With Ears Wide Open

Church Commute

I’ve always considered myself to have a relatively sharp sense of hearing.  I’ve found it to be helpful when empathizing with some of my patients with autism, and I’ve found it to be a big fat pain when trying to sleep through the night in Chicago.  I’ve been known to wear earplugs to spin class and preach the dangers of noise damage to my rockstar baby cousins; I thought I got it.  What I took for granted though, what I never fully considered, is that I’m from a generation and culture abuzz with noise.  So without that ambient cacophony here in Kenya, and maybe for the first time in my life, I am actually learning to listen.

Cheeky Mischief

I’ve learned how distant funeral drums sound from the neighboring farm as they pay their respects well past sunrise, several consecutive nights in a row.  I’ve imprinted the melody of dozens of African children singing together, out of key, but in their finest Christmas outfits.  I recognize the sound of the cows coming to join us in our field as we play, and the pathetic mewing of the mama cat that wakes me each morning to beg for my breakfast.  I’ve memorized the giggle of each of the children as they squirm under my tickling hands, and their whispered voices as they tell me their Swahili secrets, unaware that by its very nature, their secret is safe with me.  I recognize the sound of the generator kicking in just before our power returns, and the nighttime scratching of rodent feet on my tin roof.  I’ve been taught that the sound of a siren implies someone has already died.  I know the rhythm of our Swahili hymns sung in church, seemingly repeatedly hundreds! of times.  I know the haunting sound of someone suffering from cerebral malaria as she incoherently wails from her hospital bed just meters from my own.

Baby Train

I am also learning the sounds of silence.  I know the hungry silence of famished children as they shovel platefuls of rice down their throats.  I recognize the sudden silence of oncoming thunder that usually precedes the rain.  I know the commanding silence of the police checkpoints: engines off, music silenced, drivers anxiously rifling through their pockets for the bribe demanded of Kenya's finest.  I know the suspicious silence of a quad of little boys who are invariably getting themselves into mischief.  I’ve witnessed a tangible, aggressive silence as it transformed inquisitive daughters and tender wives into silent shadows of the bully they call daddy and husband.  Theirs is a deafening silence that demands our response.

This evening as I was finishing my dinner I overheard the kids laughing and singing at the top of their lungs.  I couldn’t resist running back to see what they were up to, and found them on their dusty porch in the dusk, having a dance party.  The musical accompaniment to their sweetly piercing voices was an imaginary keyboard in the form of a plank of wood.  They were a quite a sight.  But even more than that, they were the most perfect, joyful sound I’ve ever heard.  And I was happy to listen.

A Day At A Time

Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology.     Pico Iyer

Saida

When faced with the prospect of having no control whatsoever, I default to organizing.  Something.  Anything.   In light of this truth that I’m (again) begrudgingly admitting, I’ve developed a bit of a routine here in rural Kenya.  I begin my morning by savoring my first of many cups of chai: it’s deliciousness enables me to forgive the sudden abandonment by my old friend coffee; oh, how I miss it.  I try to absorb as much nourishment as I can, both of the body and the spirit, knowing that I’ll need every last bit of it to do right by the kids.

Atoti, rarely without her pet bucket

I cut through the hospital and head over to the kids’ place, where I am greeted by shouts and squeezes and smiles.  They’ve been up and at it for hours; they are machines.  We spend some of our morning in the classroom, which is a bit like herding puppies: puppies that literally swing from the rafters and climb the wire walls.  Their love of learning makes the choice of content a moot point: they want to know everything.  When they write in their workbooks, the eldest help the youngest, and they all fight for the rusty razor blade to sharpen what remains of their pencil stubs.  If we make it an hour before I’m peeling them off the architecture and shooing them outside, it’s a miracle.  We’ve taught each other all the outside games we know, though they’re just as happy to tumble all over each other, and me. 

Sometimes we break for the local sorghum porridge ugi, but always we break for lunch, during which time I usually sit and stare vacantly, half in wonder, half overwhelmed.  I am outnumbered, outdone, knackered.  But already I love them.  They are teaching me, stretching me so much.  They make me laugh, and make me take deep breaths, and give me hours and hours of things to think about each day.  They are full of themselves, full of one another, full of life.  And I get to know them. 

Moses, x2

Our afternoons are even less structured, simply because I’m not too proud to admit my capacity.  Occasionally we return to the classroom where we have lots of thoughtful conversation, always directed by them:  “Are there lots of Satan worshippers in America?  Do white people have babies?  Do you have babies?  When will you come back to us?  Does Princess Sophia live near you?  Can you drink the ocean?  Do any kids look like us in America?  Why are your legs so big? [sigh]  Are your sister’s legs as big as yours?  [SIGH]  Will you please please please bring your family the next time you visit?  What’s the mother tongue of your tribe?  Take my picture!”  

Big Legs Sure Are Cozy!

The bulk of our time though, is usually spent outside, in a heap.  Personal space is something we’re working on, as I usually have no less than half a dozen pairs of hands on me at all times.  They are counting my freckles, and stroking the underside of my arms “You’re so soft”, and chewing on my bracelets, and braiding my hair.  If they’re not coloring my toenails with pencil, they’re erasing them.  There’s always at least one pair of knobby elbows leaning on each of my legs, while others rest their heads on my shoulders.  It is endearing and exhausting.  They insistently share with me the treats that occasionally arrive in the form of a fresh stalk of sugarcane, which is, incidentally, pretty fun to gnaw through.  I chastise them for terrorizing the giant lizards and for giving chase with shards of broken glass, to absolutely no avail. 

When evening finally arrives, they don’t appear any less energized than they were 10 hours before, but I am mangled.  I eventually return to my quarters, where I will spend the
 remainder of the evening, a mosquito murderess, alone.  It is usually very quiet, and always very lonely.  For all the smack-talking I do about our overuse of technology, I sure do miss being in touch with everyone I love.  I wish more than ever for a closet in which to debrief with my best friend Kat, the way we used to when we worked in the Robert Taylor housing projects in Chicago.  But I know that this is what I signed up for, and I also believe that my relationship with the kids is worth the temporary but complete disconnect from everyone I love.  Which I will remind myself tomorrow when one of them lunges into my hair immediately after trash diving for snails.

To A Kenyan Clinic

Post-Porridge Smile

I’m beginning to get the distinct impression that I am completely and totally full of it.  When push comes to shove, do I really love well?  When it’s dirty, and loud, and lonely, and overwhelming, do I really make an effort to be gracious, or kind, or patient?  Do I really believe in the power of hope when I watch a shell of a boy stumble and fall as his pants fall off his skeletal frame, too weak to walk any longer without assistance?  Do I still show up for people when all I want to do is hide out?  Do I honestly let go of my cultural bias and white privilege to fully immerse myself into a world where I’m the outsider, the foreigner, the minority?  I hope so.  I want to.  But I’ve never been less sure.

I It took several days and multiple forms of transportation before finally arriving here to the Sister Freda’s Medical Centre in northwestern Kenya.  Originally created to meet the needs of the neediest around, it now includes a hospital, a coed nursing college, a high school for girls, an orphanage, and an educational feeding program for nearly 200 preschoolers from the surrounding slums.  There are a few generously planted acres that feed those of us living here, as well as animals of all shapes and sizes.Though I’m relieved to report the only roommates I’ve had so far have been of the chameleon variety.  Thank you, Jesus.

I was given the tour and a warm welcome, then began scribbling Kiswahili into my trusty notebook.  I’ve learned how to light my lantern during the rolling brownouts, developed an affinity for Kenyan cabbage, and am proud to say I can now fully shower in under a minute.  I no longer have the distinctly foreign luxury of seeing mosquito nets as an exotic novelty, but have come to appreciate their protection, however tangled I find myself each morning.  I am, slowly, adjusting.

More than any professional skill set I thought I’d be using, I spend my days among the children.  In addition to a handful of staff children on the property, there are 9 orphans living here, most of whom arrived as babies.  They average around 9 years old, though very few if any of them know their actual date of birth.  They are demonstrative in their affection, laugh often, and have a voracious appetite for learning; each the embodiment of the kind of person I want to become.  I have a lot to learn.

Out Of The West

I wasn’t entirely ready to say goodbye to Greece.  There’s a lustiness, a boldness of spirit there that I just couldn’t get enough of.  It made me feel empowered, and brave, and so very excited.  For everything.  Excited to breathe deeply of the dirty air, and to get lost, and to love well.  Excited to dance my ass off, and to pursue beauty, and to laugh often.  Put simply, Greece and her people have breathed into me an even more voracious appetite for life, a wild longing of sorts.  And I love it.

There are so many Greek qualities I want to remember, to hold onto, to take with me.  I want to be demonstrative in my affection for those I love.  I want to speak my mind openly, without fear of judgment or rejection.  I want to continue to value and seek learning in all its forms.  I want to continue to discover cities from the back of a motorcycle (thanks, Vasily).  I want to pursue creativity always, believing this to be as fundamental to our development as where we choose to live, or what we do for work.  I want to remember, even through the grit and pain of daily life, what a gift it is to really live.

So while I couldn’t help but feel sadness, it wasn’t without deep joy and gratitude that I made my final European farewell.  Gratitude to Greece for the wildness she brought out in me.  To Europe, for teaching me how to do this thang on my own.  Mostly though, gratitude to my people.  To the people at home who continue to tangibly love me well in their consistent support and encouragement.  And to the people I’ve met along the way, who help me to believe in laughing, and dancing, and getting lost.  Who have been, to me, proof of hope, and magic, and real, live beauty. 

It was the perfect gift, to send me with such a full heart into Kenya, where the blazing equatorial sun asserted itself even before we touched down in Nairobi.  I found my driver, and did my best to breathe deeply of the filthy air as we found our way to the car.  I plopped my exhausted, sweaty self into the backseat as James entered into what can only be described as straight up traffic madness.  Nonplussed, he adjusted the radio and promptly began belting along to the first song he found, “A Whole New World”.  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  A whole new world indeed, I thought to myself.  Bring it on.