While Michael and Emilee eat the Christmas Cow on December 25, I’ll be with some family in Camp Verde, AZ. The kids were disappointed when they heard I was going home for Christmas, and I don’t blame them–in fact, I’m sad to miss the celebrations at Tumaini myself! A good number of the kids also thought I was purposefully abandoning them in favor of a ‘White Christmas’, and it was hard to convince them otherwise. ...
Here at Tumaini, the kids have three meals: Githeri (beans and maize), Rice and Beans, and Ugali (beans and a maize polenta). Githeri is eaten for every lunch and quite a few dinners, whereas rice and beans and ugali are served less frequently. Given this monotony, it’s easy to explain the mounting excitement that accompanies the approach to Christmas here. You see, on Christmas, the children have told us, “we will eat cow!” This is one of the two days per year where they are allowed to eat meat (and because of or in spite of this many profess meat to be their favorite meal). ...
Waking up on Sunday morning in time for church is often difficult. I confess (all too readily, perhaps) that the church services here aren’t what I particularly crave in the way of spiritual edification. The music that sets my teeth decidedly on edge (insanely overblown speakers, off-key saccharine synth jams pumping from the electronic keyboard, etc…) has already been mentioned, for example. Of course, they do some things here in Riamukurwe Parish that are a breath of fresh air. Women from the community, not even trained ‘ministers’, regularly preach. ‘Presentations’, or songs performed by any member of the congregation, take up a large portion of the service, and it’s nice to see such involvement appreciated (even if, to my classically-trained ears, those moments have a definite Purgatorial feel). ...
A few Fridays ago, when the always-sketchy Internet here at Tumaini began hiccuping, we didn’t think much of it. It was normal. Almost two weeks later, we know better. The first few days, we attributed the lack of Internet to environmental causes, like the weather. Or perhaps the guy who holds the data tubes together had fallen asleep. When we run out of water for strange amounts of time, I wonder the same thing. ...
“I used to look after some cows,” the conversation began. Christopher, about 17 years old, had just seated himself on our couch and was twirling our massage stick in absentminded circles as he began to talk in a rambling way about his childhood. We hadn’t asked any particular question; he seemed glad to sit and felt like talking, so he talked. Christopher shared easily, with obvious confidence in himself, and with an even didactic air, knowing that what he was saying would be interesting and maybe shocking to us: pampered visitors from a posh and indolent country, who count even the most insignificant inconveniences as severe trials. ...
Since I moved to Kenya for 6 months, I’m keeping a blog elsewhere, and writing in it more frequently along with my friends who are here with me as well. Check it out! Hello! Fine.
Mere days after arriving here at Tumaini, Emilee, Michael and myself have found ourselves thrust into (somewhat dubious) positions of ‘authority’ as ’leaders’ of the Three Houses of Tumaini. I don’t know where Eunice, the manager, got the idea to split the children into ‘Houses’, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from Harry Potter. At any rate, she thought it best to have three houses (rather than four)–one for each of us volunteers to manage. ...
In Swahili, Kenya’s lingua franca, one of the standard greetings is the question “Hujambo?” This is a contraction of the phrase, “Huna jambo?”, meaning literally, “You don’t have any problems, do you?” The standard reply is “Sijambo!” – “I don’t have any problems!”. Most people shorten both of these even further, such that the exchange is more like: “Jambo?” … “Jambo!”. Anyway, when Kenyan children learn English, they obviously learn (paralleling Swahili) that the standard greeting is a question-and-answer: “How are you?”–to which the reply is “Fine.” Here’s how we know: ...
In a move reminiscent of Christ himself, my favorite e-zine, The Holy Observer, is back! This is Christian satire and parody at its finest. Perfectly irreverent and hilarious, they put their finger on everything that makes us cringe about Christians and their culture. A few years ago, the site went down without any explanation, so in their own tradition I wrote up a fake news article about what had happened. I never got around to posting it, but now is the perfect occasion. Looks like I may have been wrong! ...
My car When I decided to go to Africa for 6 months (and do who knows what after that), it became increasingly clear that keeping my car was not going to be easy. Insurance payments and finding a place to store it just weren’t options. And so, somewhat grudgingly, I began the process of trying to sell it about a month ago. At that time it was a very practical and financial decision, and I didn’t think much of it. Now I’m sitting here with the fattest wad of cash I’ve ever seen, no car, and surprisingly strong emotions. I feel, for whatever reason, as if I’ve lost a friend or a long-loved pet. It can’t be the wheels themselves–if anything, having a car has been somewhat of a burden with gas prices being so high, having to worry about maintenance, etc… For the most part, I didn’t need a car in Palo Alto, and I certainly don’t need one to get around here in San Francisco. So why do I miss my beautiful white Civic? I think a lot of things are wrapped up in it. It was the first car I ever bought, during my junior year at Stanford. I can remember being with my parents at the car lot, learning the tricks of the car buying trade, knowing what I wanted but knowing I couldn’t afford it, and finally finding a good (if expensive) match in my little Civic. That was a somewhat momentous process in and of itself, and the car loan was the first monthly payment I ever had! Definitely “coming of age”. But fundamentally, it has to be the memories. Memories of adventure, companionship, solitude, of joyful or tearful singing in the only place I could go where I didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing. Memories of driving a girl to dinner (and trying to be all cool because I was driving stick), or memories of the drive up the 280 to San Francisco, hitting the steering wheel and crying in frustration because I’d fouled up yet another romantic opportunity. Memories of driving cross-country with David and camping in a deserted Joshua Tree, or tackling the winding 140 before dawn with Dan dozing, on our way to a climb in Tuolumne. For me, the car was never something I got into to take me to work–never anything I dreaded. Sure, I used it for grocery shopping and day-to-day errands, but the vast majority of the 40,000 miles I put on it were road trip miles, adventure miles, real life miles. So tonight, as I watched the new owner drive away, it felt somehow wrong, as if he had stolen many of my favorite moments from the past four and a half years. I wanted to run after and say, “No! I take it back!” I think we both got a fair deal out of the transaction, but something inside says that I sold the car (“her”, if you want to anthropomorphize) far too cheaply. Well, at the end of the day, she’s just a chunk of metal and gears, however pretty she was. And I’m not meant to care that much about a chunk of metal and gears. The memories will have to find another repository, and I’m sure they’ll last much longer than the car, however the new owner treats it! For now, I need the money to pursue the path that I’ve chosen. I could spiritualize the moment more than is necessary, and claim that it was for the kingdom of God (and who knows, maybe it is), but that’s not the point. Whatever the case, I just sold my most financially valuable possession. Not quite “everything”, but it’s a start. So, in honor of the car’s exit from my life story, I thought I’d post a few (chronologically ordered) pictures to commemorate the role it played in a lot of really important moments for me. Of course, it’s not an exhaustive album, but it will have to do. Goodbye, Little Car!