Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 16

31 January 2006 9:16pm

They enjoy introducing me to people as, "This is Simon. He comes from the bush". And... laughter.

With the second segment of New Testament Greek well on its way, the text is beginning to take form like never before. Its so fascinating to read this book for all these years, and only now to have it get a total overhaul. Not that I've lost appreciation for the English translation, just the opposite. The majority of the time the entire Greek sentence takes so long to translate myself, I realize what work it was to compile the NIV, NRSV, NASB. But the truth is, I am watching a known book as it becomes beautiful. The relative pronouns, the deponent verbs, the first and second declensions, they have not been work but bliss. And to read the words of Christ in the original language, wow, I read in fascination: a text I've known my whole life. If anything, the best part has been watching it become earthy, human, full of confusion, and full of reality. The New Testament has become more what I thought a testament would sound like. With six terms of NT-Greek and OT-Hebrew before graduation, I'm so pumped to see what lies ahead.

30 January 2006 7:22pm

A shiny black Pajero drove into the housing complex yesterday. As I walked past it, a crowd of kids were gathered around it looking at themselves in its reflection. Two little boys started to dance against the mirrory black paint, turning around and shaking their shoulders and laughing as they looked at the 4door, enjoying the funny distorted dancing reflection. I laughed all the way home.

In other news, the government of Kenya just spent $12million on 57 Mercedes Benz autos, purchased by the state, for their judges and ministers. A statistic reported that such an amount of money would have paid for 25,000 Kenyan children to attend school for eight years. 4 million people are currently starving in the rural parts of the nation (bad drought right now), resulting in the Kenyan government requested millions in emergency relief from the UN. I wonder how much of that UN money will actually make it to mouths. And this cabinet ran on an anti-corruption platform...

28 January 2006 7:26pm

I am starting to realize the real difficulty of crossing cultural lines. At first I was full of confidence. But then reality somehow sat on it all and now I'm stuck with an inability to see if even a simple invitation is allowable or acceptable. For instance, if somebody invites me somewhere in the US, the understanding is that we share costs. But here, if somebody invites you to an activity, the inviter must cover all costs. This presents a problem, since it means for any of my African friends to invite me places puts them at a financial responsibility. And when many can barely cover food costs, the result is few invitations anywhere. At best, I get the occaisional invitation to have tea. So what am I supposed to do? Just be the consistent inviter? I have no idea. When did friendship become so difficult? Yet, among themselves, they seem to make gatherings a common occurence.

Its not like I'm lacking in great relationships. I'm experiencing many great and tender frienships within my fellow African classmates. It is just that the maintenance of African friendship continues to curiously elude me.

27 January 2006 7:36pm

The power situation has been suprisingly good lately. Only a couple of failures all last week. Its evident that this has not always been the case. The underside of all the shelves in the bathroom have saucer sized black charred spots from candles.

26 January 2006 8:04pm

Throughout this day has been some sort of soft tremendous sensation of exhaled hope from heaven to here. It is a hope, interweaved through the day, that all things are true to the path they were set forth on. Not that bubblegum glee that forgets reality and is limited so far in its vision that it could instead be called ignorance, but a perception that has seen the ugly, seen the good, and yet somehow has a radiant confidence that there is an unperceived focus mixed in it all. And its been an additional wonder for this notion to have flown off the pages I study and still instill itself, somehow, into my clumsy vision. This stuff is real. I'm not crazy.

Broke my 'Lyle Lovett' pick today. Its fine though, I mean, the sun still sat in the west and all.

25 January 2006 7:47pm

Sipped a 25/= Krest Bitter Lemon through a straw today and watched a woman make maize flour. She had a long thick pitted piece of wood with a dull round end. She picked it vertically off the ground and dropped it into a filled clay container. Eventually the kernals are reduced to a dust fine enough to make Ugali - a common maize-porridge meal. But there was something about the process, her picking up the heavy tool and dropping down over and over, that was thorough and majestic. Of course, I'm not the one pounding corn for two hours straight, but to my foreign eyes it was something of harmony.

24 January 2006 8:30pm

Sometimes a good moment comes unwarranted, without preparation, by suprise. Like a warm sunny breeze that comes liquidlike through a library window to hit you during study or a random piece of dark chocolate. But I'm learning to love the other type of delight, the kind that comes with preparation and need. Like an A on a hard-studied test or that moment after a long day when your head touches the pillow. This second kind of experience has something extraordinary about it. Its deep and murmuring, a texture even. And when it is met for a moment you're there.

Then it vanishes. The good is based on a need, and with the need extinguished there is soberingly no more good. An addict knows this better than anybody. But in all of this is a place to find the invisible God. Here is where I find the inherent strength of my Kenyan friends. Truly, they have known need in ways I never will (daily bread). With this life being a uncertain and precarious path (a building collapsed on 200 yesterday downtown) it is so crucial that I admit my always utter dependence and reduce myself to who I was all along. And to do it again tomorrow. Only then, truly, can be found the deepest of delight that never dims. But I'm finding its more than the delight. I feel full.