New Life Beginning Everywhere...

I received this first photo of Pelagie and Japheth's new baby the other day. His name is Gitangaza Cherubin...little miracle angel is what it means.

When in Rwanda this summer, I learned that the Rwandese do not have "family" names as we do, but each child is given the name the parents choose for him or her, chosen for its meaning and significance. It's a bit disconcerting for us Americans to realize that the members of the same family do not share the same last name...do not in fact have "last names", as we know them. Rather harkens back to Biblical times, when "family names" did not exist...those came along much, much later in the course of human history. Anyway, meet the littlest angel...the newest member of my "family" in Rwanda.

It has taken a while, but I think I have acclimated to being back at home, after a month. Some things still feel a bit strange...and I have still not processed all that I saw, heard, and experienced. I have committed myself to making one day each week a "One Meal Day", both in solidarity with my many African friends who are living on one meal every day, and as a way of deliberately setting aside some money each week for be used for the Nyanya Project and/or to assist my Rwandan family. I have resumed writing my other blog and I hope you will consider following it, as I am using this post to sign off on this one. The blog address is revlindaslines.blogspot.com 
Why not consider "following" or becoming part of those notified of posts via email? and thank you for being part of the community which followed my second African journey. Asante sana! Kwa herini!

Welcome to the World, Little One

Pelagie

The ringing phone woke me very early in the morning...or so I thought as I struggled to climb from sleep's comfortable bed into a state of wakefulness.
"Hello," the accented voice came, "This is Emmanuel's brother-in-law calling." What time could it be, I wondered, since it was still clearly very dark...not a sliver of light coming through the slits in the bedroom shutters. "I am calling to tell you proudly that Emmanuel's sister has given birth to a  son." And then came Japheth's hearty laugh.
Now fully awake, I laughed with him. "And Pelagie- she is fine?" I asked. "And the baby? He is healthy?"

"Yes, yes," he assured me. "Everyone is fine and my wife sends her regards and much love."

"Please give her mine and my congratulations to your entire family. I am so happy that all has gone well."

"Good. Good," said a still-rejoicing Japheth. "We wanted you to know, since you are part of our family. Good-by for now."

"Good-by. Good-by. I am so very happy for you."

As the line went dead, I realized I had not asked the new baby's name...and I knew nothing about his birth: hospital or midwife at home. But I returned to bed, cradled in the joy of a new life begun, a family enlarged and enriched. Even the awareness of the additional burden this child would place on this dear group of people could not dampen the incredible pride and joy which reached across the world from Rwanda to North Carolina in the voice of a new father.

Yawning widely, I noticed that the clock read 1:30a.m...7:30a.m. in Rwanda. The baby's birthday is August 24th, 2011. Happy birthday, little one. Welcome to the World.

Growing Pains...

Ubuntu- I am because you are.
You are because I am...
                         - A DEEP AFRICAN WAY OF BEING

I have grown too big for my skin!
For though my body weight has decreased,
I have added mass...
     the bodily reality of people,
     countless people, who have
     become part of me...
     who are even now taking up
     space within my being as
     who-I-have-been struggles
     to enlarge herself to make room to include them.

So that is why I feel so uncomfortable these days...
Growing pains!
     as my aging body,
          my complacent life are being
          forced to grow, to expand in ways
          hitherto unknown...
     as realization dawns:
          WE NEED EACH OTHER TO BE COMPLETE.

The person I am- this entity
which bears the name Linda-
is continually enlarging as I
am blessed to welcome more and more
persons into the circle of my loving concern,
into the heart of my very being.
I am because you are...
the Divine in me sees the Divine in you...
and only in opening myself
to the pain of linking other lives
to mine can I know the depth and breadth
of this amazing this called Love...
     God incarnate in every living being...
     holiness in every encounter...
     blessing in every relationship...
     the pain and glory of being fully human.

Re-Entry

The past 10 days have been difficult...the long, long journey home from Africa, the stuffy head-cold, the long trek to Pennsylvania, the funeral of my dear uncle, the return home, and through it all, the pervading sense of unreality. And so, it was with great surprise and gratification that I awoke this morning feeling fully in the land of the living. Or rather I should say, the feeling rose to the surface during my morning "quiet time".

For those of you who do not know, I have had the habit, for the past 20 years or so, of spending some time alone each morning with my books and journal, a cup of coffee at my side, reading and reflecting and writing. It has become a ritual for me- life-giving and nourishing to my spirit- and I missed it greatly during my African trip. And so, in an attempt to re-order my life, I have been setting a bit of time aside each morning this week to re-establish this healing rite. And it was during that time this morning when I felt the huge burden of sadness and grief, which I had not even realized I was carrying, fall away. I felt...feel...connected, deeply connected to all those I met in Africa, to all of you who journeyed with me, to all I love and all I have yet to meet...to ALL of life...and it was, is, a gloriously healing feeling.

Admittedly, my writing muse has not yet returned...my poetry lies fallow. But fallow times are necessary if the soil is to be prepared for new growth, and so I wait patiently. In the meantime, I am opening myself to whatever creative energies and activities occur...I am re-connecting with those I hold dear and maintaining connections with those who I will not see again for a long, long time. I am once again HERE...at least for the moment. And it feels wonderful!

Welcome home, Linda! Welcome back! Your "life" is waiting for you here.

Tomato Sandwiches

For all of my friends in Africa- as well as those of you who live in other parts of this country- the following may have little or no meaning. But for those of you who are Carolinians, you can surely identify with my saying that one of the great gifts in coming home has been making and eating tomato sandwiches. Recipe? Two slices of bread, toasted; plenty of your favorite mayonnaise; and a couple of thick slices of a ripe, succulent, garden-grown tomato. I realize some folks add lettuce or salt and pepper, but I am a 3-ingredient purist- just bread, mayo, and tomatoes. The result is nothing short of magnificent...to rival the most intricately-created gourmet meal. Had one for breakfast yesterday, another today. And I am giving thanks for fresh tomatoes, real tomatoes, ripe-from-the-garden tomatoes.
God certainly knew what S/He was doing in their creation.

Home Again, Home Again...

After a long, long, long trip home- leaving Kenya at 11:45p.m. Sunday (4:45p.m. EDT), I walked into my house at 2a.m. Tuesday morning, EDT (9a.m. Kenya time)...almost 36 hours later. Finally fell asleep about 4a.m. and was wakened by the phone at 8:30a.m. Impossible to get back to sleep so I'm pushing myself to stay awake for a while longer to begin to reset my biological clock.

Life has a way of never being simple, though, and as I sat in the Atlanta airport, checking my email, I learned that my dear uncle- actually more like a big brother since he was only 8 years my senior- had died yesterday morning, after a lengthy struggle with Parkinson's disease. I knew he had been slipping further and further away while I was gone, and my cousin- his elder daughter- kept me informed as, from the other side of the world, I surrounded John and his family with blessing and light and love daily. So, priority One...getting enough rest so that I can head north on Friday for the funeral on Saturday.

Reflection on my journey is presently impossible...brain is simply too tired. The best I can do is focus on my overwhelming thankfulness at being home...so here is a list of the biggest "thank yous":

• First and foremost, my own bed and pillow. Sigh...ah...wonderful.
• Water- safe, potable water coming from the tap. After drinking enough bottled water over the past 5 weeks to sail a small armada, drinking and brushing my teeth with water from the tap was a true gift.
• Driving my car- my own lovely little Honda Civic- in manageable High Point traffic.
• Shopping in a familiar grocery store where everything is clean and refrigerated and appetizing.
• The refrigerator in my small kitchen...with ice cubes and cold water and other tasty items.
• The dependable wifi in my own home.
• The hot water in my bathroom just waiting- at my beck and call- to provide me with a wonderful, cleansing shower any time I want it.
• My son here at home who made sure my plants were watered and who left the light burning in the living room for my return.

• My other son and daughter and daughter-in-law who have been sending me messages all during my trip, and have been holding me in their hearts as I traveled.

• And my wonderful, funny, loving, thoughtful, intelligent, caring uncle who so enriched my life and the lives of all who knew him for all of his 77 years- far too short in so many ways and yet so full and so filled with meaning.

And now it's time to try for a nap...phone off the hook...to begin resetting my body to North Carolina time...and later, to begin catching up on laundry and paying bills, etc. I'm back home...sort of...

Africa in Quotations...

There is a furnace in our cells, and when we breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us.
–Diane Ackerman

This quotation from Diane Ackerman perhaps best expresses my experience of East Africa this year, 2011…breathing it into my cells where it dwelled, brewed, and then was turned loose, each of us slightly different for the encounter. For the ambiance, the atmosphere of that part of the world does stoke the furnace in the cells as it not only surrounds but passes into and through the body, mind, spirit of any Westerner who takes the time to really BE there.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself. –Alan Alda

And though Alan Alda wasn’t speaking of Africa when he wrote these words, his description is so apt…for to really be part of the African experience and allow it to be part of you, it means leaving what is known and comfortable and immersing oneself in the intuitive heart of the African continent. Indeed, the journey of discovery is wonderful…that sense of going back to one’s deepest, truest roots, the birthplace of civilization.

…if I put this off and wait until I’m older, what if I don’t make it to being older?
–Stephan Brown

Now well into my seventieth year, with birthday #70 only a few short months away, traveling to the other side of the world to work, to learn, to see, to experience things which are not only beautiful and amazing but difficult and dreadful and heart-rending may seem to some counterintuitive, especially when my “Bucket List” contains so very many places I would love to visit…beautiful places, filled with art and natural wonders, places to enrich and enliven my heart and soul, places where I would truly be a tourist, rather than a worker. But being a tourist is something I don’t do very well…simply looking and seeing is not nearly as satisfying to me as immersing myself in the culture, the people, the ethos and atmosphere of a place.

When in doubt about where you are meant to be, look down at your feet. –Buddhist saying

Perhaps these words of wisdom from Buddhist philosophy can convey some of what drew me back to Africa this summer…can convey the sense of call which has taken me across the Atlantic the past two summers with the Nyanya Project. I have just followed my feet- which were in turn following my heart.

Everything has something to teach us. The only question is, Do we allow it, or do we resist it with all our might? –Joan Chittister

Am I tired? Oh, yes…in fact, exhausted would be a far better description of the way I’m feeling right now on this last leg of the long journey home. And what I have actually learned, gleaned from this summer’s experience will not be clear for some time to come- this I know. But learn I did…meeting many new people, seeing things about which I had only read and heard, having my eyes opened wide again and again in both amazement and shock, having my senses assaulted in ways I could have not even imagined, becoming angered at injustices and ineptitudes, shedding tears of frustration and joy simultaneously…

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. –Agatha Christie

But right now, on this eighth day of the eighth month of this year 2011, I am profoundly joy-filled and thankful- that I was able to make this amazing, difficult, wonderful, terrible trip with my dear long-time friend, Mae, and my much newer friend, Mary Martin…that, whatever the future holds, I have the vivid memories of these 5 weeks to turn over in my mind and through my photos…thankful, too, to be heading home to my precious house and family and friends, to the place where my “life” will go on from day to day, the place where I will be living, glad to be alive, glad to be part of the grand panorama which is life on this planet.

…we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do not know. –Annie Dillard

Indeed we can, Annie, indeed we can. And who knows? Perhaps the best is yet to come?

Counting Down...

Thirty-five hours forty-five minutes until the Kenya Airways plane is due to take off, headed to London's Heathrow, the first leg in the long, long journey home. How familiar this feeling of mixed eagerness and reluctance is...so similar to what I was experiencing at this time last year. Eager to go home- to the familiar, to the dear, to the "nest" that is my home, to the family and friends who populate my world daily. I miss my congregations- the one where I am a member and the one I serve three Sundays each month. I miss the sights and smells and sounds of my little corner of the world, and I long for a taste of my own home cooking.

But once again I am leaving behind another corner of the world which continues to captivate a piece of my heart...East Africa. The Kenyan people are like no others I have ever known, with their casual attitude toward time, their incredible hospitality (even by those who have so very little), their determination to make strangers feel included, their strength and courage in the face of seemingly-insurmountable problems, the value they place on education, the ready smiles which crease their faces whenever they greet one another.

Of course, I would willingly leave behind the frustrations, though I know I will be unable to do that...frustration with the perpetual trash thrown everywhere by everyone...with the terrible traffic and worse roads, even as new highways are being constructed...with the penetrating dust which coated my nose and throat and every possible surface...with the lack of potable water...with the incredible divide between rich and poor...with the existence, the very existence of slums like Kibera and Mathare in sight of the President's residence...
with an unemployment rate of more than 40% and far higher in places like Kibera...the never-ending expectation that we "rich" Americans should supply the monies needed for admittedly worth-while causes, even as the governments here fritter away monies given to them by the international community. I could go on and on.

Mt. Kenya nyanyas

Partout and Emmanuel in Rwanda

Kibera Nyanyas

Teacher Elizabeth & watoto

A Maasai giraffe

But it is difficult to leave the people I have come to know and love... the grandmothers of Kibera and Mt. Kenya, the preschool staff, the Rwandan family that has "adopted" us, our dependable and beloved drivers/translators/friends, Julius, Simon, and Bosco, who made this trip go so smoothly, as well as the many new friends and contacts we made throughout this trip. And thanks to the miracle of technology, we will be able to stay in contact via email and Facebook and cell phone.

Unlike last year, though, I am very, very tired, drained of energy by being confronted day in and day out with problems and situations for which no solution is within our grasp...enouraged by the people we've encountered who are making a difference but discouraged by the magnitude of what lies ahead for ALL of us. I suspect that I will take a long time to recover my equilibrium after this trip...a long time to sort out my conflicting and oxymoronic feelings...a long time to see with any clarity the path that lies ahead for me.

And so, dear friends and "followers", surround us, please, with traveling mercies, with prayers for our safe travel home and for the courage to handle whatever lies ahead. Kwa herini, dear African friends. Karibu, America!

We, the PEOPLE?

How in the world do we, the people, hold governments accountable? This is the question which has kept rising to the surface for me during the weeks here in Kenya, driving on roads in unbelievably terrible condition, seeing piles of trash and garbage everywhere, smelling the stench of diesel exhaust from countless vehicles, and then reading in the daily papers about the excesses of the various government boards and departments. Almost daily, some government minister or another is being accused of misuse of funds, of embezzlement, or other such abuse of public trust. And just today, Prime Minister Odinga fired one of his closest aides for improper behavior and abuse of other staff members. How can elected officials see the desperate needs of their people and continue to withhold or misuse monies desperately needed for the well-being of the very people who elected them to office?

Of course, who am I, an American, to point a finger, when for the past several weeks our Congress had been holding their own constituencies hostage as they debated what to do about the debt ceiling, while knowledgeable economists were saying that default was just not an option for the U.S. But party politics at its ugliest reigned supreme, as our elected officials- elected by us, mind you- closed their eyes and ears and minds to the polls which were saying that about 65% of Americans wanted the Bush tax cuts ended and programs like Medicare and Veterans' benefits and Disability benefits untouched in order that these segments of our population continue to receive the help they need.

Well, next year there will be major elections in both Kenya and the U.S...time for we, the people, to make our collective voice heard. If we are unhappy with the way the Parliament (Kenya) or the Congress (U.S.) are doing- or not doing- their jobs, the polling place is the very best forum for registering our disapproval. Where is it written that being a member of a legislative body is a lifetime job? What about term limits? What about limiting the power and influence of lobbying groups? What about holding those in power ACCOUNTABLE to those of us who have put them in office? When in the world will we, the people, in Kenya, in the U.S., adopt the slogan made famous in the film, "Network": "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" When are we, the people, going to act like "WE, THE PEOPLE"?

Inner Conflict...

Written at Sarova Mara Safari Camp, 2 August

torn apart...
Torn apart...
emotionally shredded...
mentally at odds with myself...
spiritually disconcerted...

Here I sit, surrounded by
   luxurious comfort,
   every need met by
   the hard-working hands of others...
             and I am enjoying it!

Oh, yes, I enjoy the comfortable
bed and well-appointed bath,
enjoy the game rides and the gentle
African voices asking again & again
about my needs, my comfort.
But during a lunch I could barely eat,
I pictured all of my dear friends-
in Kibera, Mathare, Kigali-
   struggling each day to put simple food
   on their tables
   walking bcause they have nothing to
   drive
   earning each month far less than
   one night's lodging at this place...
How their eyes would widen at
the excesses found here, at the things
we guests take for granted, as our right,
perhaps...after all, we paid for them, didn't we?

So- how do I reconcile the two?
      How make sense of the disparate worlds
         I populate with my small presence?
      How do I live a life of plenty when faced
         with so much lack?
                        
               or do I simply turn my back,
               leaving crying needs behind,
               convinced that my paltry pittance is so small
               that no difference will ensue...
               poverty and pain will ever be,
               regardless what I do-
               and surely my tears of shame and sadness
               cannot water Africa's sun-parched soil...

Torn                               apart...
Shriven                          in two...
I want to go home.
Dear God, I WANT TO GO HOME!

The Magnificent Mara

How do I begin to describe the Maasai Mara? perhaps by letting these photos "speak"...

The wide-open spaces are breathtaking in their simplicity, with little sign of human presence...constant reminders that this is Nature's realm, that the denizens are of the wild variety, and that we humans are the visitors/intruders. (These are my very favorite animal photos...many others are posted on Facebook.)

An impala buck and his harem

Wildebeest- one of hundreds of thousands

Black rhino- one of three we saw

A hartebeest

One of four young cheetahs who crossed our path

Okay, people, here I am...take your best shot.

 

Young male lion watching us watching him

Wild African buffalo- the only animal feared by the Maasai

Mama and baby

A zebra brush

Elephants visiting a tiny watering hole

 

Zebra posing

Monkey see...actually, a baboon

A gorgeous giraffe

Hippos coming up for air

The lion sleeps tonight...

Two days...three game drives...and the only one of the "Big Five" we did not see was the leopard, by far the rarest animal on the Mara. On our last evening, as we sped back to camp, trying to beat the encroaching darkness, we spied an incredible sight: twelve giraffes crossing a nearby ridge in a long, stately parade. And in spite of the darkness closing in, there we sat, along with the inhabitants of another 10 or so vehicles, breaths held in awe as we watched these gorgeous animals heading back to their own base. What a way to say "good night"! 

Our final goodby to the Mara came as we were leaving the park and encountered several elephants, including two babies, eating from bushes on a small rise next to the road, almost near enough to touch.

And so it was farewell to the Mara, with deep gratitude for this amazing natural place which remains in the heart of Africa. Prayerfully, we humans will not damage it too much as we seek to feed our souls with its beauty.