in pictures...

a feeling in my belly...

I love the field. I thrive on the adventure of it all. I flew second seat in a little 5-seater up to Marsabit yesterday since it was just me. I asked him to give me a crash course on what to do in case he had a heart attack or sudden seizure (sorry, mom). He laughed and said, "just steer". I love seeing red dirt on my Chacos. I love getting jostled in an old Land Cruiser heading down a rarely-traveled path in the complete middle of no where, not being able to understand anything the three Kenyans I am traveling with are saying, but still being able to get lost in my own thoughts. I love that I can be whoever, whatever, and it doesn't matter because no one knows me here... I can just be pure "me" (which is probably a scary thing, I've decided) and get caught up with or lost in the adventure of it all. I love being in a far-off land, totally immersed in the dailyness here, even tho I am the odd one out (I haven't seen one other whitey out here yet). I won't lie- I don't love that I get woken up at 3am for the Muslim call to prayer.. or that I have to go #2 in a latrine... or that I've learned to pray a serious prayer over my food in the hopes that it won't make me deathly ill (and consequently cause me to have to hang my head over that latrine...) but there is something deep down, in my belly of bellies, that whispers "you were made for this." Being able to serve this way, as a foreigner in a foreign land, is really a blessing. Today I gave a presentation to about 30 high school girls about the importance of education, encouraging them to go against their cultural norm to get married very young and drop out... who am I that they should listen to me?? It's humbling. Although its been a bit lonely (thank you Lord for Skype and e-mail), being on my own so far has given me a much-needed sense of cubicle freedom. I dig it.

Entry

So I think it's Monday here. I am not too sure since I've had two overnight flights, four really bad renditions of airline food courtesy of British Air and a six hour smoky layover in Heathrow airport. But I do know I'm in Africa because it's humid, my hair is big, it took one hour to drive two miles through the sea of bodies downtown and my luggage got rummaged through (there is one lucky Kenyan walking around with a whole lot of eyedrops). And I think I just ate gizzards for lunch which I thought was curry chicken. Oops. On a high note, I received some very thoughtful notes before I left that I read during my journey. It helped make the wicked static cling from that chintzy airline blanket and the smell of bad toilet disinfectant that kept finding its way into my airstream kinda bearable.

I did meet a great girl from Kenya, who I connected with on my flight in. I think I am spending Easter with her family in Mombosa. Anyway, I was quite thankful she looked past my scuzzy, haggard, quite scary appearance and found me trustworthy enough to open up and share her story with me (even though I looked like a traveling bag lady). So it goes that she got married several months ago and found out, on her honeymoon, that he had been cheating on her... with multiple women, the whole time they were dating. But decided not to confess his awfulness until their honeymoon. Brute. How does one begin to deal with that? She said she cried every single night for three months straight to the point where she felt like she was going to literally break. This is one of the first times she has been able to talk about it openly (just call me the traveling bag lady counselor). But she is at a better place now and really wants to have hope for the great man she hopes God will bring for her. Being 30 and divorced in her culture is not an ideal scenerio for a single woman. But I reminded her that there are good ones out there... and he will come for her. She cried and said God allowed her to hope again through me (despite my static cling nastiness and preservative-filled danish crumbles on my lap... that, right there, is all God.)

Here's to the first of many traveling tales to come...

what else is new?

I'm leaving soon. I haven't packed yet.