The End

I think I might as well post this. I intended for there to be more, but at this point anything that I could write would not be as fresh. Actually the fact that there is no conclusion is kind of fitting. I don't expect the mission trip I went on several years ago to be the last time I go to Kenya.

"He came from heaven to earth, to shooow the way..." The song crackled through the airport PA in a distinctly analog fashion. I looked around at the other passengers waiting for their flight. From the collection of pasty-faced white people sitting in the boarding area, my eyes picked out a young, slick looking tourist with his well-dressed lady friend, and an Australian with a bush-savvy appearance. The women in our group were all crying. A strip of grass and two walls separated the boarding area from the adjacent room containing Lucy, Benjamin, and the rest of the Chengo family. We had come to know this family quite well over the past month. Through two pairs of windows I looked at Abigail, with her bright eyes and impish personality that pulled the rug out from under us and allowed us to be children. I looked at Immanuel, who had the brashness of his father in him. He had loved playing the guitar, so I had left it with the Chengos. I saw Rafael, Joshua, Gladice, and Peter. Their dark faces smiled at our pale ones through clear unnatural barriers. They waved, and we waved back. Some of them might never leave Malindi, at least not by plane. It was probable that none of them would leave Kenya. I would like to believe the women were crying at the tragedy of it. We were leaving, and they were not. They were staying, and we were not. Either way, it was an unbearable separation.

But I felt hollow. The process of saying goodbye was not easy for me. I think that Kenyans did goodbyes much better than Americans. There was a grace about it. Feelings were not left unexpressed, neither were they overexpressed. But as I searched for a mode in which to communicate my emotions, I found only a void. Thus, I felt hollow. I wanted to escape into that sterilized white pill of an airplane where the analgesic of transit numbed both emotion and the absence of it. In the meantime, I made a pretense of writing in my journal.

At some point the general milling about indicated to us that the plane was ready to board. We all walked out onto the tarmac, the wind whipping our faces as it always seems to at airports, and climbed up into the plane. I know nothing of aircraft, but suffice it to say that this was by far the smallest I have ever ridden in. There was only enough room for one seat on each side of the aisle.

The pilot spoke something important into the microphone, but it was rendered unintelligible by the static. Shortly thereafter, the plane began to take off, every wobble and dip uncomfortably perceived by its passengers.

I began to replay the past month in my head. Memories flowed over the surface of my mind like a film reel.

We are walking into the Jesus Cares Center (JCC) in Malindi for the first day of VBS. A kid rushes up to carry my guitar for me. I am made uncomfortable by this gesture. We all sit down and began to play with the kids. A child finds out that I play the piano. He kneels at my feet, and asks me to teach him. I kneel down so that I am looking him in the eyes, then tell him that I can't teach him because we have to start the program. He asks me why I am kneeling. I am overcome by a feeling of inadequacy. I don't understand this culture, and I don't like children showing physical displays of humility towards me.

"Eh, did you hear? They're from Cali!" The voice sucked me out of my reverie. I looked behind me at Joey, who was sitting next to the slick-looking tourists from before. They realized where we came from, and were expressing their excitement in loud British accents. Joey had a smirk on his face. We laughed to ourselves.

"I like bananas, I know that mangoes are sweet, I like papayas... papayas!" We are in a cement church in Kilifi village. The church is full of Kenyan children singing the American VBS standard, their eyes shining with joy. Multicolored flags are stretched across the ceiling, their tattered and diverse shapes adding a distinctly non-western spirituality to the church. When we are finished teaching the children this American song, one of my teammates speaks to our translator, mentioning that we would like to learn a Swahili song. They are more than happy to oblige. The drums begin to beat rhythmically, accelerating my heart and elevating my soul. The children chant in high melodic voices "Napende Jesu," which, according to our translator, means "I love you Jesus." (I looked up the word in a Swahili-English dictionary, and found the root word -penda is a verb that means to love or like, -pende is the imperative. Na- is a prefix meaning "and." So, the children were literally saying, "and must love Jesus.") The song is beautiful, yet fearful and foreign to me. The village leaders have seated us on benches while the children remain on the ground. We all feel slightly uneasy about this, grateful as we are to have a seat in a place where they are so rare.

"What are those?" Cassia was curious about the nuts I was eating. I had bought them at Trader Joe's before I left. They were cashews with Thai seasoning. Very spicy. I didn't eat very many snacks while I was in Kenya. We were so busy, I rarely felt hungry, and Kenyan food is surprisingly filling, so I was finishing them off on the plane. I knew that Cassia hated spicy foods, so I offered a cashew to her. When she reacted to the spiciness, a man sitting beside us laughed to himself quietly. Elena told me "We are all thinking about having a movie night or something when we get back. You are definitely invited." I told her of course. It seems a bit sad, but the material things I missed most while I was in Kenya were not flush toilets, mexican food, or even having a car. I really missed movies. Ironically, the first thing I wanted to do when I got back was watch The Constant Gardener, a movie about corrupt pharmaceutical companies in Kenya.

We are in Garashi village. A generator motor chugs away providing electricity for a single light bulb, a DVD player, and an old television. Andrew's Dad, Baraka, and I have spent countless hours trying to get the projector we brought to work, but the humidity has destroyed it. Technology generally seems to fail in Sub-Saharan Africa. This could be partly the quality of the technology we are using, partly the climate, but also partly a mystical resistance of the African continent to being tamed by technology. We are showing the Jesus film in Swahili and Giriyama (the tribal language) this evening. Most of the village has turned out to watch. It is an odd experience to sit in a field under the African stars by a donkey and watch a movie about the life of Jesus. In an African village, the dusty towns that Jesus walked through and preached in seem less exotic and foreign. I stare up at the Southern Cross and feel the sense of distance from my home. I feel comforted when I see the full moon. Everyone on Earth can see the same moon. I don't understand the languages they are speaking in these films. I could pick up a word here and there, but its mostly gibberish. Yet, I know the story. The people that are watching these films will learn this story. This brings me happiness, because this story has brought me hope and life. Maybe I will learn their stories.

"Look it's Mount Kilimanjaro!" Sure enough, with the sun setting over the clouds, I looked through the dirty plane window to see Mount Kilimanjaro poking above the clouds. It is one of the highest points in Africa, and I just saw it. I am amazed that I can be so fortunate, yet feel nothing. It reminds me of another sunset.

We are playing soccer by the Sumaki river in Garashi village. The word means "fish" in Garashi. I am remembering when Andrew and I took a bike to the river the other day to tell a woman washing her clothes that we would be showing a video later that day. It poured for a good 10 minutes and then stopped. The rain always did that while I was in Kenya. It was the short rainy season, so the skies would open and pour and then shut as suddenly as they had opened.

12:10 AM

I'm exhausted. But, I just finished my application to the Peace Corps, and my application to 5 schools of Public Health. Here is the list (in no particular order):

1. University of Washington
2. Emory University
3. Boston University
4. University of Illinois at Chicago
5. University of Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh

It's all out on the table now! Just have to wait for my letter writers to finish their stuff, and get my transcript sent to the Peace Corps, and I'm good to go.

In other news, I am looking at a job driving cars for Google. Pays better than Starbucks, that's for sure, but I will basically be giving my social life away as a result. We will see. This seems to be the year of menial labor for me. Is my degree worth anything besides the 6 figures a year my parents paid for it?

But the great part of it all is I can't complain, because I had the opportunity to be in grad school right now, but decided to put it off to figure out what I really wanted to do. Well, I suppose I can check two things off my list.

Also, I started volunteering at a hospital in the ER. That should prove to be interesting. I'm still in the bureaucratic rigamarole stage of the whole thing, but once I'm on the other end, it should be an exciting position to be involved in.

You know, it's funny to see than only a month ago I was full of ideals about being able to improve people's lives without a college degree and now it seems that I am contemplating taking a butt-kicker of a job just because it pays better than Starbucks. I mean, it would be cool to drive around California taking pictures, but every day? 6pm-1am? Sometimes working weekends? Well, I'd be used to the whole working weekends thing from Starbucks, but still....

Anyways, I'll probably read this in the morning and berate myself for my pessimism. The fact is, I am in a transitional year. It is good to remind myself that grad school would have been a bad idea if I had started it in September. I have a found a good community at PBCC, or rather re-found a good community. I suppose it scares me that I could lose that by taking the Google job (it isn't even technically a Google job, Google contracts it out to a third party company). It also scares me how much the idea of making an extra 6 dollars per hour is motivating me to consider throwing away the community that I have. There is some reasoning in the back of my head that says you'll have more money for grad school, but I'm looking to get financial assistance for that anyways. There's also some more reasoning that says I'm just getting tired of Starbucks and looking for something new. That same reasoning says that I'll probably get tired of driving a car around taking pictures of the street just as quickly.

In any case, now is a good time to go to sleep. That's a decision that isn't too hard to make. ;-)