Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 20

20 March 2006 8:49pm

The other day I had a pomegranate. For a northern Michigander like me, any good fruit besides apples is a treat. I mean, TC has it's cherries, and Uncle John's Cider Mill is a hip and happening place to visit, but those shrunken golfball green "oranges" for four dollars a pound at Miejer's pretty much sums up our fruit situation. So coming to Kenya has been a bit of a fruit revolution for me. Mangos, pinapples, guava, passion fruit, papayas, oranges, everything else: has been a welcome new factor to make life better. But this pomegranate thing just threw me for a loop. Seriously, it has got to be the strangest fruit I've ever eaten. Uh, think if somebody isolated the genetic strain of grapefruit - and then cross pollonated it with field corn. Yeah, its that wierd.

18 March 2006 8:49pm

Michael W. Smith produced a music video for his late 80s CCM smash hit 'Secret Ambition'. In the video Smitty sings, in jeans and a polyester vest, about Jesus of Nazareth. The video shows Jesus walking and talking and tossing over money-changer tables. Jesus is Anglo-Saxon, has the classic big beard, wears white robes and a purple sash. He might have an iPod. And this is the Jesus that I have grown up with. Not that it is anybodys fault, but this Jesus has always been distant and wierd. And I have always, towards this portrayal, felt uneasy and unsatisfied.

But here at this seminary I am discovering a Jesus (and a bible for that matter) that fits with everything I've known. Through our studies of first century Jewish culture, the Roman empire, and Grecco-Roman culture, I am finding Jesus - the Jewish rabbi who traveled throughout the countryside and spoke to crowds about the coming Kingdom of God. He is earthy and real. Many think he's absolutely nuts, including most of his family and his relatives. Most of the time, the disciples are completely insecure and confused. For the gist of the time he was alive, his disciples did not know he was the savior of the world, come to redeem the vast expanse between God and humanity. They just knew he walked on water and could see into the deepest corners of their soul. One of my favorite stories in the bible happens right after Jesus has told his disciples that they must drink his blood and eat his flesh. His nominal disciples are leaving in droves, but Peter stays behind. "Are you also not leaving Peter," Jesus asks? "Where would I go," Petros replies. "You have the words of eternal life." You can feel Peter speaking this statement quietly. His companions have had too much, been stretched too much, are done with this Jesus' antics, but Peter simply cannot go. His mind is a mess, but there is no other way. Jesus has romanced his entire life. There is nowhere to go but to keep walking behind.

Anyways, this got too long, but I'm growing and living and eating up all this discovery. I love this Jesus. He has romanced my heart, and the path that follows him is the only one that glows.

17 March 2006 8:48pm

Best part of my day today was walking into Karen and watching one of the boys here swinging on his tree swing. Made me want to be seven forever.

15 March 2006 7:57pm

The children of my friends can spot Orion - and with good reason. Straight up from the feet up, center of the sky, it joins with the fullish moon. Both hold a violent prominence in the night and cast a cut shadow into the road. And I think back to all those who have used this alignment of stars, a box with three in the midsection, as a mark of navigation and familiarity. With this assortment of gaseous bodies above existing unaltered for thousands of years, who else have gazed upwards and felt the disturbance diminish a shade? The grandfather whom I never knew? My cousin in the Netherlands and my friend in Thailand? Sojourner Truth and Bonhoeffer? Martin Luther King in Memphis, leaning on a balcony the night before his assassination? Ignatius of Antioch standing in a Roman prison cell, eight hours before he is jeeringly thrown to the lions? Jesus in Gethsemane, the night he is arrested? I crane at that constellation and imagine them doing the same.

It is a funky thing, tradition. Just because it is a practice that people have done for countless years doesn't make it right. However, it does mean that there are some who are standing with you. I eat this bread and drink this wine in remembrance of the Christ, and I am gathered to a group of people who observed this sacrament as well and have felt its comfort. Some days go by when I am lowered to the floor in my doubt, and other days make me as sure of it all as my sandal straps, yet through these waves and days I'm never alone. My grandfather stands with me, thick and thin. So does Stefanie and Emma and Sojourner and Bonhoeffer. So does Martin Luther King and Ignatius and Jesus whom I call Christ.

So I'll eat this bread and drink this cup. I'll read these texts that are so very responsible for the death of thousands. And I'll stare at these stars, in their cold consistency, and feel gently solaced.

14 March 2006 8:15pm

Seventeen years ago, on this day, my sister was born in Lansing Michigan. I remember coming into the semi-lit room of the hospital and seeing her for the first time. Me, being nine and never having spoken with a female, told my parents that I didn't want her. I asked them to 'take her back'. Girls still freak me out.

Happy born day sis. And sorry about not wanting you. I couldn't wish for a cooler female sibling.

13 March 2006 6:530pm

In some etherial distance there is a beeping. My lids flutter and the beeping grows until its under the bed. 7AM +3GMT the cellphone alarm, in its meek manner, is just a jerk.

The muscle fibres in my legs doubiously contract, my knees bend, and I'm scraped by it all off the foam mattress and onto my feet. A puff of air out my lips includes a groan, yes, the power is still out. My legs move me somewhere, but my mind is still wondering until it sees the kitchen stove. My hand lifts, spins the knob, and propane gas hisses alight. What is that smell? my mind asks as black grounds tumble into the aluminum pot. Water boil, water strain, blow, gulp, blow, gulp, blow, chug. Stare..... stare..... and the lines begin to sharpen.

Before continuing, if possible, please begin the song "Life is a Highway". Either Petty's or Cochran's versions will work, although Cochran's is preferred.

What is this? It is blood in my veins. For the first time, I move my eyes from their homerow. The BearHoldingBalloon mug is slammed to the countertop. Quick Oats. Bedroom. Change clothes. Wash face using my middle-aged neighbors pink soap curiously named 'Geisha'. Opening the cabinet for contact solution brings a brown polished bug with a tap to the red-painted concrete floor. He tries an exiting skidaddle in instinctual fear - and for good reason. Exoskeleton broken his six legs tremble as his nervous system grinds on down. I exit out the now un-barred door to the building, into the dazzle of sun, into a dazzle of the Creator's pleasure. Walter passes on the left. "Habari za asubuhi kaka yangu?" "Nzuri cabisa," he tells me.

Through all these cities and all these towns

It's in my blood and it's all around

I love you now like I loved you then

This is the road and these are the hands

From Mozambique to those Memphis nights

The Khyber Pass to Vancouver's lights

If God is for us, what can be against us? Aw sugar, it's going to be a beautiful day.

10 March 2006 5:30pm

He asked if we could talk privately, so we went into my room. I pulled up the mosquito net so he could sit on the bed. I sat on a wooden chair. He told me that he had graduated two years ago with a Kenyan undergrad degree in banking. Since then, consistently, he had been handing applications to banks. And they all want five years experience or they throw the application in the trash. So he just keeps handing them out. With unemployment here around seventy percent he tells me he thinks he will never find a job, so he needs seven thousand dollars to continue his education and get a banking degree that will result in job offers. His eyes lower and his voice is forced, trembling, and proud. He asks me, his friend from the US, if I could pay this tuition. Then, finally, he can buy food and not have to keep begging it from friends like he has the last two years. Then, finally, he can stop sleeping on concrete and buy some clothes. Then, finally, he can get married. So, like a chump, I tell him that all I can offer him is prayer.

I hate that phrase.

And it was last day of second term today. And, this week, I have been here a half-year.

8 March 2006 9:21pm

todays avocados - tomorrows guacamole