Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 19

7 March 2006 7:41pm

I was waiting in a matatu at the corner while the traffic cleared and watched a Masai. He was herding his goats through the same intersection. The herd bobbled their horned heads and made mighty jumps over the muddy puddles. Baby ones scurried with dirty hooves throughout the white legs. I looked past the bleating and saw the Masai in his blazing red cloth - effeminately leaning left on his staff like they do. Right then, a silver Mercedes drove next to him, and I was just struck by the dichotomy. On the left was a tribal Kenyan, unchanged for the last thousand years: large drooping ear loops, beaded jewelry, wooden staff. On the right was a polished sports car: its dash-mounted GPS and its turbocharged engine.

During the terrorist attacks of September 11, a Masai was in Manhattan. He returned home to Kenya and sat down with his elders and Masai community - recounting the smoke and the fire in typical narrative fashion. The Masai community was deeply affected by his story. They gathered a herd of cows (more precious than people) and did a ritual of healing around the herd - giving this herd as an act of compassion and hope to the United States and New York. Yes, the Masai gave the US a herd of cows, and a statement of goodwill could not have been more deeply expressed. A so this United Nations dude had to walk deep into the bush of Masailand to accept a bunch of cows, and then had to try and figure out what to do with them.

I couldn't see the driver of that Mercedes, cut off from the world by his glass tint and luxury, but I saw the Masai. And I remember stories like that above and am deeply impressed by a tribe who see all races on earth as a scripture of some sort: a collection of perfection - cut from the same cloth.

6 March 2006 7:21pm

I hope I can be like the Mother Superior in Buechner's book 'Brenden', who is so focused on loving people that she thinks it no big deal to hang her wet cloak on a sunbeam.

4 March 2006 4:46pm

The desk I was at was trembling from somebody writing on the other side, but I couldn't see who because of the divider. Homework was an article about the history of missions in Zimbabwe. In the 1950s & 60s, the Southern Baptist Convention halted funding to the region the moment Rhodesians got independence, became Zimbabweans, and asked to be on the mission board. And I'm asked to consider this article through Christ's prayer in John17 when he prays for the church to be 'one'. And my vision turns dizzy, my palms tingle, and frustration crescendos as I look at these large parts. But when I remember the small parts, buying a sandwich for the homeless in Chicago and praying with him for peaceful dreams, I am infatuated.

Somehow I got turned around. Somehow I began to assume Christ's love is only through a 501c3 license and its board of trustees, its forms and international development strategies and (of course) its proper thinking. I was teetering into disillusion by it all, exhausted by how confusing and difficult it is to serve and follow Jesus. And it is still difficult (maybe more), but today I remember how simple it is: have passion for the person I'm next to. Seek out those who are floundering from the chaos and offer up some shine from the Source. Sometimes I need to remember that I was not asked to be successful. I was told to be faithful.

2 March 2006 7:46pm

The weather here changes slowly, meaning the rains have stayed since they arrived. This is good for the soccer field. Previously the dust was so bad that the game would have to pause while the red dust would settle back down, but now the soft soil is perfect. The ball is worn and the goals are made of two hunks of concrete on both ends. To score the ball must roll in, because anything in the air can't be for certain.

During the game today my teammate made a near score and I clicked my tongue in excited disapointment. It stopped me in my tracks - the clicking I mean. The tongue click thing is a distinctively Kenyan practice. The scary part is how I did it without thinking. I did it instinctually. 'Woah, what was that?' I thought. 'Did I just instinctually express my emotions like a Kenyan? What is happening to me?' And I realized how I've been doing the 'eyyyy' agreement as well. And I realized it happening. It's on. I'm becoming sneakily and irresistibly enculturated (like laboratory samples! [boo!]). And its comforting and disturbing, because I feel more belonging because of it, but at the same time I get leery of losing my United State of thinking. What did the tongue clicking, or the 'eyyyy', take the place of? But the truth is that I expressed emotion in a way nobody here noticed as weird, and that is a comforting thought.

28 February 2006 7:52pm

I recorded a song. Its kind of slow and simple, but oh well. I hope, in it, you can hear something like yearning. Harrietta. (right click - save as)

27 February 2006 7:44pm

I have found adjusting to a foreign culture a bit like normal living but with an always uphill slope beneath the feet.

When I was nine years old I attended a denominational summer camp which shall remain nameless. One night our counselor (who had a Michael Bolton CD) sat us down and told us that how that night was the infamous whitey-tighty run. We were to strip down to our whitey tighties and streak a five minute excursion around the camp grounds. The event would patriotically culminate with a manly all-underwear pledge of allegiance around the flagpole. Then, with a final elastic-band snap, we were to run as fast as we could back to the cabin.

He succeeding in exciting the majority of us boys in cabin 'Bear', boosting a rush to the wooden graffitied bunkbeds to strip. Our counselor himself dropped trou and revealed his own set of briefs, freshly tie-dyed at the camp craft house.

I was incredibly torn what to do about it all. I was simply nervous about exposing my body, but I was somewhat energized by our leader's Braveheartesque plea for our solidarity and semi-boynudity. Looking back, I believe this event was a point of reckoning for me. If I were to have joined in the run, the result may have established a self-perception of confidence for the rest of my life.

I did not partake in the whitey-tightly run. I remember taking my shirt off and stopping, unable to make the leap. The boys were prepping to go, and I liked their excitement, but I could not drop my sweatpants. They left and I remained behind in the cabin with two others. I remember looking out the window and watching the center of the camp - amok with skinny little boy legs and white briefs. There were groups of girls in their nighties laughing and taking pictures with these 'new' disposable cameras. One of the guys who had stayed behind like me came up with the idea to lock our door. We toughly laughed at the cabin trapped outside.

I always wish I had gone on the whitey-tighty run. I never got another chance. The very next year the twenty-year tradition was cancelled forever. Apparently the pictures from those 'new' disposable cameras were a catalyst for a rush of aggravated parent calls.

25 February 2006 9:45pm

Within the heart of this religion, past its ceremonial trappings and dogma, through the layers of historical abuses, and into a clearing lies the reason to live and die. The trees arch high overhead and solace fills the air. The grass is soft underfoot and fruit is nearby, and ripe on the vine. And if you can work through the brambles of doubt and worldy lurings, while letting your skin get torn in the choking thicket, and if you can deal with its awful loniless, you may burst into the center and find Him. And the moment you see Him you'll forget the rags your clothes have become. That heavy inability to not have consuming selfishness will be like it never was. There he'll meet you and make sense out of all of this, and there will be freedom and balance for the first time. There, in the circle of the sun, you will become like you were made to be. There you will be transformed into an arrow pointing towards the Creator, in colors never seen before. Freedom from ourselves may be the sweetest rest we've ever known.