to visit a guy in Kisumu named Charles who has a thriving business selling home-made yogurt in the slum. I took a few notes as to what I would need to buy to get things off the ground, and we bought some start up supplies.

The first trial run was a bit messy. We were trying to boil the raw milk on our stove in the evening, but the power was out and we couldn’t see what we were doing. The milk kept boiling over as we shouted and sponged in the dark. The first batch didn’t work because it was too cold for the bacteria to grow properly, so the next day we let it sit in the hot equatorial sun for three hours and presto, we had our first yogurt. We added black current flavoring, some purple food coloring, and sugar, and packaged it up in clear plastic bags and began selling it at 5 shillings a bag (about 7 cents) – we sold out in a matter of hours.

Dismas’ wife’s name is Nafula. She is in charge of all the paperwork and secretarial work in the office. We needed a permit to buy molasses for our cows, but the district commissioner insisted that he would need to see a note from the Chief of the area saying that he knew us and that we were trustworthy recipients of the permit and we wouldn’t use the molasses to make liquor. “Can you drive me to the Chief’s office today”, Nafula asked me.

I had practiced driving a bit the day before with Marit who explained the ins and outs of the three cars on the compound. “Sure”. We jumped in the Pajero, Toyota’s version of a Land Rover, and off we drove down the bumpy road through the sugar cane fields. We didn’t get very far before we passed a car and Nafula said, “Oh that’s the Chief. He must have got tired of waiting for us and is coming to find us.” We pulled over, as did the Chief and his bodyguards. The Chief awkwardly got out of his dark blue Datsun hatchback. He was a big man with a double chin towering well over 6ft. I half expected him to be wearing a big headdress and skirt, but he was wearing khakis and a blue short sleeved collared shirt.

“Hello”, he said strutting up to me and shaking my hand, “you are new here.” His cell phone rang and he started talking on it, but continued to hold my hand. I stood there on the side of the road holding the chief’s hand through his whole conversation.
“How long have you been in this country?”
“I got here about two weeks ago.”
“Good. Good.” He liked to stand a constant six inches away from me, almost holding me. “I am the governor of this area.” He waved his hand around him. His cronies paced the road. He let go of my hand.
“How long have you been the chief here?”
“10 years.”
“How old are you now?”
“37”
“And how many people are under your jurisdiction?”
“Oh about 25,000 people, plus the animals and the natural resources.” He took his cell phone out of his breast pocket and began text messaging someone.
Nafula described our situation to him.
“I will take your document and take it to the District Commissioner myself. It is too much trouble going back to my office and then you have to get the note. No, I will just take it to them myself. I will be the letter.” He started laughing and his huge frame jiggled.
Nafula was hesitant about giving up her precious permit, but what can you do when you are doing business with the chief?
“Tell Jeff that when I bring by the paper, he should give me some money for petrol.” It then all became clear as to why he was so willing to go out of his way to do us a “favor”.
Now that the business seemed settled he looked me up and down.
“You look nice,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I’d like to talk to you about doing an exchange program with you. We will send our kids to America and your kids can come here to Africa for a week.” I kicked the dirt, and thought to myself, “Does he know how much money that would be?”
“Okay, don’t worry about the document. I’ll take care of it and drop it by your place this afternoon.”
We waved as we drove off, but he was busy on his cell phone and didn’t see us.

CHAPTER 4

Before I continue with my story of the events of my time here in Africa, I must pause to tell you of my relationship with Anglicanism. For it will influence my actions and interests in the coming months.

Last summer while reading Tomas Merton's autobiography Seventh Story Mountain, I was fascinated by the influence that the catholic prayer book played in his conversion to Christianity. Given my background, I hadn't given prayer books much thought, but this peaked my curiosity. Knowing that my doctrinal position prevented me from following a catholic path, I rode my bike to the Episcopal Bookstore in Seattle and bought the common book of prayer.

This was the beginning of my love affair with Anglicanism. I began using the prayer book as a guide for my morning devotional. It was so ordered and structured, written with such eloquently poetic words, and combined order and beauty in such a remarkable way. It gave my spiritual life the same order, routine, and emphasis on beauty.

So based off of my newfound interest in the prayer book, I set off to find a church that was in line with this approach. As many of you know, the "Episcopal" church is the American branch of the Anglican communion, but has strayed quite far from their original biblical roots. But through a series of providential run-ins with Anglicans in England and Philadelphia, I have connected with a community of people who see the convergence of Anglican liturgical tradition and the authority of the Holy Scriptures as important to their spirituality. And it is within this community that I hope in the near future to follow a vocation in the ministry.

East Africa has a reputation of being a stronghold of conservative Anglicanism. Kenya, in particular, being a British colony and being heavily influenced by the Anglican Church, has a thriving Anglican community. The A.C.K. (Anglican Church of Kenya) has churches in virtually every major town in Kenya. As my time to leave for Africa approached, I became extremely excited about the prospect of attending some of these world-renowned churches.

I told Dismas of my interest in visiting an Anglican Church and he said. "Oh, yes. Before I came here to work at Nehemiah, I went to an Anglican Church in Kisumu. We can go there. I can introduce you to the provost." The provost was another name for the head honcho at the church. So one bright Sunday morning, I drove Dismas and Nafula out to St. Stephen's Anglican Cathedral. It was a large building, and was well attended by maybe 300 people. I was the only white person among them.

The music was a mix of traditional English hymns sung along to an old pipe organ with everyone singing as loud and hard as they could, and traditional African choruses thumping along with vigor and conviction. "We'd like to have our visitor from America come and greet us." I walked up to the front a little uncertain of what I would say to this instant audience of hundreds. "Jambo. I give you greetings from America. I have been waiting to come to visit you here for many months and I'm so happy to be here." At this point, I couldn't really think of anything else to say. "Thank you for being so welcoming." And I sat down to the sound of the church clapping.

The provost wore a big white robe and preached about going through fiery trials, just like Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo of old. I arranged with Dismas before I left to have lunch with the Provost. We went out to the fancy restaurant near Nakumat, and chewed fried chicken and sipped coke as the provost urged me to go through the confirmation process to officially become part of the Anglican church. "Okay," I told him, "I'll come back and proceed with the process next month."

My dear roommate Kennedy is from the Nandi Hills. He came to Nehemiah to work as the compound's social worker, a kind of mediator between the families of the orphans and the orphans themselves. He is a very quiet young man always ready to listen, with an easy laugh, and thankful heart. "Is there an Anglican church up in Nandi?" I asked him when I first moved into the well house. "Yes, I think so. It is very small. The next time I go up, I'll talk to them." He went and did just that, and the church wasn't only thrilled about me coming to visit, they wanted me to come and preach! So I spent several hours writing up a sermon on: The Kingdom of God. The day finally came to go to Nandi.

Kennedy, Anthony, and I rose before daybreak and began hiking steadily up into the hills. The landscape changed from the flat hot fields of the valley where the farm is located into lush tropical forests upon gentle rolling hills. "This is just like an African Shire! Instead of hobbit holes, there are these mud huts." Anthony exclaimed. The little mud huts dotted the hillside among the small fields of tea and maize. Cows with small tinkling bells grazed lazily on the windy hills. A white person coming to the area was as rare as seeing a movie star walking down the street on Bainbridge Island. Children flocked along the roadside, men sitting on benches would stop and stare, women with heavy baskets balanced on their heads would eye us suspiciously as we passed. Youths would shout, "Chumgae!" meaning ‘how's it going?' with eager grins. We walked along the orange road, and Kennedy commented on the churches we passed. "There's a Catholic Church", he said pointing to a long rectangular mud building. "And there's the Orthodox Church." It looked strikingly similar to the Catholic building. We passed two frenzied men with clergy collars on bicycles who almost hit us as they twisted their way around the huge ridges and crevices of the road. "Those were the Orthodox priests," Kennedy said in a low voice as they whizzed by.

I arrived at the church with tired limbs, but eager to see what this exotic little Anglican church would be like. It sat perched on a hillside, directly in the middle of a cow pasture. It was just a single room made of sticks, mud, and rocks, cement wallpaper, and a tin roof.

I quickly changed from my sweaty shorts and T-shirt into some rolled up slacks and a collared shirt I had in my backpack. I whipped a tie around my neck, and I strode down through the grass to the church to the sound of the congregation singing. I was escorted to the front of the building up to one of the chairs reserved for guests of honor. I sat there facing the singing congregation inspecting my audience, as they examined me. I counted 70 black faces.

Word must have gotten out that a muzungu was preaching at the Anglican Church, because the place was packed. Children were forced out of their seats to sit on laps or on the floor as more people slipped in late to get a glimpse of the visitors. Several songs were sung along to a tambourine, and the liturgy was said in the Nandi language. "Now for our main speaker. He will introduce us to himself and share the word of God with us this morning." I got up, and started my first sermon. Kennedy stood next to me translating my English into Nandi, so every sentence took twice as long and it took some skill to create a flow when you had to stop after every phrase.

"Our Lord Jesus is preparing a place in Heaven for us to live with Him forever," I told them. "A place where there will be no sun because Jesus will brighten everything. It will be a place of beauty and goodness and truth and love." I looked up to see how people were reacting. Just quiet faces looking back. At least no one was dozing off. "Our Savior's kingdom is built on pillars of self-sacrifice and grace. The streets will be lined with gold, and there will no longer be tears or suffering." A man on the left side toward the back was giving me a big smile the whole time, like he knew exactly what I was talking about.

Before the service ended, they presented Anthony and I with a gift from the church: a gourd that was used to store milk in, highly decorated with paint and leather straps. Then they insisted that we stand to get our picture taken with just about every person in the church, which took a good half hour. Then we marched off to a member's house to have a church lunch that was quite pleasant.

However as we prepared to depart, they got into a big circle and a man gave a speech about how they would like us to make a contribution to their church. "We don't have any problems in our church other than money. We would like to build a larger building," he pleaded. I was put out. "Thank you for your gifts and the delicious lunch", I replied. "Though we are mazungus, we do not have the resources to help you build a larger building," I explained. "We are still students, paying school fees. We don't even have houses of our own!" I felt strange having to say this, but I felt it necessary. As far as they knew, we were rich as sultans who could just hand them a bag full of gold to build a cathedral. But I was more offended by the fact that they asked for money after welcoming us as guests. Sure, I put some money into the offering plate when it came around, but to be asked in such a public way with the whole church watching? Perhaps it was just a cultural misunderstanding.

We spent that night at Kennedy's parent's house. I was fortunate enough to have a primitive foam mattress, while Anthony slept on sticks covered with a blanket. He didn't sleep much, to say the least.

The following day we hiked for a couple hours to the famous Nandi Rock, located along the ridge overlooking the great expanse of the valley, Kisumu and Lake Victoria. If I squinted, I could make out the farm, then traced the road that I'd driven down so many times to the city, and finally to the lake. It gave me that realization that one's life is so small in the bigger scheme of the universe. That age old epiphany of "Oh, there's more to the world than the place I live in!"

CHAPTER 5

We moved off towards the gate of the compound with our backpacks lightly bouncing, our flip flops happily smacking our heels, and the new born African sun peeking over the banana trees. Anthony Harvey came out to the farm from my small hometown of Bainbridge Island a couple weeks ago. He has come to visit for a month. Being of a bold disposition and of the adventurous age of 19, we decided that we would take a trip together off to some strange corner of Africa. Kampala, Uganda sounded exotic as any, plus it was just a seven hour bus ride over the border to the capital on the northern tip of Lake Victoria.

We started out of the farm on foot, looking over our shoulders with the hope that a matatu (a minibus used for public transport) would be spotted on the horizon. An Indian man in a maroon pickup, slowed as I stretched my hand like a Nazi salute and waved my hand up and down. We jumped in.

“So where are you from?” I asked after bumping down the road for a time.

“Here.” He pointed at the ground.

“Where were your parents from?”

“They were from India. They moved to Kenya for the railroad one hundred

years ago.” His white Sheik turban bounced precariously as he swerved around a pothole.

“Oh, for the British railroad.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t the talkative type.

He let us out at the Police checkpoint where he said we could wait in the shade until a matatu came by. We chatted with the single policeman until a loaded matatu came rumbling by, already packed with at least a dozen people. We squeezed in and into to Kisumu we rode, and were dropped off at the main matatu station. Groups of boda bodas (bicycle taxis) crowded around us. “Friend! Mazungu! Where you want to go? Come. Friend!” We choose the two closest bikes. “To the Akamba station.” They’re faces were blank with incomprehension. “Akamba! Akamba! Bus…” Then the light came on. “Oh, yes. I know. Get on. Get on.” The bikes had a nice shoebox-size padded seat and two little metal spokes for one’s sandals to rest on either side of the back wheel. The boda boda man bent forward, pumping the heavy bike, then dodging between an overexcited matatu and a pothole the size of a dead dog.

We reached the station with plenty of time and spent the hours remaining wandering around the city, and lounging in cafés. The bus was an hour and a half late when it finally roared out of Kisumu—Kenya time. Equipped with two TVs, movies were cycled through the VCR much to the delight of all of us on board. First a Nigerian movie about a rich girl who falls in love with a poor man, to the horror of her family…then some Swahili comedy, not dissimilar to a Charley Chaplain slapstick routine, and finally a Hollywood version of King David.

The border between Kenya and Uganda is little more than two ill maintained fences, with most people just walking through, back and forth with seemingly no regard to the differentiation of these two sovereign nations. Standing in a long line to get a stamp in the old passport, I watched a herd of cattle being swatted through the narrow gate. “It’s not quite the same level of homeland security that we have in America,” I thought out loud. It was sometime around six when the bus pulled to the side of the road and the operator opened up the hood staring bewilderedly into the dirty engine. “The clutch fluid is out.” A skinny unshaven British man told me after eavesdropping on the driver. “They are sending the operator in a matatu to the nearest village for more clutch fluid. It should only be about twenty minutes.” I asked my fellow stranded passengers if anyone knew where the Akamba bus station was located on my “Lonely Planet” map. A Kampala native pointed it out on my map, while an Indian man looked over his shoulder. “Are you looking for a hotel tonight?” he asked. “Yea, something affordable and not to far away from the bus station,” I replied. “I’ll come with you to find a hotel,” the Indian man said. “I’m a doctor in Malawi, but I live in London with my family.” We accepted his proposal, and sat down to wait for the overdue clutch fluid. Of course the twenty minutes grew into the ripe old age of forty minutes before we finally were underway again.

Kampala glittered and shimmered in the hot evening air as we skirted through her suburbs, and pulled into the Akamba station. A crowd of loud taxi drivers with out stretched hands greeted us as we pushed and elbowed our way out of the door. Grabbing his bag from under the bus Bhubed, for that was the strange name of our strange Indian friend, indicated for us to follow. We emerged onto a back alley where we negotiated with a taxi driver who wanted too much, so we opted for boda bodas. But Kampala boda bodas are not quite the same as Kisumu boda bodas. There in Uganda they are all motorcycles with the same shoe-box size seats and holsters for one’s sandals to sit. “Go to the Standard Charter Bank. Bank!,” we cried above the din of noise and confusion. Then we were off, the three mopeds whining under the weight, the three drivers whirling their machines through the streets like whips with us hanging on for dear life.

For some unknown reason, only providence knows for sure, I was assigned to a boda boda with no gas. As we sped up a the street, the motorcycle died. “What is the matter?” I asked as I got off. “No petrol!”, my driver said. “But it’s okay.” He leaned his vehicle on its side and shook it. “Now come,” he ordered. I jumped on and off we went again. As we neared the next block the engine started sputtering again. Three scantily clad women waited on the corner for their next customer, who they thought would be me. What other mazungu has his boda boda slow and stop in front of them. “Hello there white man! You have a beautiful body! Let us keep you company tonight!” They started reaching for me. At about this point, my driver started pushing clumsily with his feet. “No thanks”, I said in a shaky voice a bit shocked at the whole affair. My poor driver couldn’t push quite fast enough and the girls kept following. By the grace of God, a small downward slope emerged from under us and we picked up speed. I stumbled off the boda boda in front of the bank, still a little shaky and pulled out Ugandan money while my driver when and got more gas. Then zip, vroom, wing, we shot down the dark street, the wind blowing my T-shirt tight against my chest, the wind filling me with excitement of this strange land on this strange adventure.

“The royal hotel is booked for tonight,” Bhubed said as we pulled up to him in front of the hotel. We negotiated with our drivers to go on to another hotel around the corner. “60,000 shillings for a night. That’s too much,” Bhubed declared. We consulted the Lonely Planet and we were back on the road—our motorcycle club of three, like three displaced storm troopers atop speeders that seemed to float in the silky darkness. We arrived at our third hotel of the night to find that it was booked up, and was led by a porter to the fourth hotel in a disreputable part of town. Anthony and I got a double room for about $12, and took cold showers by candlelight. The power was out of course.

The next day we woke early and decided to go to morning prayers at an Anglican church called All Saints Cathedral located on top of one of the seven hills that make up Kampala. The cathedral was more like large cavern, modestly decorated with simple banners: Worship, Truth, Life, and a large one in the front Jesus Cares. A few people sat with eyes closed in the corners praying out loud. After Anthony and I said our prayers the small group came up to us and introduced themselves. “You are so welcome!” they said with big smiles. “You should come to the all night prayer meeting tomorrow night. It starts at 9.” We thanked them and walked back down the hill.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city, and walking the streets past the cripples, the amputees, the destitute, and the desperate. So many. I prayed that my callousness toward them would melt with the light of compassion, and doing so broke my heart every time I passed one. Men with no legs, deformed arms walking on the sidewalk using plastic cups to shoe their stubs.

That night we went to what the Lonely Planet called, “the best Indian restaurant in town, with perhaps the best curry in the world…no joke.” And indeed it was by far the best Indian food I’ve ever had. The atmosphere was cool and dark, with the mysterious smells of masala drifting around like mist. The busy city street bustled below us as we sat perched on the second floor of the fancy building. We splurged, leaving with stomachs aching with the delicious food and some leftovers in a box.

The next morning we went to the other Anglican cathedral sitting on another hill. Unlike All Saints, Namberimbe Cathedral was a true cathedral with a high dome, stained glass, and a huge somber bell. It is perhaps the most beautiful church I’ve ever been to. Sure the Vatican, or St. Paul’s in London are impressive, but this one had such a delightful combination of simplicity and richness to it. Each clay brick was brought up the hill by parishioners, and constructed over a period of many years. It filled the hill with life, children always playing around it, and young people practicing their band instruments at sunset overlooking the city.

“Let’s go to the overnight prayer meeting.” I told Anthony. “When’s the next time we’ll have the opportunity to stay up all night praying with Africans. If anything, it will be a unique experience.” We marched up the hill to All Saints and took our seats. In all there were about 15 people. But their approach to prayer, which was disappointing to me, was more Pentecostal than Anglican in influence. They took to a rambling, “spirit filled”, continuously repetitive, and emotional approach. After several hours of, “Eh! Yes Jesus, yes Jesus! Ohhh! Thank you Lord, thank you Lord…Oh! Mmmm…” It began to get a trifle tedious. By 2am, a drum was pounding like a galloping horse, with everyone still awake, but now pacing as they mumbled their prayers under their breath. “We cover them with the mighty blood of the Lamb!” They were protecting their families from the tribal spirits of the dead. A man in front paced back and forth with a microphone in his hand yelling to keep us all awake, “Ohh! Yes! Lord!” It strangely felt like an insane asylum. Zombies rocking, swaying, pacing, muttering, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”, sounding like wild spirits. I’m sure that they were probably very sane people, but sometimes what is actually very real, looks to be pure insanity.

We rested the next day and attended Nambarimbe Cathedral the following morning. Though the cathedral was gorgeous itself, again the Pentecostal influence penetrated even into these walls. A grotesque overhead projector, a drum set and piano, and a special guest speaker talking about how she raised her autistic son. It didn’t feel like it did the place justice. We spent the remaining day in Kampala relaxing in a fancy hotel room that Anthony offered to pay for. Looking out our third floor window we had a clear view of a slum directly beneath us. It felt so strange to be staying in such modern luxury, while just outside our window chickens ate garbage and children ran naked. Yet another instance of Africa’s inclusively contradictory nature.

 

CHAPTER 6

I often think of you all back in the country of America. Whereas—I imagine you can expect it not to get light out until 8:30 or 9 in the morning, bundle yourself up in coats and scarves and big furry hats before you drive in your automobile (or a public bus as might be the case for many of you students) to a store where you will buy some coffee, and then finish your commute to your place of work or study, and gruel away inside an office or a classroom, and periodically look out the window at the cedar trees dripping with the rain clothed in a tunic of fog—my life is quite different.

“A dead mosquito a day keeps malaria away”, that’s my mantra around the house…well—that and a weekly dose of mefloquine that will give you wild adventures every night in your dreams. And though diarrhea has an unexpected way of dropping in at the most unseemly times, waiting…can always be expected. Anytime I leave the compound I check to make sure I have the “holy trinity of Africa”: toilet paper, a book, and a water bottle. You never know where you will have to wait, but wait you must and wait you will, so be prepared! It may be in the back of a stuffed and cramped matatu stranded along the hot dusty road, or in the backyard of some stranger while your friend is talking to a distant cousin or a someone. Or it may be in a restaurant waiting for a client to come and meet you, but wherever it is you must have the remedies for the three evils of Africa: diarrhea, boredom, and dehydration.

But I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m “roughing it” too much. I have been actually quite surprised with the quality of life I am able to live here. I have electricity, and running water, and though it’s only cold water, hot water is unnecessary during the afternoon hours. I have a gas propane camping stove for cooking, a stereo (though the FM band is broken), a small refrigerator, soothing blue curtains, an office complete with a beautiful handmade desk custom fitted for my room, a computer and a printer, and a sputtering fan that provides free showers of cool air to dry the sweat of my brow while flies hop and jump around on my dirty feet. But the one luxury that I’ve become quite dependent on is high-speed wireless Internet. I was able to install the necessary software onto my old computer within the first week, and now checking my emails every morning has become a daily ritual. I copy pictures and gather information for my humanities class, keep up-to-date on US news, and download sermons all from that wonderful communicative medium. So don’t feel too sorry for me!

This week I wrote a Christmas play for the kids. Taking liberally from the Bible, and lines from Thomas Merton’s Marian poetry I knit together a drama script fit for the globe theatre. The first day of drama practice was a little dicey. “Okay, so when I call your name you come up.” My 24 soon-to-be actor children sat in front of me with jittery grins. “Shebey…you are the angel Gabriel.” A cry of exaltation rose from the crowd, and a clatter of Swahili followed.
“QUIET! Okay, Stephen Ford…you are Joseph, the father of Jesus.”
Another cry from the crowd.
“Juliet…where’s Juliet?”
“She’s bauthing.”
“She’s what?”
“Bauthing!”
“Oh, bathing! Iee yieee…Of course I forgot I’m in Kenya for a second,” I said to myself. “Okay, so who wants to be Mary for now until Juliet comes? Judy, come up and pretend to be Mary.” This probably just confused the 9 year-old Judy who was also Elizabeth. ‘So I’m pretending to be Mary, but I’m actually Elizabeth, but I’m really not either?’ The assignment of parts continued. “Elijah, Eric, Lucas, Fredrick, and Paul… you are all shepherds.” A cry of delight echoed in the room. Being a shepherd doesn’t have the foreign romanticism that it has in America where we think of a robed man with a turban and a shepherd’s crook. No—here, being a shepherd means that you’ve got to sit out in the hot sun all day and look after your family’s sheep or cows or goats and be bored. Being a shepherd is a real job description here, and not a very desirable one. The crowd of children obviously loved to see the rambunctious bunch of boys be cast as the lowly shepherds. Each of the new shepherds reluctantly got up and slowly walked towards me with lowered heads, like they had just been sentenced to hard labor in the Gulag for 2 months. I had cast everyone ahead of time, but had a few stragglers drift in later. “Dominic…where can I put you? Hummm, Dominic, your going to be a shepherd. There’s no other parts.” Dominic sat there motionless. Then he slowly shook his head. “No, you don’t want to be a shepherd?” More jeering from the merciless crowd, “Okay, so what do you want to be?” No response. “An animal, like a cow or a pig or something?” Nothing, “How about an Angel?” He looked up, “But all the singing angels are girls.” He didn’t seem to care at this point. Anything was better than being a shepherd or a cow!

I took them through the script line by line, shouting, whispering, waving my arms around, kneeling, trembling with fear at the sight of the angels… it’s what you have to do when directing children in a play…or at least that’s what seemed to work to keep their attention for the duration of the 15 minutes. “So we’re going to teach you four Christmas songs.” Anna, Anthony and I sang them Away in a Manger, Angels we have heard on high, O Come Emanuel, and my favorite O Holy Night. “Now we’re going to try to learn Away in a Manger today.” I looked at Anna, “How do you teach a song to a group of kids?” I asked her, suddenly realizing my inexperience in the field of elementary music education. “Just sing it over and over.” So into that dark sea of ignorance we sailed with that one principle as our only guiding light. “Okay, again!” “Bonefice! Stop hitting Eric! Come here.” Bonefice stood next to me loudly and defiantly mumbling along to the song, much to the delight of his friends who thought it was hilarious. I gave him a stern look, as if to say, “You keep that up, and you won’t live another day!” He quieted down. Over and over and over, my voice was on the verge of being hoarse. “Elijah…I don’t see your mouth moving!” Anthony barked. Over and over. “Okay, so now you sing it back to me. Ready…one, two, three…” “Away in a manger no yaaa laaa ooooh.” They broke away into 24 different versions of different songs. “Okay...” I said slowly and looked at Anthony. “Well, at least they have the first line!” The reality of elementary music education in a second language finally hit me. It loomed in front of me like a colossal snow peaked mountain, and we were way down in a canyon beneath the base of it!

One afternoon a while ago I was feeling quite down and discouraged. “Why am I here? Am I really making that much of a difference?” I felt more like a furniture piece than an important part of the community life. And though I walked across the compound with a determined cheerfulness, I was tired and hallow inside. A group of children ran and played along the roadside. Kefa, a four-year-old orphan boy, who took a special liking to me within the first week I was here, waved to me with his irresistible smile. I waved back at him, and had the sudden urge to go over to him. For some reason he began to cry due to some interaction with the other children. I walked straight over to him. He had his face covered with his tiny arm. He was wearing a dirty sweatshirt that read “Princesses” with pictures of the Disney goddesses Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White on it. Without a word I picked him up and held him. “Sometimes life is hard, isn’t it?” I whispered to him, as I carried him over to the well house and sat down on the porch. As I hummed to him, he finally stopped crying and I wiped a big teardrop from under his eye. He just sat there staring off into space. I rocked him until his eyes grew heavy and it was harder and harder to keep them open each time he blinked. I gently pushed his head toward my shoulder and his breath became rhythmic and steady. “So this is why I’m here,” I thought as he dreamed away his problems. As the planets spun and snow was falling in Antarctica, the Almighty saw that I was in need of encouragement, and that Kefa needed a shoulder to dream on. So like in some huge marvelous tapestry, the Lord weaves our needed hearts together in sparkling patterns of colorful mercy.

CHAPTER 7

We finished up the school for the kids last week, after they almost got to be completely out of hand. Their attention spans shortened daily, and they were restless during every activity. We practiced the Christmas Pagaent over and over, everyday. 6 of the boys wanted to go back to their relatives for Christmas, including Joseph, the donkey, and two shepherds.

“Dominic,” (remember the boy who refused to be a shepherd),

“do you want to be Joseph?”

He nodded.

“Okay Dominic is now Joseph. Let’s start at scene one.”

It was the day before Christmas Eve and we had been working an hour everyday on the play. The troops were tired. The angel Gabriel came onto the stage, and standing on a chair announced to Mary that she would be with child and she should call the baby Jesus. Then Mary started quietly saying her lines. “How can this be since I am still a virgin?”

“Hold on...” I said, “Mary you need to say your lines louder.” She just stared at her feet. “What’s the matter?”

Elizabeth leaned over to me and whispered, “She’s sad because he doesn’t want to have Dominic be Joseph.” At hearing this I gave up all hope to go on.

“Okay, let’s take a break today. We’ve worked hard all week and you all deserve a break. Let’s meet tomorrow for the dress rehearsal in the chapel.” Anna came to rescue with a game and with that the two week school finished with a bang.

I took Washington, Kennedy, and Washington’s girlfriend (who by the way is a wonderful girl and I hope they get married soon) out to dinner and a movie on the eve of Christmas Eve. We ate delicious Indian food, and watched the new Harry Potter film. It was culture shock walking into the theatre. It really felt like it was some sort of transport machine as I pushed the swinging doors open. Cool dark air pushed back. I magically vanished from the hot, third world of Kenya and stepped into a theatre exactly like one in America. Air-conditioned to a chilly temperature of 70 degrees, fancy blue lights lined the high ceiling, the seats identical to a first class theatre in Seattle. It was very impressive just to sit in the theatre. We were early and took a few pictures to remember the occasion. And even though it was a Friday night, and the tickets were about $4, we were the only ones in the theatre. “I’ve got to come here more often”, I thought, “before the theatre runs out of money to keep this up and closes down.”

I haven’t made my intentions to become a Anglican minister a secret around the farm. “So what are you going to have made in the workshop next after your desk?” Wolfgang the German asked me, “a kneeling bench?” “Ben come and answer this Bible trivia question, you’re going to be a pastor you should know this...” Lexi said with a smile. I’ve gotten plenty of jokes about it, but I was quite taken back when on Christmas Eve I opened my present from the other missionaries to find a brand new sparkling blue Anglican-collar-shirt! It was quite impressive. I tried it on. As I pulled the white collar around my neck, and looked into the mirror, I thought, “Whoo, here we go.” I felt the weight of the moment settle. This might be the uniform that I will be wearing for years to come. And this was the first time I put it on. “Wear it tomorrow for the Christmas Day service!” They said. I had to explain to them that wouldn’t be possible. This shirt is a symbol that can only be given by the church to individuals who have made a commitment to the work of the church. To wear it, would be mockery. I’m not ordained. Goodness, I’m not even part of the Anglican Church yet!

The children performed their Christmas Nativity Play, with gusto and determination. I was so proud of them and their hard work. As I listened to their singing, I remembered how on that first day that we had play practice they didn’t know a single word to any of the songs. By the grace of God they climbed a mountain range.

I was asked to run the service on Christmas Day. I wrote out an order of service and printed out a dozen. A Durer engraving decorated the front and lyrics of the songs we were to sing covered the back. It was the first order of service that the farm church had ever been exposed to. The Anglican Church I go to every Sunday has a bulletin, and I just adapted it for use here.

I preached on the meaning of “light” and what it meant that Christ was the light of the world. Washington translated into Swahili and mimicked my gestures as I went along. “Christ came into the dark caves of our own sin and fantasies with the painful and piercing power of light and frees us to live in color, beauty, truth, and goodness.”

 

CHAPTER 8

The week following Christmas is always a bit quiet after the exhausting hustle and bustle of Christmas preparation. So it was here. Washington and Kennedy were gone for a few days last week visiting their families, so I manned the fort. But the fort was only supplied with African food, and I’m not exactly an African cook. “Bonface, what is the power stuff here?” I took one of the orphan boys inside and showed him a bag of flour. “Is this ugali flour?” He nodded. “Could you help me make ugali? I’m starving.” He was very kind to take pity on me and set to work mixing up the meal. I didn’t really know what else to eat with the ugali; I needed some sort of vegetable. Ah, moringa pods! Everyone is always talking about how good moringa is. It is a tree that grows these long bean pods about two feet long, and they grow outside my house. So I went out and harvested the pods out of the shells and brought back a bowl full of the greenish pods. “Put them in here and I’ll fry them,” Bonface told me authoritatively. He added some sekuma and salt and other seasoning, and it smelled wonderful. I wolfed down the meal like I hadn’t eaten for days.

The story continues four hours later as my stomach gurgled and twisted under the weight of those green moringa pods. I fell into a cold sweat that resulted in two hours of...well let’s just say a “toilet time”, that climaxed with vomit everywhere. A simple case of food poisoning. I was out of commission all the next day, trying to recoup from those wretched crunchy plants.

Our New Year’s celebrations were very wonderful. We had a big new years eve potluck that included a slide show, games, songs, and dancing. My mom had sent some gifts for the children, and I stood up and said, “Mama Ben, my mother, has sent you something from America!” (They refer to the mothers by the children they have). Their eyes were big with curiosity and excited for the surprise. I handed out candy canes and balloons. They were quite pleased and thankful. The festivities lasted up until midnight. We had a clock brought into the chapel (that is where we have our potlucks) so that we could count down the minutes. We got into a big circle and Mama Vero prayed for us as the minutes approached the New Year. Two minutes till, one minute till, she kept at it. Midnight, one minute after, she was still going! I looked over at Jeff and Marit who gave a mute celebratory face. “Amen”. Then the cheering and singing and hugging began. The simple fact is, is that African culture just doesn’t value precise or punctual time like western cultures. It didn’t matter to them that they celebrated the New Year a few minutes past, it would happen when it happens.

The next morning I drove Kennedy, Washington, Anna, Dismas, Nafula, and Shebby (a fourteen year old orphan who I’ve taken under my wing) into Kisumu to the Anglican Church. It was to be a big day...I was becoming part of the Anglican Church. In the preparation for confirmation I had been told that I needed a baptism card. I had never heard of a baptism card before, so I assumed that I was going to need to be baptized again. We made all the arrangements. I asked my dear friends Dismas and Nafula to become my godparents at the ceremony. They readily agreed and were very honored. However, at the 11^th hour my grandfather notified me that I did have a baptism card after all, and so the baptism was unnecessary. So though Dismas and Nafula didn’t become my official godparents, they became so in spirit.

I left my friends inside the building and went to find the other confirmation candidates. We had been instructed to all wear white shirts. I found a sea of over 50 black children in white shirts and white dresses sitting outside under a canopy. I sat in the front, standing out like a sore thumb, being the only white adult there. Confirmation booklets, nametags, Bibles, prayer books, and oratory envelopes littered our laps as we waited for the bishop to come and examine us. The assistant of the Bishop coached us how this was a very important day, that we should just relax, and should stand when the bishop comes out. Then a mother from the Mother’s Union (which is a ministry of the mothers in the Anglican church) came out to give us a gentle speech about how we should learn to speak less and listen more.

The bishop arrived and we stood at attention. It was the first time I had ever seen a bishop this close before. He paced back and forth in front of me asking the group questions. “What is the name of the archdeacon of the diocese?” He asked, I looked back over my shoulder to see that my fellow “confirmees” were as ignorant as I was with tell tale blank faces and eyes staring at their feet. “Well?” He commanded, “haven’t you been instructed in church administration?” A boy of 13 raised his hand and somehow new the name of the archdeacon, much to the relief of the rest of us. “Who is the archbishop of Kenya?” A few hands raised, and answers were mumbled. “The full title!” bellowed the bishop. More timid mumbling. “Okay, you in the back. You get one shot at giving the full title of the archbishop. If you don’t get it right then the whole group must wait until next week to be instructed more before getting confirmed.” Everyone waited in silent anticipation as the boy in the back straightened up...his pulse obviously had risen. “The Most Reverend Benjamin Nzimbi”. We looked back to the bishop to see if our representative had passed the test. He stood their, quiet, with a undecipherable smirk on his face. Having no idea the correct title of the archbishop I couldn’t tell if the grin meant defeat or victory. He didn’t say. He just mercifully launched into a lecture. “Who is a Christian?” He paced toward me staring right into my eyes, obviously intending for me to answer. “A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.” Apparently pleased with the answer he paced off again continuing with his speech. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I hadn’t been informed of the rehearsal that had taken place a few days before. The provost told me, “You’ll be okay, just follow the rest of them. It isn’t difficult.” We marched into the front four rows of the packed church. I tried my best to be stuck in the middle of everyone, but of course I was pushed to the front row on the very end. A boy of maybe 12 was hovering in the aisle and I gratefully invited him to sit beside me in defense of having to be the first one to go up and having no idea what to do. The service started and in a short time the bishop was sitting in a chair in the front saying “Could the confirmation candidates please come forward, and if the parent, guardian or godparent of the child is present please stand as your child is being confirmed “ into the microphone. A butterfly made a quick flight in my stomach and I stood. An assistant clergy arranged us into pairs to go forward. I was paired in the very front with my 12-year-old friend. I glanced at the nametag he had in his hand. It read “Billy” in permanent ink. The bishop furtively motioned for us to advance with his finger, and we walked up to the pillows below the bishop and knelt.

I put my nametag on my chest so the bishop could read my name. The bishop laid his hands on my head. “Strengthen, O Lord, your servant Benjamin with your Holy Spirit. Empower him for your service and sustain him all the days of his life.” He then said the same blessing for Billy, and we stood. Billy bowed, so I did the same, and then we sat down. Marit told me later that Dismas and Nafula had stood as my godparents as I was confirmed.

CHAPTER 9

I was reading through the Anglican lectionary this week, and I came across this.

Usually, I would have thought, ‘Oh, this is a nice passage about how we should be aware of social justice issues.’ But as I read it here in Africa, it changed its meaning. I look out my window to see a house where two widows live. When I walk outside, orphan boys greet me. Widows and orphans are not a removed, distant, or ethereal reality. They are my neighbors.

So what does this mean for me? How do I defend the cause of the fatherless or plead the case of the widow? What should I be defending them from? What case should I be pleading? It sounds more like work for a trial lawyer, not me.

We pulled the Pajero up alongside the dirt road and got out of the car. The smell of rot, filth, hot dirt, manure, urine, and over-ripe maze all hit me as we moved through the long grass in a long line. Marit, Lexi, and I were taking six of the boys home for their Christmas break.

The tin roofs and concrete houses of the town of Miwani were scattered helter-skelter in the grassy fields under the shadow of the Nandi Hills. This was once a prosperous and thriving community that depended on the sugar factory. The sugar factory closed a few years ago, due to governmental mismanagement and now sits in disrepair. The windows are shattered. The tall smokestacks slouch in blankets of rust and dirt. It stands like a huge statue in the middle of the community where all can not forget the good life that has long since gone. This is the icon of the community. A symbol of their collective existence, reflecting the hopelessness that everyone feels. Everyone is clamoring to get out...out of the despair, out of the ignorance, out of the unemployment, out of the hopelessness, out of the grinding poverty that dulls the soul down to basic survival.

Paul, a wiseman in the Christmas pageant, led the way to his house. It was a single room with modest furniture squeezed onto one side. His father was gone working out in the fields. His brother sat on the couch with his shirt off. His sister sat on the floor behind a bed sheet that hung from the ceiling. She had a deformed leg—a constant prisoner to the corner. Her eyes were glazed over, giving away her inept social skills as I shook her limp hand.

Mustafa, the cow that Mary and Joseph ride to the manger in Bethlehem, took us to his mother’s hut. It was half the size of Paul’s house, with dirt floors...just a stick frame with tin sheets for roof and walls. Mustafa’s mother is 25, a year older than me. Her husband died of malaria leaving her to fend for her three children. Before he came to Nehemiah, Mustafa would leave the house early in the morning and wander the streets to make mischief and fight. His mother, being desperate and with no other option, shut him up in the tin hovel all day to keep him out of trouble.

Stephen, the husband to the Mother of God, is a total orphan with both parents dead. His father had six wives. Before he came to Nehemiah, he was living with his grandmother. She is a crazy old witch, who made him hold snakes and slaughter chickens.

As I walked through this shantytown, I realized that I couldn’t even begin to imagine what other horrific atrocities that these people must endure. I can walk through it. I can see it. But I don’t understand it. I have no idea what happens when the sun’s light disappears. I remember a college professor insisting that the “third-world” should be called the “two-thirds-world” because it constitutes two thirds of the world’s population. So if this is how most of the world lives, then the world is in worse shape than I thought. The idea of human progress seems to lose its glory after seeing this.

We took the week that the children were gone to go do some fieldwork. Kennedy, Anna, and I went back out to Miwani to gather more information on the boys to add to our files. Kenya is really not a western country, but it attempts to conform to the forms of the western world anyway: birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, wills, and land deeds. But when these impersonal objective matters collide with Kenya’s collectivist, relational, hierarchical society...chaos ensues.

We went to all the guardians of our boys and filled out the necessary forms for a birth certificate, so far so good. But then we had to get these forms signed by the infamous Chief of Miwani. You may have remembered him as the big man who was constantly distracted on his cell phone and liked to hold my hand. Yes, it’s the same guy.

“Where is the Chief’s office?” I yelled out the Pajero window to a man walking along the street. He came up to the window. I stretched out my hand to shake his hand. He took it. “Yes...Where...is the Chief’s...office...Chief’s office?” I kept holding his hand. The stranger looked up and down the street, as if he was just seen it but it had vanished. “Oh, up. Up.” He pointed toward a dirt road that led up to the base of the Nandi Hills. “Asante” (thanks), I said and drove off up towards the chief’s office.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to concrete building with fresh paint on it. The Chief had a few assistant chiefs sitting around the perimeter of the office. There’s safety in numbers.

“Well, hello there Chief!” I said, shaking his hand.

“Ah, yes.” His eyes darted from his desk to me and back again.

“It’s good to see you again. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. It’s a long way up here to the office isn’t it? It is too far from the main road to have gossips up here. Serious business, serious business.”

“Yes, I’m sure. It’s too far for anyone to come unless it serious business...serious business.” I winked at him. “So we’ve got some applications for birth certificates that we need you to sign.” I handed him the applications. He shuffled through them, like a child handles a deck of cards.

“Hmmm. Yes, what we will need is the official rubber stamp. You take my assistant chief to his office and he’ll get his stamp. You just take him in your car...” He waved me out the door.

So off we went back down the bumpy road in the Pajero...just me and the assistant chief.

“So how long have you been the assistant chief?”

“Ten years.”

“Wow, that’s a long time. It must be a lot of responsibility.”

“Mmmm.”

“And this isn’t a very easy place to live in. With the sugar factory down, there is so much poverty to deal with.”

“Mmmm. Oh, that man walking towards us is the assistant chief of the western part of Miwani. We should pick him up, he is going to the Chief’s office.”

So in came another assistant chief, and bump bump, roar roar, I continued this strange Kenyan safari.

He ran in and out of his office to get his rubber stamp and we rumbled back up to the Chief’s office.

“Well,” the Chief informed me, “we just don’t know who these boys are. We know this one...Mustafa...I remember signing his father’s death certificate, but I don’t know who these other boys are. You know if you went through us to recruit these boys, this would be much easier.” Frustration knocked on my door. “What we need is a photocopy of the living parent’s ID, death certificates, and clinical cards before I sign these.”

”Yea, we just don’t know who these boys are!” an assistant chief chimed in.

“Okay, Chief, we’ll get the necessary documents. Thanks for your time.”

“Oh, yes, yes, we want to help you. We like you.”

“Mmmm.”

So maybe this is part of what it means to defend the fatherless. To struggle through the ridiculous red tape of Kenyan tribal bureaucrats for a simple thing like a birth certificate, on their behalf. To get into the good schools, get a passport or drivers license, or a decent job, these boys will need birth certificates. As of now they have no ID at all. To get these will defend the blessings that they have had coming here to Nehemiah, from the impending poverty and despair that would otherwise be their fated future.

CHAPTER 10

I visited my friend Jaz again last week.  I arrived early to be met by his dear mother Mrs. Brar.  I met Jaz’s mother-in-law who didn’t speak English, so Mrs. Brar and I chatted and drank coke, and the conversation would then often transition into Janjabi, the Indian dialect they speak. 

Eventually my curiosity brought up their religion, Sikhism, and Mrs. Brar said, “Ben, you should come to our temple sometime.”

“Yes, I would love to.  So how many times a day do you pray?”

“We pray together in the mornings up in the prayer room and then the women pray in at night.  The men don’t really pray too much.”  She gave me a big grin.

“So do you have a prayer book?

“Yes, yes.  Come I will show you.”  She led me up the granite staircase, past a spacious second story veranda, through their den with a big-screen TV, and down a long hall to their prayer room. 

“Take your shoes off here,” Mrs. Brar instructed me.  I carefully walked into the room.

Jaz’s aunt was kneeling down, draped in a silky sari, with a book in her hand.  Before her was a large alter of sorts, similar to alters erected to the Virgin Mary during the middle ages.  The room smelled like sweet exotic incense, and had soft, plush, white wall-to-wall carpet.  A fan quietly buzzed in the corner, and the steady rhythm of Janjab tabla drums and chanting pulsed in the background.  A picture of the Sikh’s beloved Golden Temple hung on the wall.

“The Golden Temple is covered with pure gold.” Jaz’s aunt told me proudly, getting up and walking over to me.

“And who are those people?” I asked pointing to another picture of a mountain temple and Hindu looking icons of old men with long white beards. 

“Those are the 8 great gurus of Sikhism.  And that is the mountain temple in Panjab where the first guru wrote our sacred books.”  Mrs. Brar led me over to a cupboard at the end of the room.

“This is our prayer book,” she said handing me a book entitled Essence of Jap Ji Sahib. “Keep it and read it.”

Jaz returned from a movie with his wife and sister-in-law in Kisumu, and we chatted, laughed, and ate.  The rest of the family quietly disappeared into their rooms, retiring early. 

“Well Jaz, I better not wear out my welcome. I should be going.”

“What’s the hurry?  Let’s take a walk.”  We walked outside.  “It’s too hot to take walks during the day, so I often take walks at night.  It’s so cool.” He breathed deeply.  “Look, there’s a fire in someone’s cane.”  He pointed off a few miles away to a large raging fire glowing a deep orange in the blackness.

“Is that your cane?” I asked.

“No, I think it Channan’s.” Channan is the “King of Sugar Cane” in all of Western Kenya and lives across the street from Jaz.

I looked over at Jaz.  His eyes were entranced by the fire.  “It’s a big one!” he said.

“Do you worry about fires a lot?” I asked.

He chuckled, “Sometimes I don’t sleep at night.  Just make a few wrong decisions and my whole business could disappear.  Ben, I want to retire early from this work…maybe at 40 I’ll retire.”  His eyes had a distant look about them. “I’ll buy a plot of land on the coast of Greece and build a big house with a swimming pool and just live off interest from my money sitting in the bank.  Ben, I make about 1,000 US dollars a day, and if I save up for the next twenty years, I can do it.” He smiled.

“Do you think you’ll be happy living out in Greece?”

“I don’t know.  But a least I’ll be comfortable.”  We both laughed.

The next morning Dismas and I woke at 4:30 am and I drove us into town.  I had been asked by the Provost to preach at the 7 am Youth Service at my church.  I was expecting a handful of tired high schoolers, but I was surprised.  By time the singing was finished and the announcements completed, the cathedral was packed.  I got up and preached to over 200 young people.

 “Thank you for having me this morning.  I was confirmed here just a few weeks ago.  I’m a new Anglican and it’s a privilege to be speaking to you this morning here in this church.”

Dismas was sitting in the front row.  The sun had just come up, and fresh breeze floated in through the windows. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Meaningless! All is meaningless!” I yelled. I was preaching on Ecclesiastes.  “Unless you realize that what you have is a gift from God, everything you do is going to be meaningless,” I said softly into the microphone.  It was refreshing not to have an interpreter. Things flow better when everything doesn’t have to be repeated into Swahili or Luo or something.

The Indian community, for whatever reason, loves to meet and talk with westerners.  Most of our customers that we deliver milk to are Indian sugar cane farmers, like Jaz, and they always want us to come and visit. “Jeff, come to tea!” they all urge every week.  “I’m sorry, I have to keep going or else my other customers will be angry with me.” Jeff has to apologize every time.  But this week he agreed, “Okay, this afternoon I’ll come to visit.” 

I had been in town that day doing some errands and taking a swim at the town pool.  I met up with Jeff at one of the farmer’s houses that afternoon, at a man named Billy’s house.

I came into the comfortable room to find Jeff already there. 

“Welcome!  Come, come in! Do you want a whiskey, beer, coke, something…” Billy asked in his Panjab accent.  I glanced down in front of Jeff to see a nice squat glass of whiskey and ice. “I’ll take a whiskey.”  I said smiling.  “Oh, I haven’t had one of these in about a half a year!”  I whispered to Jeff and we laughed.

As we sat and talked to Billy, more Indian farmers appeared as if called by a magic horn.  Jaz’s uncle and aunt showed up, Billy’s two uncles and their wives, and the Indian man that gave Anthony and me a ride in his car a couple months ago, all appeared out of nowhere within the hour.  Jeff was the hero of the day as far as I was concerned.  There he was in the middle of a bunch of rich old serious Indians with beards and big black turbans, just chatting away making suggestions about how they should all get their own hydroelectric dams, and how they should divide up the road and repair the entire thing of the awful potholes.  The men pondered what he said, and nodded. I just sat silently beside him in admiration.  “So next week, let’s have a barbecue so that we can all meet again,” Jeff suggested. “If we start meeting and communicating we can start solving many of the problems that we are facing together as a community.”

I was out picking up sugar cane tops the other day, and was in a rotten mood.  Everyone and everything seemed like they were dysfunctional and stupid, and I was wondering why I was in this hot, sweaty, poverty stricken, rough, uncivilized country.  Even the cowboys I was driving with smelled especially strong of cows urine and manure that day.  I silently prayed that the Lord would forgive me and that I wouldn’t take for granted the gift of life and the wonderful opportunity I have to be living and working here. 

As we drove out of the cane fields, one of the cowboys said, “Look, look! Punctured tire!”  

I glanced down at the flat tire.  “Let’s drive on.” I continued on the dirt road until we got to the main road.  But once I drove onto the pavement the sound of the flat rubber tire indicated that I couldn’t go on.  I stopped the car and we got out the jack.  I examined the small foot-long hydraulic jack for a few minutes and deemed it either broken or constructed without any logic.  I looked around in bewilderment what to do next.  I saw Channan’s big mansion.  “Let’s go to Channan’s place.  Maybe they have a jack there.” 

I carefully drove the pickup over to the big black gate and jumped out to talk with the security guard.  He told us to drive in.  The gate slowly swung open to reveal a large junkyard of rusty old metal machine parts.  Under a covered hanger I saw a couple Indian men sitting. I walked up to the older one thinking he might be in charge of the garage…maybe Channan’s brother or nephew or something. “I’ve got a puncture,” I explained.  “Do you have a jack I could use.”  He was acted like I didn’t seem to understand.

“Sit…sit” he commanded.  I obeyed.  He stared barking orders in Swahili to the many African mechanics that surrounded us. “Do you want a coke?”  I nodded. He obviously didn’t intend for me to do any work.

I looked over at my host.  He was wrinkled as a prune, sitting there with a dirty old turban, vintage shiny black shoes, and a cane that he kept spinning around and around.  “So what country do you come from?” he asked me in his leathery voice.

“America.”

“Which state?”

“Washington.”  He sat for a while thinking about my answer.  “Have you been to America?” I asked.  He held up three gnarled fingers.

“Three times…once to Chicago and two times to California.  One time I drove from New York to Chicago.  It took me three nights and two days. It was a very long drive!” He chuckled and motioned to his rear.

By this time my tire had been changed and I got up to leave.  I thought that it would be a good idea to ask the name of my strange new friend for future reference.  “What is your name?” I asked as I shook his hand.

“Channan Singh.” 

The name rumbled and rolled like a boulder out of his mouth.  It conjured up strange visions of Kubla Khan, Shear Khan, and Gangus Khan. Mighty exotic visions of Eastern sultans and emperors in big silk turbans drinking apple tea and smoking opium.  As all this flashed through my head, he kept shaking my hand slowly. I finally came out of my trance and thanked him again and drove out of his gate. 

CHAPTER 11

Life is never typical here.  There is no such thing as a routine.  Everything is "subject to change".  At the drop of a hat, everything could and probably will change.  It has to do with the weak infrastructure, the unreliable economy, and instable political structure. But it's also has to do with nature itself.  Agrarian societies tend to be this way because their whole livelihood is based on the fickle and unpredictable patterns of nature. You never know when the power will go out for an unknown reason, or if there will be a big political and dangerous rally, or if your vehicle will get a flat tire, or if your cows will try to get stolen in the night, or if you get caught in a torrential downpour, or if you'll see the most beautiful sunset in your life.  I make a list in the morning of the things I want to do (because if I have no direction I'll just loiter around and loaf about), but then I am lucky to finish half of the things on the list due to all the unforeseen barriers that inevitably present themselves as I proceed with my plans.

Sometimes it's as slow as a slug living out here in the boonies of rural Africa.  Everyone just sits around during the hot afternoons, doing nothing but watch the clouds blow across the sky.  Sometimes it's as wild as a hurricane.  You just never know. Planning is not something most people can do here, just live today...get enough money to make some food and be thankful that you have a tin roof over your head and that you don't have malaria!  That's how most people think about life.

I've been making an effort to work a day a week at the farm store, so that Kennedy, who usually works in the store, can be freed up to pursue his social work for the orphans (which is supposed to be in real job here...not working in the store).  It's not only a good thing for Kennedy, but is also a wonderful experience for me.  The store supplies the community (within a ten mile radius) with the needed food and supplies for basic survival: flour, salt, sugar, oil, matches, soap, etc.  The prices are astoundingly low by American standards.  For example, we sell a ½ kg of sugar for around .40 cents.  You can have a breakfast of hot steaming sweet tea and two large pieces of fried bread similar to a donut or a croissant all for about .20 cents.

I have a solar calculator I can total up all their products and a little receipt book with a carbon sheet to account for the products leaving the store.  I can read or write as I sit in the store waiting for customers.  The sun heats up the room to over 90 degrees during the afternoon, which drives me out onto the covered porch to sit with the other 'loafers' in the slight breeze to watch the clouds blow across the sky.  Many of my customers speak absolutely no English...some are deaf and mute.  I sometimes greet them in Swahili, but that often ends up with them thinking I can really speak the language, and then I have to somehow break it to them that I really don't speak it.  So usually I just speak in English right of the bat.  There is a lot of pointing, sign language, motioning, and repeating of key words, as I try to solve the puzzle of what they are wanting to purchase.  Then I figure out how much of the product they want by how much money they are holding out to me.

The drought that has hit the farm during the "winter" months of December and January, has finally given way to the "spring" rains.  Sub-Saharan Africa doesn't have seasons the way that North America does.  We have rainy seasons and dry seasons.  We didn't see rain for over a month during December. I can't describe how dry and hot it felt everyday.  But now the huge black rain clouds usually roll in from the east at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and then immediately after sunset at 6:30, lightning will continue illuminating the farm for another hour.

The other day, it rained close to an hour. "We had about two inches", Wolfgang said the next day.  The power went out about half way through the storm.  Luckily we have a gas stove to cook on, and can continue with our dinner with or without electricity.  As Washington was cooking up some eggs and ugali for our dinner he said, "Ben...I don't know where our salt went! Janet and Helen (the widows next door) must have borrowed it this afternoon.  I can't continue cooking until I have the salt." He looked mournfully out the window at the downpour that barred the way from our house to Janet and Helen's house some fifty feet away.  I thought about if for a moment and then said, "I'll go get it."  I pulled on my swimsuit, set my glasses aside, prepared a towel for my return, and then sprinted through the rain.  The lightning was flickering like a struggling Florissant light, and by the radiance of the lightning I made my way to the door of our neighbors.  I knocked on their bolted door, and one of the little girls opened it looking quite surprised they had a guest at a time like this.  I asked for the salt and stood in their kitchen shivering in my swimsuit as I watched them dig around in their cupboards by the radiance of a kerosene lamp.  I leapt back into the storm and soared through the rain with my arms stretched out and feeling the rain pour into my eyes.  I skidded into my house and was greeted with a laughing Washington who probably thought I was absolutely crazy, but was happy nonetheless because he had his salt.  I dried off, and changed into my warm fleece.

The rain continued with out relenting, and soon I noticed a cold back puddle creep under the door and slink toward our dining room table.  I began to frantically attempt to block the watery visitor with a broom and rags on the floor, but then realized I was fighting a loosing battle.  I gave up and plopped down in a chair as the water began to collect in a small pond at my feet.  "It's okay," Washington said stirring the pot of ugali, "I'll just use the water to mop up after dinner."  He didn't seem too concerned about the situation.  We ate by candlelight with my toes beginning to prune up from being emerged in the pool of water under the table.   We finished our dinner, and I leaned back licking my fingers.  Then I noticed Washington look at his dirty fingers and then down at the pool of rainwater under the table and he scooped up a handful of water from between his legs, and slowly washed his hands.  Unbelievable...

I have found a great joy in getting out and walking around the farm an hour or so before sunset when it is cool enough to venture outside without burning up.  All the families are outside working in their gardens or cutting their lawns with slashers.  I often will pick up an extra jembe (hoe) or slasher (machete) and join in with the work.  I kick off my shoes and help plant some beans, or dig along with the children.  It's usually not intensive labor, and we often end up standing in the golden rays of the setting sun, chatting and joking as we lean on our jembes, resting our backs and listen to the rumbling thunder in the distance.  Then as darkness engulfs the sky, I sometimes wander over to one of the cooking fires to continue my conversations with the children as they stir a pot of soup or porridge for the next day.

CHAPTER 12

One night the Kruegers, Anna and I went to one of our Indian neighbor's house for dinner.  His name was Billay.  He had just returned from the UK where had received resident status, and was quite proud of it.  He was like a nonstop chatter box jumping excitedly from one topic to the next, explaining to us about his dog Sheba, his sugar cane, and his cable TV.  Somehow he got onto the topic of Punjab wedding suits, and he disappeared into a back room and returned with a long maroon coat embroidered with sequins and golden thread.  He offered it to Jeff as a gift, saying that it wouldn't fit his rather rotund son for whom he bought the suit.  Jeff squeezed into the coat, but said that it wouldn't fit.  Billay suddenly turned to me holding the beautiful suit out to me.  I tried it on and to my delight it fitted like I had had my own tailor take my measurements.  I went home that night with a big smile and the smell of a hint of incense drifting out of a bag with my new coat.

The next morning Anna and I went along with Billay to the moderately sized, extravagantly furnished Sikh temple. Billay proudly led the way through the solid gate into the temple's courtyard. A big dome with a large Punjab symbol dominated the sky above the curved architecture.  The sound of tabla drums and a smooth melancholy harmonium floated out the large door as we slid our shoes off and solemnly walked down the rug through the center of the temple.  A huge table sat in the front of the room with flowers adorning beneath and above it.  The women sat quietly on the left side of the room and the men on the right.  We sat on the comfortable white carpet in our socks and relaxed as the priests in the front chanted the Jaap Si Sahib in Punjab.  I looked around the room and caught a glimpse of Jaz and his family.  There in the corner was Babu Singh who we deliver milk to.  Washington's father is his cook.  Sitting beside me was the Channan Singh's son. Behind the big table on which the sacred Sikh scriptures rested was old Mindry who is a kind old grandpa figure who we also deliver milk to.  Jeff calls Mindry his father.  The soft smell of incense, the hypnotic music, the familiar Indian faces gathered together created a calm, peaceful, and serene atmosphere.  My guess is that for most of the people that go to the temple it is more for relaxing, to collect their scattered thoughts before another stressful week sugar cane farming, rather than a place where they feel they commune with or worship God.

With February coming to a close, my classes that had started in January also started to wind down.  The Church History class finished with a successful bang, examining the 20th Century liberal and Evangelical movements.  Shebby, my 14 year old friend, completed the course, which I was very proud of.  Dismas attended every single class and scored high on all his quizzes.  He's dubbed himself "my catechist" as a joke.  I was talking to my friend the provost at my church St. Stephen's Cathedral the other day, and I mentioned to him that I'd like to teach the Church History class again in May at the church.  He was enthusiastic and encouraged me to go ahead and begin advertising.  I'm pumped about that!

As I neared the end of February, I was beginning to feel a bit dismal and uninspired.  It may even be described as minor depression.  I found myself watching movies in the middle of the day...a sure sign of slumping melancholy for me.  The incessant heat pounding down every day driving me into my empty house every afternoon...the monotonous schedule of going around and around in the same rut every week...the slow and quiet life in a rural third world country...the hypnotic rhythm of African life where everyday looks and feels exactly the same, from the weather to daily work.  It was getting to me. But the Lord never gives us more than we can take, and just at about that time Anna's father, Paul Schuler my pastor from Bainbridge and his daughter Heather, arrived from America for a two week visit. Paul is a great listener and as I explained my experience to him, I found myself realizing that my struggles weren't uncommon among other people working in the ministry. It was a great encouragement to talk and converse with Paul through his time here.

With my classes being finished, which freed up more time to do other things,  I took the oprotunity to do some traveling and go on some visits with Paul, Heather, and Anna. We took off for several days into the Kakamega rain forest, Kenya's only rainforest.  Staying in a remote, secluded corner of the forest, we had cozy and generously furnished comfortable reading rooms, hot showers, and electricity supplied by a generator in the evenings.  We took long walks through the trails of the tropical forest with colobus monkeys swinging through the trees above our heads and oversized butterflies fluttering along showing off their dazzling aqua-marine coats.  It was a true breath of refreshment.

That weekend I was scheduled to preach at our little community church on the compound.  I spoke on the Lenten topic of the temptation of Christ, and enjoyed being with my community after being away from the church for a couple months.

I called up Jaz during that Sunday afternoon and asked him what he was up to.  He told me to come over for a visit.  We sat outside on his paved driveway and drank a coke while we caught up on what had elapsed since last seeing each other.  We decided to drive into town for the evening.

"I've got a business deal in the works," he told me as we drove to town, "that if it goes through I'll own 10,000 acres.  And after one crop of cane in two years, I'll be able to retire to that Greek house on the Mediterranean I was telling you about."

"Build me a house in the corner of your land with a gothic cathedral and I'll be the minister for your workers." I said jokingly.

"Yea right!"

We drove out to a beautiful restaurant on the shore of the Lake complete with a swimming pool and palm trees.  "It's on me tonight," Jaz told me.  After several minutes of chatting, Jaz's cousin Petu arrived.  Petu had a heavy set frame, a few years older than me, and nervous eyes that avoided eye contact.  He pounded a couple beers and Jaz said that the appetizers in the evening's program had finished, and we raced away to the next stop: The Aga Kahn Sport Center...a Muslim community facility with an empty outdoor pool and an old smelly gymnasium, but with a cheep restaurant.  Jaz and Petu mostly spoke in Punjab, leaving me feeling like the odd man out most of the time.  But that was okay, it's not everyday you get the insiders experience of Kisumu from an Indian POV.  They ordered liver and I cautiously ate a small portion and gulped it down with the assistance of a coke.  A tropical rain storm complete with big rumbling clouds, fork lightening, and raindrops the size of marbles pelted into the thristy swimming pool as we ate.  Jaz and I went to the theatre to see what was showing and ended up watching "Fun with Dick and Jane"...a pointless and mind numbing movie.  As we drove back home Jaz was like some sort of speed demon and apparently was feeling invincible.  As we raced along the main road to Nairobi I noticed a huge yellow shape was looming in front of us, "Watch out!" I yelled grabbing onto the seat sides and bracing myself.  Jaz slammed on his breaks as we skidded to a halt in front of an over sized bus which was attempting a three-point-turn-around, which ended up in a twenty-point-turn-around.  Jaz began to honk and reeve his engine like a real jerk, and Petu, overjoyed at the excitement, leaned out the window to curse in Swahili at the poor bus driver obviously nervous.  I wasn't exactly proud of my company at that moment.  Then off we roared back on the treacherous dark road to Miwani.  As we careened around corners at over 100mph, I began to pray that my family would be comforted at the event of my death.  It was probably the most frightening driving experience of my life.  I was in a state of minor shock for all of the next day.

CHAPTER 13

Anna's time in Kenya was coming to a close and everyone on the farm had a little sadder constitution through the days leading up to her departure.  We had big party the night before she left the farm.  Anna and Heather wore their Indian clothes they bought that day, and I wore my royal wedding coat.  We danced around, sang, gave speeches, and had a jolly time.  "I'm more happy to have known all of you, than I am sad to be leaving," Anna said with tears in her eyes.

Anna, Paul, Heather, and I boarded a bus the next morning bound for Nakuru, a city 4 hours south of Kisumu, to go on a three day safari before they all jumped on an airplane for America.  We were met in Nakuru by a chubby man that wore an tan vest and had the longest craziest teeth I've ever seen.  He was a chain smoker and his gums had rotted into his skull exposing long crooked teeth.  But his smile never left his face and he whisked us off to the Nakuru National Park in his white van that had a pop top so that passengers could stand and view the wildlife from the safety of the vehicle.

We passed through the Park Ranger gate with mesh fence stretching out on either side into the underbrush.  As we drove through the small park, I felt a bit disappointed.  It was like a glorified zoo: the animals were fenced in (like in the Olympic game farm) and here we were in this white cage on wheels staring at the animals.  Nevertheless seeing a huge white rhino graze thirty feet away was exciting.  That night we stayed in a modest hotel in the park that overlooked the fields where zebra grazed in the early morning fog.

We proceeded on our way, traveling the 6 hours further south to the infamous Masai Mara.  After a long drive on the wild pothole riddled road, we pulled off the highway and onto a dirt road that ran directly into the Mara.  Masai shepherds became more frequent the further south we went, until they dominated the population, their red checkered blankets, skinny legs, and pierced ears that you could fit your hand through, meandering along with their skinny cows in search of green vegetation.  A skeleton of a dehydrated cow would often meet us with their dark eye sockets staring back at us, as we raced along.

 "This is a Masai village," our tour guide informed us pointing out the window to the rectangular mud huts.  We slowed to see children run towards us with hands outstretched, the adults looking over their shoulders with suspicious looks.  Then as we pulled away, resentment replaced the children's smiles and they made motions as if they would throw rocks at our car.  I suppose that comes from thinking yourself as the victim of modernization and that you deserve money and candy from the "rich" whites that pass through your village everyday, and then get angry when the hand that feeds you drives away leaving you nothing.  It breaks my heart that the relationship with the Masai has devolved into this distressing state.  It reminded me a bit of the similar characteristics of the Native Americans when they were first moved to reservations in the early twentieth century.

We dropped our bags off at our "camp" at the edge of the Masai reservation.  The camp was well equipped to accommodate white Westerners: two beds per tent, a kitchen, a personal cook, sit-down-toilets, hot showers, and a table in the dinning room featuring assorted Masai crafts for sale.  It followed the legacy of the safaris in the days of old when rich tourists came to the Mara to hunt game animals, where they could come back to camp after a long hot day out in the bush, sit down to a glass of port and have an elaborate dinner served with Mozart playing in the background from a record player.

The Masai Mara, despite it's trajectory toward complete commercialization at break neck speed, is still an exceptionally unique and amazing place.  No fences keep the animals in, the Masai roam the open savanna with spears to keep the lion away, and elephants still kill an occasional tourist to keep the authenticity of the place vibrant despite the tourist industry's attempts at neutering all "danger" out of the place.

Each type of animal in the Mara is so remarkably different.  It was difficult to believe that all these incredibly different animals all just lived together out here in the plains in the middle of Africa! Here's a brief sketch of some of my favorite animals we saw:

The warthog: "We call them the Kenya Express!" our driver informed us with a toothy grin.  Their curly tusks wrap around their piggish heads as they stare back at us.  Then they turn on a dime and with their dainty tails lifted in the air like a shark's fin, prance off in no particular direction.

The zebra: they are easy to spot from a distance...their black and white streaks coat apparently camouflaging them from their colorblind feline predators.  Their carcasses could be seen time and again laying next to a bush or lying quietly in the tall grass...the leftovers from a lion family's dinner.

The lion: "So if I just got out of the car they would jump on me and eat me?" I asked doubtfully as I looked at the lions, seemingly passed-out in the shade. Their shaggy manes looking like a picturesque costume.  "Yes, yes!" the driver responded quickly, trying to dissuade me from doing what many of his passengers innately feel compelled to do: get out of that cage of a car and face the beast one-on-one...my primal nature was sneaking out I suppose.

The elephant: My favorite animal...their whole bodies denying laws of comprehensible biology: their ears alone the size of a child...and what were those huge grey tubes they are pulling grass and eating with?  My first glimpse of an "elee-fant", as I began to call them, was in a cloud of dust kicked up from one of the many other white safari vans.  It was an old but massive bull with weathered tusks and chunks of his ears taken off.  We timidly inched our way forward him to get a good look when it got annoyed at the white boxes that kept pestering him and it did a little dance and shook its giant head stomping and sending fire signals out its small fierce eyes.  We shot into reverse and fled the area, before he decided to charge.  It was at that moment I felt the wild power of these animals.

The giraffe: "They look like the elves from the Lord of the Rings," I noted as we gazed at a family of giraffe slowly cruised gracefully along at sunset.  Their long necks and elegant yellow and orange coats suggested their aristocratic and regal position in the hierarchy of animals in the land.  And when they gallop they appear to be simply floating above the ground, gliding silently in slow motion.  It was a most striking and stunning sight.

As I glimpsed into this strange animal world, my anthropomorphic disposition was too much for me to resist.  If the Lion was the king, and the Giraffe the aristocratic nobility, the Zebra and the Baboon would be the peasants, the Warthog the court jester, the Elephant and the Rhino the military generals, the Hippo the washer-woman, the crocodiles the ruffian bandits, and the ostriches the fair maidens of the kingdom.

We left the Mara with all its peculiar oddities and drove the 4 hour journey into East Africa's most advanced and developed city: Nairobi...large new shiny cars, extravagant houses, modern malls, huge shopping centers, businessman in suits and ties, crowded streets, and skyscrapers.  I had to make an effort not to let my jaw drop at such opulent sights.  I realized how much of a country-bumpkin I'd become.  I felt like the country mouse on his first visit to the city.
We had our driver take us to All Saints Anglican Cathedral, the only place I really wanted to see in Nairobi.  The large and beautiful church (though not quite as impressive as the Namberimbe Cathedral in Kampala) is located in the middle of the busy metropolis. First built in the 1910s by British colonists, it now is the home to the Archbishop of Kenya, and the "capital" of the Anglican Church in Kenya.

I parted company with the Schuler clan: Paul, Anna, and Heather at the train station in Nairobi.  It was the breaking of the "fellowship" of our little band of adventurers.  They were off back to Western civilization, while I boarded the ancient overnight train to Kisumu.

I chose to ride Second Class which offered me my own bench seat to sleep on, rather than really roughing it on the Third Class coach where three people sleep sitting up per bench seat.  I found my compartment and slid the door open to find two young men already sitting.  After some quick introductions I found out that they were brothers, the older one going on to Kisumu and the younger one lived in Nairobi as a music producer.
The train lurched and we began to crawl forward out of the old train station.  After getting underway I learned that my new companion's name was Gideon.  He was a slim man of 33 years and had delicate features.  He had new shoes on and a clean looking sweater.  He was holding an expensive looking cell phone he said he had just purchased and still didn't know how to work. His speech suggested that he had been educated or else read more than the average Kenyan.

I glanced out the window and to my surprise saw an entire hillside carpeted with tin roofs.

"What is this?" I asked Gideon leaning out the window, my head in a cloud of smoke and dust.

"This is the largest slum in Nairobi.  In fact it is the largest slum in east Africa.  I was a clerk here a few years ago and the latest poll indicates that three quarters of Nairobi's population lives under $1 per day!"  I gasped at the statistic combined with the reality of what I was looking at.  "Sometimes they will throw stones or garbage," Gideon added. We chugged along on the track through the slum for close to 20 minutes, the crowded chaos of the slum pressing precariously into our sane compartment.  Now I understand why people feel the need to "compartmentalize" in the midst of disorder. We left the anarchy of Nairobi and headed west down into the Rift Valley as the sun set. The stars began to poke their sharp heads into the night and cried for their own order in the black confusion.

Gideon and I tottered our way to the dinning car to the swaying rhythm of the tracks and sat to have our supper.

The waiters wore smart looking white uniforms with brass buttons with the Kenya Railroad insignia, and polished black shoes.

"Could I wash my hands?" I asked.

"This way please." The waiter led me back into the kitchen which was in shambles, and then back into a little closet where a small sink was. The walls were covered in a greasy black from years of cooking. The dishwasher grinned at me as I walked in.  "We don't have any soap, just this laundry detergent," he said pointing to the blue powder.  I began to laugh.  I laughed at the fact that I was washing my hands with laundry detergent.  I laughed at the fact that this poor man was washing dishes in this hovel of a place on this ridiculous train.  I laughed at the fact that my waiters looked like they had just walked out of some movie from the 1940s. And I laughed because Gideon who was behind me kept shaking his head in disapproval at the train's deficiencies.

"I grew up in Kisumu," Gideon told me as the waiter ceremoniously served us chicken and ugali. "But I tell you it's a terrible thing to have your parents divorce...the counseling, the depression, the confusion.  Terrible." He paused and then continued.

"My father worked for the railway as a manager.  He was quite rich, but he had many families...one in each town...one in Mombassa, one in Nairobi, one in Kisumu.  Then my mother divorced him when I was 14." He was silent for a minute.

 "Then everything fell apart.  My father became a wreck and a drunk. I got involved with drugs and was really depressed.  But then I got saved.  It's really only through the Lord's work in my life that I made it.  I'm the only one in my family that was saved.  The rest of my family is still trying to recover.  But now I'm happy, really happy to be alive."  He looked up at me and then smiled.

"There was a 200 acre plot of land that my father had owned that no one wanted...just a place out in a rural area.  Everyone in the family wanted the big estates in the cities.  So I moved out to that 200 acre plot...no electricity...no phone...no friends or family.  And for 7 years I just worked that land with a jembe (an African hoe)...ploughing, tilling, weeding, and removing the rocks.  But I've only cultivated 10 acres during that time.  I did some reading, but mostly just thought.  It was my way of recovering from my childhood. I took in a street orphan named Ben to live with me and he helps me with the work."
"Gideon, that's quite an amazing story," I said, impressed with everything he had told me.
"Well, you are welcome to visit my place anytime.  Anytime."
"Here, let me pay for our dinner.  It's on me." I said glancing at him.  He looked a bit confused and unsure of himself.  "Is that okay?" I asked.
"Yes, yes. That would be wonderful.  It's just that no one has ever paid for my meal.  This is a miracle.  A miracle, that I'm sitting here talking with you.  It's really the will of God that brought us together on this train!"  I wasn't quite sure how to react to his enthusiasm.
We staggered back to our compartment as the train swayed from side to side.  We chatted a bit more before going to bed.  I took a sleeping pill and was soon fast asleep rocking back and forth as the train crawled along its snake like tracks.  I woke a shortly before dawn and proceeded to the dining car once more, where like the night before, a place was set for me at one of the tables.  I ate alone this time, Gideon was still sleeping but I ended up talking to a Swedish family whose daughter was working near Kisumu and whose parents had come to visit her.  I listened to their story as I cut my eggs and drank my coffee, and peeked out the window when I could without being impolite as the sun shot its golden light on the waking world.
Take the train in Kenya if you get the chance.  You'll never forget it.

CHAPTER 14

As with so many of the potential successes and adventures that present themselves to us, the element of the unknown is usually the most feared. What if I don't make into university? What if I can't find a good job? What if my marriage doesn't work out? What if my kids end up being disappointments? The fear of failure, that fear of the unknown keeps us from trying. It keeps us from risking. Fear keeps us in ruts and routines to maintain the illusion that we have control. The possibility for disaster is ever present, but when you are traveling around through third world countries, not knowing the language or customs, the odds greatly increase. What if I get sick? What if I loose my passport? What if my credit card doesn't work? What if all the hotels are booked? It can lead to a paralyzing anxiety. But it can also lead to learning to let go of control, to hold all plans loosely.

As I prepared for a solo trip to Rwanda, I knew I would be plunging into the deep unknown. Of course I did my research...how much are visas? What are the exchange rates? What languages do they speak? But all in all, there is still very little information about Rwanda on the internet and so I had to do a lot of letting go. I had some confidence in my own ability to navigate across international borders, find bus stations, and be comfortable in a developing country with all the smells and sights...but even more importantly, I was confident that I wasn't alone. I woke every morning with the solid conviction that the only way that I'd make it through the day with peace, was to first kneel before my Creator. As I moved through the familiar exercise of morning prayers, the fears of the unknown would slowly melt out of mind. The daily reminder of His love and the enveloping sense of His grace replaced apprehension with tranquility. That inner-composure in turn permitted flexibility and adaptively to strange and unexpected situations, that I would have otherwise been unable to deal with.

I left the farm on a sunny morning with a simple $2 hand bag packed with the basic essentials. I only brought things I wasn't sentimentally attached to just in case that all my belongs were stolen or lost. There is sense of freedom when you have relatively nothing to lose. I was off to a strange country, where they spoke a strange language, where they had had a genocide only 12 short years ago, where I didn't have one solid contact. Now that I look back on it, it seems a bit crazy that I even tried it.

I jumped in the back of a passing hatchback with what looked to be two government officials on their way to Kisumu. I boarded a big luxury bus that took me across the familiar Ugandan border into Kampala. I had been in Uganda four months ago with my friend Anthony for a week, so this part was a piece of cake. As the bus pulled into an inky black Kampala night, I was still a bit drained from the 7 hour bumpy ride. I jumped onto a motorcycle taxi and sped into the city. I pulled out some Ugandan cash on the main street, and proceeded to the Jaguar bus station where I purchased a bus ticket for the following morning to Kigali, Rwanda.

It was already after 9 at night...not exactly a safe time to be wandering around an African city looking lost and looking for a place to spend the night. Fortunately there was a sign which read: Classic Inn: Self-contained accommodation. I took my chances and dove down the unlit steps to the reception. The hotel "lobby" consisted of a piece of plywood for a desk and a smiling receptionist squeezed into a nook the size of a closet. An exposed light bulb dimly lit the cave-like hole.

"Good evening" I said walking into the cavern.

"Evening", the girl said standing up from her stool behind the plywood.

"Do you have any rooms available tonight?"

"We don't have any single rooms left. But we have a double room for 10,000 shillings." That sounds reasonable enough I thought that's a little less than 5 bucks.

"I'll take that please."

"You'll have to wait for another 40 minutes, before it will be available."

"That's fine. I'll get some dinner and be back."

There was a restaurant above the hotel and I ordered some rice, beef, and a beer, and relaxed a bit as I stared up at the stars. 40 minutes later I returned to the reception desk, to find that the room wasn't quite ready yet. The receptionist and I starting chatting and I told her I was going down to Rwanda and was planning to visit the Anglicans there. As we talked more somehow I ended up telling her that I was going to seminary and wanted to be a pastor. "Oh, your saved!", she said, "So am I!"

She led me through a courtyard of peeling paint and trash piled up in the corners, and down a long cement hallway to a door. She opened it to reveal room with two narrow beds. Mosquito nets hung limply above the beds. The walls had been painted a dark red, and the receptionist struggled to open the single window.

"The toilet is back down this way" She led me back into the courtyard. A tattered door on rusty hinges swung open to a small toilet that reeked of urine and filth. "Okay, this will be fine." I said and went back to my room. I returned to the courtyard brushing my teeth. "Du yu ha a shik shumware?" She pointed a little hole in the floor where the shower drained and where I deducted the toilet probably also flushed into.

At this point for some reason I was quite conscious of two things: First that these were terrible conditions, and second that it didn't bother me much. What am I coming to? Is Africa really changing me this much? I still wonder.

However, the receptionist was also conscious that these conditions weren't quite American standards. "Let me see if I can get you a better room," she said as I was spitting into the toilet hole. She led me out to another room that was much nicer with its own bathtub, sink, and clean toilet. "The men of God should have the best," she said with a smile and left me surprised at the whole situation.

I took an early bus that crawled out of Kampala and made its way south along the western shore of Lake Victoria. Green lush hills began to appear, which in time, became larger and larger. Soon the bus was a small insect weaving its way along the sides of the mountainous hills. The Ugandan/Rwandan border seemed somewhat more secure than the Kenyan/Ugandan one, but not by very much. Rwanda isn't in the "East African Partnership" and is still technically considered "Central Africa", so the border patrol are a little more keen on keeping people in order. After a 40 minute stop at the border, the bus continued south for another two hours to the capital city of Rwanda, Kigali. Kigali is approximately the same size as Kisumu, and is still the process of developing to reach the level of it's neighbors to the north. Construction work is being done virtually every few blocks.

I got off the bus and walked to the road where I began to attempt to communicate to the motorcycle taxi drivers. "Anglican Cathedral" I repeated over and over, but to no avail. They spoke French and Kinyarwanda, and only very limited English. Finally after several tries, one guy understood what I was talking about and off we zipped up the hill into the city.

We stopped under a sign that hung above agate which read, "Engles Episcopal". I figured that this was probably the right place, and walked in and saw a door open with a lady behind a computer. "I don't really know if this is the right place...I am looking for the Anglican Cathedral in the city...I just got off a bus from Kampala...I was hoping to talk to the rector of the cathedral..." I kept stammering, with the hope that maybe something would make sense. But because I wasn't even sure what I was doing or what I wanted, communication was somewhat ephemeral. I found out that there was a hotel run by the cathedral on the compound. I booked a night and collapsed onto the bed to recharge.

The next day I met the pastor of the cathedral, a young looking man named Sam. He then took me to the "diocesan general secretary" (aka the second hand man to the Archbishop in Kigali) named Nathan. He made a few phone calls and before I knew it I was being whisked off to the provincial offices on the other side of town. I met a half a dozen missionaries from the US, the UK, and the Netherlands, as well as the "provincial general secretary" (aka the second hand man to the Archbishop for all of Rwanda) named Immanuel. They offered to take me out to the new college that they are in the middle of constructing. As Immanuel showed me around the concrete structure, he kept dropping phrases like, "You know, you may someday end up being a teacher here!" or "I think this will be one of the best universities in Rwanda someday, maybe you'll end up here sometime." I just smiled.

The missionaries were wonderful people who took me as one of them and told me all about what they do. There were two older single women from the US that were very welcoming and hospitable. Paula was a from New York who knew just about everything about Anglican history. She is the dean of academics and was a professor in the States before she moved to Rwanda. Sandy was from Georgia and was helping the dioceses with HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention education. Adrian was a from the Netherlands and was an incredibly kind and loving pastor who worked with the other clergy at the cathedral. Dick and Carolyn Seed were from the UK and both worked at the college. Meeting and talking with all of these wonderful people helped me better understand the work of the Anglican church in the country and put into context my own work in Kenya after relating to the challenges and joys of mission work in Africa.

Through the conversations I had with the missionaries, the name of the archbishop would often come up. "Kolini told me...", "Kolini did...", "Kolini is a...". At first I had a hard time recalling his name until I just remembered that his name rhymes with bikini.

I walked into his office and saw a big man in a dark green shirt and a long mustache sitting behind a big desk. The room was spacious, with bookshelves filled with paperbacks, a group of leather chairs arranged in a semicircle, and a clean sweet smell that drifted through the open windows. The archbishop stood welcoming me and held out his wrist to me (a common practice among Africans when a handshake is expected but the hands are dirty). "I have a bad cold," he said smiling and sniffling. He motioned to the white leather sofa and I sat. For some reason he had a calming and soothing effect on me, and I immediately relaxed as I sank into the soft leather. I told him that I was in Rwanda to visit his diocese and get to know some of the Anglicans in Rwanda. He seemed amused that an American kid who was working in Kenya would show up by himself on his doorstep wanting to visit "the Anglicans". I told him that I was interested in working with the "Anglican Mission in America" someday in the coming years after seminary. He slowly pulled out his wallet. "Well, you know..." he browsed through the pile of business cards crammed in his wallet, "we are considered a rebellious group." he found the card he was looking for and put his wallet back into his trousers. "But Jesus was considered a rebel by the Pharisees." He pulled out a pen from his green shirt pocket and I noticed a big red Bishops ring on his right hand as he began writing on the card "We follow the word of God and love the Lord Jesus, though." He looked up with a smile, his mustache curving upward following the contours of his mouth. He handed me the card, with a telephone number crossed out and another one written in the margins. I thanked him, shook his wrist again, and said goodbye.

"I feel like Rwandans are more mistrustful than Kenyans," I told Sam as we sat in his car while we waited for his wife to come back from the market one day. He thought about what I had said for a moment and then said, "Sometimes it is more of our own mistrustfulness that is reflected in others that we sense." Suddenly I realized he was right. I had become mistrustful and self conscious of the stares due to being the only white person walking down the street. I had become more hypersensitive to the comments that I received as I walked by in languages that I couldn't understand. When I returned to Kenya I noticed that I received the same stares and comments, but it was me that was different.

There was one other guest staying in the Anglican guesthouse while I was there, a young man named John. He told me over breakfast that he was working on his masters degree at Oxford in journalism, that we was doing a short radio piece for the BBC on Rwanda, and doing research for his thesis. He was a bit shy, but very friendly and VERY smart. Through the week of meals we had together he lectured (in a good way) to me about Africa, specifically African history, social patterns, economics, politics, and religion. He invited me to come visit him in Oxford. I agreed to do so when I will be passing back through England on my way home to America in June.

All in all my time in Rwanda was very blessed: no sickness, no border problems, no money problems (that I couldn't solve), and no loneliness problems. I met a handful of wonderful people that I will remember for many years to come, and may even see again someday in the future.

CHAPTER 15

After returning from Rwanda, I spent Holy Week on the farm. I adapted an Easter play I found on the internet and organized practices throughout the week with the kids. The first practice was like conducting a three ring circus, with everyone talking at the same time, playing with soccer balls, running around with sticks, fighting, and being generally rambunctious. When I had Jesus enter being beat by the Roman soldiers, the 2nd grade soldiers took particular delight in literally beating poor Jesus. I had to jump in to break up the fight before blood was drawn. It was a somewhat exhausting exercise, but on Easter night at the performance I was delighted to see how much they remembered and how serious they took it.

The day after Easter I left the farm for another trip. This time in the opposite direction of Rwanda, to the eastern coast of Kenya. I took Kennedy along with me and paid for the majority of our combined travel costs. It was an important trip for him, a trip of firsts: the first time in a train, the first time he'd been further than Nairobi, the first time to spend the night in a hotel, the first time to see the ocean, and the first time in a boat.
Due to the high volume of travelers on Easter Monday, all the buses leaving for Nairobi were full, forcing us to take a private car. It was a 1990s Mercedes Benz with a fearless driver behind the wheel who drove twice the speed limit the whole time. How we managed to arrive unscathed was a miracle. He dropped us off at the railway station in downtown Nairobi were we bought 3rd class tickets for the train to Mombassa.
We began to walk through the massive station toward the dirty brown train when a group of men stopped us, "2nd class is that way" they said pointing in the direction we had come from. "Oh, we're not going 2nd class. We're riding 3rd class today." They looked at me suspiciously, not understanding why a muzungu (white man) would ever want to ride 3rd class. "It's for the adventure," I said. They shrugged their shoulders, "Be careful! It's dangerous. Everyone will be watching you and as soon as you close your eyes, they will snatch your bag and be gone!" I thanked them for their concern and climbed the small worn ladder into the train.
The 3rd class coaches were furnished with vinyl covered bench seats arranged back to back. Kennedy and I found empty seats next to the window and made ourselves at home. As the time of departure neared, the train began to fill up. Soon there were another 4 people all snuggled in with Kennedy and I on our two benches. The train clicked down the tracks toward the coast. In lieu of overhead lights, the conductor chained a flashlight to the ceiling for the night. Apparently the lights had been out of operation for years. The light swayed and flickered and finally went out part way through the night. During the night I got up to pee and opened the door that read "choo". Of course there was no light in the loo, and I stood there for a moment looking in to the pitch darkness. It was then I realized that it was just a hole in the floor with the railway ties flying beneath. I decided I could hold it, and went back to my seat. The night was a mix of sensing that I was on an epic adventure that I would be able to tell my grandkids about, and agony. There was a constant hum of noise on top of the clicking of the train. Babies crying, conversations in Swahili, coughing, and the hissing of the train hawkers. There was a constant stream of vendors holding flashlights in their mouths selling their wares coming down the aisle all night. One could buy school books, alphabet charts, handkerchiefs, pears, and socks. I bought hard boiled eggs, cakes, and a small bottle of juice for our dinner. Upon returning to the farm, I calculated that I had spent 32 hours jostling across rural Africa in 3rd class.
We arrived in Mombassa at 10 in the morning. The heat was stifling and the humidity crept down our shirts. I had heard from some of my Sikh friends that I may be able to find free accommodation at the Sikh temple, and since it was on the way into the town center I thought I'd give it a try. I walked through the black metal gates of the Sikh complex and informed the security guard of our intentions. He led us in a building where an old Punjab Sikh with a white turban was conducting some business with an African.
"Yes...um, I was told that I may be able to find some accommodation here. I have many Sikh friends in Kisumu that said I could come here." He was clearly very skeptical and leery of this white kid asking for a free bed.
"What are the names of your friends?" he asked squinting at me.
"Mindry, Channan, Jasmit Brar," I said hopefully, but he just shook his head.
"No, no, no. They are not Punjabi," he said definitively. "They must have the last name of Singh if they are real Punjabis."
"Oh yea, Singh is the last name of all those people I just said," I stammered forgetting the small detail, but the old man wasn't listening. He had turned and pointed to a picture on the wall.
"Do you know what the name of this temple is?" Jaz had told me about this temple which all Sikhs are extremely proud of...the entire exterior is covered with pure gold.
"Ah, somewhere in India. I've forgotten the name," I mumbled. He was shaking his head again in disgust and disapproval.
"We have no free rooms for you, but you can pay 500 shillings for a bed." He said already beginning to ignore us and going back to his paper work. I had failed the Sikh test.

We found a cheep hotel to stay the night in and walked a bit around town. Other than the dirt, heat, humidity, and noise, Mombassa wasn't a very impressive city. We left the city the following morning on a bus and headed north along the coast past the resort town of Malindi, and through terrain that looked like the scenes from Babar the Elephant. As we laced our way through palm trees, coconut trees, monkeys and baboons, I was half expecting a British explorer in a safari helmet to pop out from behind a tree with a musket.
After a five hour ride, the bus arrived at a small harbor where a couple dozen dock workers ran around loading and unloading cargo from small boats into trucks. We collected our luggage and walked toward the ocean and found a large wooden boat with a huge motor that sat in middle of the floor. We sat around the rim of boat on benches with piles of luggage surrounding the motor. I glanced at Kennedy across from me. His polo shirt was buttoned tight around his neck, his knees pressed together, and he clutched his bag to his stomach. Later he told me he was terrified, and visions of sinking and tipping had tortured him the entire ride. He can't swim.
For half an hour, the huge dhow boat pushed slowly through the placid cobalt water and pulled up to a small landing. The small town of Lamu rose slowly out of the water, minarets, hotels, a stone catholic church. We disembarked and meandered into the town to look for a hotel to stay in for the night. We walked along the ocean-side boardwalk with the gorgeous water stretching out to our right. We were greeted by dozens of "hotel guides", who offered to lead us through the maze of the town to a hotel. I finally consented to guide in sunglasses who led me to a hotel at the edge of town.
The town of Lamu on the island of Lamu, is one of the few places in the world to be named a United Nations World Heritage Site (other sites include the Machu Pichu and Timbuktu). On the whole the town had not changed much in the last 500 years. You can still lose yourself in narrow medieval-like cobblestone streets. You can still sit on the steps of the ancient Portuguese Fort and pass the time by watching the slow commerce of the town plod along. There are just a handful of motorized vehicles on the island of Lamu, and donkeys remain to be the community's primary mode of transport.
In addition to getting money to conserve traditional life from the United Nations, Saudi Arabia pumps millions of Kenyan shillings into the mosques and Islamic schools on the island. The Muslims have had a presence there for centuries. Most of the men still wear the intricately designed Kofias (a brimless hat similar to a fez). Some continue to wear a light white robe loosely fitted over their shirt and trousers. Most of the Muslim women adhere to the strict dress code of the full face veil, their burning eyes the only exposed part of their face. Exotic floral patterns cover their hands, and high heels elevate their refined figures.
The day we arrived, as we were exploring the town, a local in Oakley sunglasses came along side me and began a well rehearsed spiel about his boat. "My name is Ali," he said with an boyish smile. "I've been taking tourists out in my boat for 15 years. My father built this boat," he said pointing to the 20 foot dhow sailboat. "It's called the Asali, which means honey. We will have a great time. There are other muzungus that are going. We will go snorkeling, fishing, go see some ruins and lunch is included. I was a cook before I did this. They call me Captain Cook." I discussed it with Kennedy who politely said he'd be quite happy to explore Lamu instead of venturing out in another perilous boat. I couldn't resist though and I haggled over the price with the captain until I got the whole day for about $8.
The next day the small group of white tourists assembled along the boardwalk in front of the Asali. Three Germans, a French girl who was living on the island, and two American guys, Tyler and Andrew. It turned about that Tyler was from Seattle, had gone the University of Washington and had gone to the same church I had gone to, Mars Hill. Andrew was intending to go back to school at Weaton and work on his Masters in ministry, and went to an Anglican Mission in America church back in the States. The long ride splashing through the waves facilitated plenty of time for us to get to know each other. By the end of the day it seemed like we had been friends for months.
Swimming in the Indian Ocean was an enchanting experience, feeling the warm salty water that connected Africa to the Orient. I couldn't snorkel with the rest of the group because I didn't have contacts and without my glasses I can't see much of anything, not to mention anything underwater. Instead I allowed myself to float face up with my hands propped behind my head, my eyes closed and listened to my breath slow to the rhythm of the churning current.
We tacked our way up the channel and then headed toward an island across from Lamu. As we raced along with the wind blowing full bore into the white canvas sail, two of the Germans were counterbalancing the wind by standing on the railing precariously holding a thin rope that drooped off the mast. Suddenly the wind erratically tipped the boat and one of the Germans was tossed into the water. The other German jumped in, and the rest of us laughed. The boat slid up the beach with the swimming Germans close behind.
Captain Cook and the crew cooked us up a tasty lunch of fish they had caught and soft sweet mango. After lunch the crew sat around on the deserted white sand beach singing reggae songs in Swahili and smoking pot. "Now we go to the ruins," Ali said with a big smile. We sailed around the tip of the island and into a small canal in the mangrove trees. Suddenly the boat stopped as it grounded into the mud. "The tide isn't high enough yet to get all the way to the beach," the captain said. "We'll have to walk."
I carefully slipped in the knee high water and down in to the thick soft mud. Then taking another step my foot sunk down and met some sharp shells. I quickly withdrew from the water to examine my foot. I wiped the mud away from the cuts and saw I was bleeding. The others were already slowly making their way through the treacherous mud. I was determined not to be left behind on the adventure due to a little cut, I plunged into the murky water and began to swim.
After 10 minutes of traversing the muck and mire, we reached the beach. "It's just a little ways," the crew assured us. In Africa everything takes about twice as long as what you are told. After 40 minutes of walking through the deserted coral island, we reached a group of crumbling buildings, one of which was suppose to be a museum. The Germans in particular made it very clear that they were quite displeased at the disappointing excursion and gave Captain Ali a hard time about it all the way back to the boat.
As we sailed back to Lamu, the horizon gave way to an impressive sunset. Mountains of silvery clouds, oranges sparkling across the crests of waves, purples staining the peripheral of the islands. I looked back at the crew in the boat. A dozen people all in their twenties...singing John Denver songs and laughing at their Swahili adaptations... people from three different continents all connected for a single easy sun-soaked day...all problems forgotten. Something in me told me that this was the way it was supposed to be.

CHAPTER 16

Upon my return from the gorgeous paradise of Lamu, I immediately jumped into teaching tuition with the kids on the compound.  They have two weeks where they are out of school and we offer supplementary school so that they can get caught up.  Many of the orphans who came to Nehemiah from very difficult circumstances need a boost be on par with the rest of their class.  I had the idea to use the two weeks as an opportunity to introduce them to the Lord of the Rings.  During the first 30 minutes of the morning session, I read them a passage from the books, summarized the plot, and explained the characters.  Then in the evenings I showed them an hour and a half of the movies.  It was a wonderful opportunity to introduce symbolism, and talk about light and darkness, sin, hope, and longing. 

“Is violence bad?” I asked a morning after watching battle scenes from the night before.

“Yes…no…yes.”  The murmurs drifted back to me.

“Will Jesus be violent when he comes back?”  I watched the wheels turn.

“Yes!” I said, “He will destroy all that is evil and bad in the world and who love God will live in Heaven where there will be no more pain or tears.  But Jesus will come with a sword coming out of his mouth and will kill all his enemies!”  The kids were struck by this idea.  “Should we fight our friends or our sisters, or women? No… Should we fight the evil in this world with everything we have?  Yes!  And that’s what the elves and dwarves and hobbits are doing in the story.”

After the Lord of the Rings story time, they would split into their respective classes.  I taught the 2^nd graders multiplication, drilling them with flashcards I made.  One time I divided them into boys vs. girls, and the team that shouted the right answer first got the card.  We counted the cards at the end, and with the news that the boys had won, the whole class exploded into wild exuberance.  They were all shouting at the top of their lungs, even the girls, and were dancing madly about on the tables like cannibals.  They are a wild bunch, and each afternoon I would go home exhausted.

Later in the afternoons, Marit and I taught a “human sexuality” session.  We met all together to talk about the general issues and then split into boys and girls and discussed details separately.  I never would have guessed that I would find myself in a room full of adolescent African boys talking about penises, fallopian tubes, and masturbation!  It is quite taboo for parents to talk to their kids about sex, and Kenyan kids are told that that babies come from Nairobi.  So the fact that Marit and I were able to dispel the myths and shed light on such a dark topic, was wonderful. 

After months of anticipation, I finally was commissioned to be a lay reader in the Anglican Church of Kenya.  A lay reader is someone who is licensed by the bishop to preach, teach, assist the clergy in their church, visit the sick, and conduct morning and evening liturgies.

I took my godparents Dismas and Nafula, my roommates Kennedy and Washington, and two of the boys Elijah and Steven Ford with me.  It was the first time the boys had been to an Anglican Church and the first time they had been to church outside of Miwani.  We arrived at 8am, and I met the other 7 candidates.  I had had a cassock and surplice tailor made for me the week before and was instructed to don my black cassock as we rehearsed the complex ceremony.  It was a bit like getting married.  Sit here, stand there, kneel here, take your license there.  I arranged my black cassock robe over my trousers, and felt a bit self conscious.  The monkish costume reminded me of Alyosha in the Brothers Karamazov.  I always pictured him wearing a similar gown. 

“The bishop is coming.  Hurry!”  Someone said passing me and heading for the church gate.  We all lined up on either side of the driveway: the sixty something young confirmation candidates all in white, the other lay readers in their black robes, the clergy of the church, and the rest of the congregation.  The white sedan of the bishop slowly pulled up to the gate.  The crowd began to sing and clap.  The bishop got out and walked along the line of parishioners, shaking each of their hands.  I tried to suppress my laughter.  It was so bizarre to hold a leader is such high regard in the West.  We are so riddled with cynicism.  The bishop was treated like royalty, seen as a true hero of the people fighting for the powerless.  

The other lay reader candidates and I gathered in the vestry.  “As soon as the bishop is finished with breakfast, he will come to interview you,” we were told by a priest.  What a weird thing to have all these people wait for you to sit and eat breakfast, I thought.  As I was waiting in the hall, reading the bulletin board, the rector’s wife came up to me and said, “Come take breakfast.”  I followed her, and entered the rectors modest living room.  The room was full of clergy and church officials.  I was acquainted with most of them, but wasn’t too close with any of them.  I shook everyone’s hand, which is the Kenyan custom when entering a room, and sat silently on the stiff sofa.  The women awkwardly washed everyone’s hands with a pitcher of water and a plastic basin.  Then one of the women prayed a whisper of a prayer for the food.  I had mixed feelings as I sat eating breakfast in whispers with the bishop and his the other priests.  On the one hand I felt honored and special to be invited to this VIP gathering.  But it felt a bit strange.  Everyone knew that the only reason I was there was because I was the only white guy in the whole church.  I didn’t feel like I had done or accomplished anything that made me worthy to be there.  I felt a bit like a trophy wife.  But suppose my pride to be a VIP smothered my desire to associate with the common man.

After breakfast, the bishop had us all cram into the rector’s office where he gave us a lecture on how he didn’t want any of us to become a Judas.  “One of you could betray the work of the Church.  I want to hear that you eight people have been faithful in your ministries.”  We then slipped our white surplice over our black robes and marched together into church.

Anglicans can often make the mistake of turning spirituality into a political rally, and this particular service definitely had a taste of that to it. The service was a four-in-one occasion.  First there was the consecration of the new church, then a long sermon by the Bishop about the different roles of the church, then the confirmation of all the kids dressed up in white, then the commissioning of the lay readers, then the Eucharist, then presentations by the Mother’s Union, the Sunday school, the youths, and finally speeches by the chairman of this committee and that committee, gifts to the bishop, gifts to the bishop’s wife, etc.  They even gave a live chicken to the bishop’s driver with a long winded speech about how the driver should be careful because he was driving the whole church around (which I disagreed with).  Hour followed hour, and the service finally ended at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  It was exhausting.  By the fifth hour of sitting in my hot robes, I picked up my novel and read to keep from falling asleep. 

CHAPTER 17

Part of my morning routine is to walk the equivalent of two city blocks to the roadside café on the farm where Helen fixes up beans, chapatti, mandazi, and tea over coal stoves.  As I was walking along one morning several weeks ago the thought came to me out of no where that I should direct a drama with the kids at Miwani Estate Primary School.  I discussed the possibility with Tobias, the school “deputy”, and got a thumbs up.  I gave a little advertisement plug at a school assembly, and posted a poem in the library for anyone interested in acting to memorize.

I decided to do a Shakespeare play.  If your going to do a play, and it might be the only play these kids will ever see, much less be in, it should be the best.  One of Jeff’s friends emailed me an adaptation of Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I thought it would fit perfectly.

I scheduled the tryouts for May 8^th and arrived to a giddy crowd of kids all in their dirty blue school uniforms.  I had them write their names down on a piece of paper and called out their names one by one to hear them present the poem.  There were about 30 kids that tried out.  Most of them were extremely shy, some couldn’t remember much of the poem, and others did a supreme performance and really put their heart into it.  I took notes and over the next couple days decided on the cast.

I went back to the school and I announced who “made it”, and handed out the scripts.  It was hard to look into a nervous eager face and say, “Sorry, there aren’t any more parts for you.”  I did a brief introduction of who Shakespeare was and introduced the characters.

“Oberon, you are the fairy king,” I said.  The boy just stared back at me. “Okay, who can tell me what a fairy is.”  Dead silence.  How on earth do you explain to someone what a fairy is? “Okay…fairies aren’t real.  They are just imaginary creatures that someone made up in their head.”  I pointed emphatically to my head. “They live in the forest in the trees and the fly around.” I demonstrated what a flying fairy might have looked like.  “They are kind of like little angels!” I said, thinking that that would adequately describe these creatures.

Many of the cast were still in class doing an exam and I went around the crumbling halls finding everyone and handing out scripts.  “Lines are the words you say, and the sentences after your character’s name are the lines that you need to memorize.”  Most of the kids were scared speechless.  I have a long way to go with these kids, but after a few practices I think they will warm up and hopefully in 5 weeks I’ll have a troupe of passionate and emotional actors.

As I was about to leave the school I saw Isaac, one of our boys from Nandi who is one of the gentler, kinder, soft spoken, and shy boys we have.  He had a pained expression and was obviously holding back tears.  Isaac had had some very painful boils on his butt that Kennedy had had to cut out with a scalpel a few days earlier.  He had missed a couple days of school because of the pain. 

“Isaac, what’s the problem?”  He couldn’t speak.  “Bonface, what’s the matter with Isaac?”

“The teacher caned him,” Bonface quietly replied.  Even though it is illegal, it is routine procedure for understaffed Kenyan teachers to cane all their students to keep a sense of control in the sea of wild kids. Nevertheless I could not turn a blind eye to this injustice, and a wave of rage crashed into me.  How could anyone beat my dear and gentle Isaac when he is already in tremendous pain?

“Who?  What teacher?  Bonface, which teacher?  That one?”

“That one,” he said pointing to a heavy set teacher.  I marched straight up to the teacher who had a switch in his hand and was beginning to whip another batch of kids who were reclining in the grass.  He had his back to me and didn’t see me approach.  The seething anger was such that I had to pray a brief prayer that the Lord would help me articulate what I needed to in the midst of the pounding adrenaline.

“What do you think you are doing?” I yelled at him.

“Oh, how are you?  Fine, fine,” he stammered with a nervous grin.  I was now covered in a thick thunder cloud of fury, and swiped his whip from his limp hand. 

“You don’t cane my kids!” I shouted, struggling to keep my words articulate.  “That boy,” I said pointing in the direction of Isaac, “had boils on his bottom!”

“Yes, yes,” the teacher said, not quite knowing what I was saying, but fully realizing that he was in trouble yet pretend everything was fine.  A group of girls on the grass all began to laugh.  This was unprecedented in school history.

“Children just go over there,” he said with pony enthusiasm.   I grabbed his arm firmly.

“Listen, you know that caning is illegal.  You can get fired for doing that. If I hear of one more time of you caning my kids, you’re going to be in big trouble.”  I was trembling with anger at this point and turning, I walked out of the gate. 

CHAPTER 18

As I will often do, I woke the other morning shortly after sunrise, put on my silky Punjab shirt, checked my email, turned on some Indian sitar music, made myself a cup of instant coffee, and did some reading on Anglicanism on the internet.  I was interrupted from my morning tasks by a metallic knock on the door.  I went to check who it was and found Rosalyn, one of the farm mothers, at the door with a bucket of chicken guts.  She wanted to keep them in my refrigerator, to which I readily agreed. 

            “Rosalyn, when are you slaughtering next?” I asked as she opened the refrigerator.  Rosalyn is in charge of all the slaughtering in the poultry department on the farm.

            “Today, right now.”  I had been thinking about the prospect of trying my hand at slaughtering for some months, and now the opportunity presented itself dreadfully close.  I drew my breath in and said, “I’ll be there.” 

            I had read an essay in college by this lady who went to a slaughter house every year to slaughter some chickens.  She wanted to feel connected to the source of the chicken she regularly ate.   I always thought this was a noble idea; chicken don’t just appear in the grocery store all clean and ready to cook.  Someone’s got to do the choppin’.  I was also reminded of a book I read last summer that was all about how everything in life is a sacrifice to others or a sacrifice of others to us.  We are consumers at our core and we take and take life and resources from the world and we should be more thankful for that life.  I walked down to the poultry meditating on these ideas, still with a bit of nervousness and pensive anxiousness about killing animals.

            Rosalyn and two other women brought the chickens in big bags and dumped them onto the slaughtering floor.  They flailed and clucked, and were generally irritated by the discomfort of such transportation.  I crouched down to examine them while Rosalyn was out collecting more.  They looked to be in a relatively healthy state, plump and clean.  All of them had uniform white feathers, and gingerly walked around the cement floor.  It took some time to get used to the smell of dried blood and chicken excrement. Fortunately I was still recovering from a bad cold, which somewhat impaired my sense of smell.  As looked around me trying to become familiar with the animals, I felt like those Indian hunters in movies who talk to the deer before killing it and thank it for giving its life so that they can live.

            When about 50 chickens had been assembled in the room, Rosalyn put on a dirty vinyl apron and set to work throwing water on the floor and wetting down the room.  Another woman took out a 6 inch kitchen knife and prepared for work.  Rosalyn, with quick experienced hands, scooped down and grabbing the feet and wing of a chicken held it out to the other woman.  The woman with another rapid twist of the hand caught the neck of the bird, twisted it, and began sawing the neck with the kitchen knife.  It was a swift process and the head slid off the body within two or three strokes.  Rosalyn then threw the twitching body into a corner where it flapped frantically. 

I watched in amazement for sometime at this foreign scene.  The women were completely stoic and treated the process as a completely mundane routine.  The water gushed into a basin.  The chickens screeched.  The corpses beat and flailed as blood trickled out of their severed necks.  It was quite overwhelming to the senses. 

“Rosalyn, I want to try.” I yelled over the din.

“You want to try cutting?  You can do the last one.”

“No, I want to do more than that.”

“Okay,” she yelled back, “take the knife.”

The woman handed me the knife, which was partly broken and hung limply from the handle.  Rosalyn expertly snatched a chicken and held it out to me.  I imitated what I saw the woman do and twisted the neck of the bird and began to saw at the neck.  The knife was surprisingly dull and it took several times plunging into it before it gave way.  Blood immediately splattered on the floor at my feet, painting my feet with red dots.  I looked in shock at my hand that still held the trembling head of the chicken.  It’s eye stared unblinkingly back at me, and then slowly closed.  I threw the head in a pile.  Before I could process anything, Rosalyn had the next chicken already waiting, I twisted and sawed again, this time with more adrenaline pumping and the head came off easier and faster. 

The rhythm of snatching, twisting, and sawing lulled me into a strange trance.  I lost sense of time and place.  Life and death instantaneously seesawing back and forth in my hands…the rush of water, the shriek of the bird, the smell of warm blood, the last shudder of the head, and the clouding of the eye as death slowly replaced panic with cool indifference.  “Your life for mine.”  I thought over and over as I took the life out of each animal. I had to hold the broken kitchen knife in an awkward position that dug into the base of my index finger, and I recall being strangely apathetic to the dull pain.  I can’t say how long all this lasted, but just as I was going to ask Rosalyn to take the knife, she said, “Last one”.  And it was over.  The lifeless pile of chickens lay in a heap.  Their white feathers now red with the bloody water they had thrashed in.

The experience reminded me that no animal meat appears in sterile cellophane packages, but that a real live breathing thinking animal had to give its life for my enjoyment of a hamburger or a barbecue chicken.  We all love to eat meat, but we don’t like to kill.  My experience helped me connect the dots.  Death is not clean or pretty, and we only fool ourselves when we pretend not to think that the meat that comes from Safeway, didn’t involve pain and ugliness. 

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For the last month, life has been like a funnel… things all around me are coming to an end.  The last time I will walk down this familiar road, the last night of showing a movie to the kids, the last time of attending church, the last drama practice.  The list goes on.  Everything careens toward that tiny hole of getting on that airplane in Nairobi, where this whole experience of being in Africa will come to a close.  How I will be able to relate all of this to people back in America will to some degree be impossible.  How I will be able to fully process all this for myself may be impossible.  Africa is a continent of paradoxes and inconsistencies, grandeur and beauty, and unparalleled passion and intensity.

The children I’ve been working with several times a week for the last several months, were visibly troubled and sad that I was leaving them.  “When will you be coming back?” they all ask me.  I think for a moment, “4 years…I’ll bring back my wife and kids to introduce to you.”  They always laugh.

The drama was quite a success.  It was like pulling teeth out of the teachers every time I came to practice in the afternoons.  They didn’t want to release their kids to do a stupid drama.  The student’s scores might drop!  I drove me crazy. But despite the foot dragging from the teachers, who in my opinion are mostly lazy and indifferent to the children’s education, the children grew into beautiful actors and actresses.  It was like watching a flower grow.  Some of the kids would mostly goof off in practice, or not take it seriously and just laugh the whole time, or they wouldn’t memorize their lines.  I poured myself into them, hour after hour.  Trying to give them an creative outlet in drama, trying to empower them to be confident and use their voice in a world where they are taught not to look adults in the eye and never say a word.  I tried to show them what it meant to be passionate on stage and set free that fire that I knew was burning inside of them.  And as I sat and watched them perform in front of their peers and teachers, they were real actors, improvising, totally in character, wholly committed to the play. I will always remember these kids who were transformed for a few hours from poor rural Africans into fairy kings and queens, dukes, and ladies. 

After being commissioned as a lay reader, I’ve been serving the Anglican community for the last month, reading scripture and praying in the service, and sometimes preaching.  It was an amazing experience to travel around to different Anglican churches in the diocese and see how each operated.  The highly centralized nature of their church government and the controlling rectors, were disappointing.  But I always met a few people in the churches who were full of love and life and the Holy Spirit.  They always had a sparkle in their eye and always said, “Send our greetings back with you to your church in America!”.

I gave my final sermon at my church, St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  It was Trinity Sunday and I expounded on the importance of unity within the trinity, marriage, the family, and the church.  I challenged the traditional African family model of the husband being the master of the home and the wife and children being his slaves.  Domestic abuse is normative. It is a disgusting and perturbing aspect of Kenyan culture that mostly remains in the dark to the idealistic tourist.  I brought it to light and encouraged the church to begin treating all people as image bearers of God.  It raised some eyebrows and caused some nervous laughter.

As I prepare to leave I have been reflecting on what has meant the most to me here.  The kids are number one on the list.  I’ve really grown to love them.  They are have given me a new of seeing life.  They are so hardy and tough.  Chin up in every situation, but always quick to give a helping hand or make a joke.  Their futures are uncertain in the midst of the governmental corruption and the vice of pagan practices that continue to throw darkness throughout their culture, but they continue to go on with life working hard without complaining or showing a sign of fear.

I will miss my church with all it’s beauty and simplicity.  I am a Kenyan Anglican, and I will always feel an affiliation to these people. I’ll miss the shiny colors of the choirs’ robes, the old English Hymns, and the old lady who fearlessly and clumsily plays the organ at church who peers over the rims of her glasses at the congregation as she bellows out the song.  I’ll miss the timeless feeling of the place.

I’ll miss the Kruegers who I work with at Nehemiah. I have spent countless hours playing cards, telling stories, reading, eating meals, watching movies, and reminiscing about Bainbridge with them.  I’ll miss Marit, who has been a friend, a sister, a nurse when sick, and a teaching colleague.  I’ll miss Jeff who has impressed me over and over again with his integrity, wisdom, resilience, and foresight.  I’ll miss Lexi, who has a incorrigible sense of humor and a curiosity for life.  And I’ll miss Kata, whose gentle and pleasant disposition has been a constant joy.

For people and things that I have met in Africa, I know I'll often stop and think about them.  It will take years to fully process the experiences I’ve had here.  It has not so much altered the course of my life in a new direction, but has reaffirmed convictions I held in theory prior to coming.  And most importantly, I am confident in the strength and love of God. 

Thank you all for your support financially, your prayers, your letters, and your encouragement during this incredible season of my life.