Falling Slowly

Obama said,
“There are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my home town in Illinois, who are bitter. They are angry… So I said, well ya know, when you’re bitter, you turn to what you can count on. So people, ya know they vote about guns or they take comfort from their faith, and their family, and their community, and they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country, or they get frustrated about how things are changing. That’s a natural response.”
But these traditions that get passed on from generation to generation are important, he said.
“People don’t feel like they're being listened to," Obama said. "And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives. And what we need is a government that is actually paying attention, a government that is actually fighting for working people day in and day out, making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.”

We are bitter. Kenyans are bitter too. What are we to do about it? Should we just not have an opinion? Maybe if it's eating you up it's better to be neutral. We cling. We cling We clingWecling to religion and guns... and food and Harry Potter.
I think I'm starting to understand that novel by Cormac Mcarthy, "The Road." The world is a hopless place without someone to love in it.

"Take this sinking boat and point it home We've still got time Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice You've made it now Falling slowly sing your melody I'll sing along "-Glen Hansard

(I know. It's random)

Dreams in the Mirror

Ever had someone tell you you have to many emotions? Well someone told me and... I agree with them. I do have to many dang emotions. I need to think less and do more. Which is why I think I would rather go here than here. I'm hoping that these extra emotions will make for a better writer.
What's all this about? It's all a wicked plan I conjured up in my bed last night. Further investigation is needed, but the thought of living in Chicago rather than Berrien Springs... um, no contest! We will see... I won't get my hopes up just yet.

Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broekn-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
--Langston Hughes

A Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
--Langston Hughes

can this please make more sense

it's this whole thing about self that has me confused. if you are not happy and you don't know how to be happy, do you do more for yourself or for other people?
i've been here at the caucus for 3 weeks now, and i feel useless. i spend a lot of my time on the internet or writing my devotional. i'm greatful for the time to write, but i flew halfway around the world for this? on my mother's dollar? i'm angry because i feel a bit taken advantage of. what i imagined this internship to be and what it has turned out to be were two very different things. is that my fault? have i tried to make the most of it? or am i ungrateful and selfish? where does this stuff weigh out? stuff like this used to make sense to me. now i can't see heads or tales of any one situation. the damn zebras' all mesh together.
i guess i have to try harder to put myself aside. i have to accept that i'm not here to heal. i'm here for mom, for christine, for whatever God has in store for me. no more pity parties. i have to try a little harder, stand a little taller. help out more, give of myself just as Christ gave of himself. God help me to see the black and white, cuz all i see is gray.

PIZZA!!

There are so many things I miss from home. Pizza is only one of them. Surprisingly there are no pizza and sub shops scattered at

every corner. What the heck to people eat here, you might ask? Oogali and greens. That's what they eat. And Chapati with beef.

Maybe some fish and chips. Roasted maze. Had enough of foreign food words?

Yes, well I'd had enough of foreign food.

SO! I devised a plan to make a pizza. Thing is there were some snags. Like we couldn't find pizza dough in the market so we had to improvize with biscuit batter. Hahaha. And... No tomatoe sauce, no spaghettie sauce. So I had to conjure up some Crystal Style Pizza Sauce. THEN! We didn't even have an oven. SO we put hot coles on a bowl and put the pizza on a pan under than bowl. About two hours later we had pizza! hahahahahhaaaa

Let me tell you it was the best frickin frackin pizza I've eaten in a long long time. *sigh... fragments of home.

save the trees and kill the children

Today looking out at Nairobi I see poverty. It's not that I didn't see it when I first arrived. I saw, I was just overwhelmed by everything else I was seeing. Although the city is pulling up the frame work for a great democratic country, there are so many holes to be filled. That's just what I see as an American. Yet these working ants know some things that we Americans don't know. They seem to value friendships and family in ways that we have yet to discover. Or if we did know we've cut the strings linking us to the network of emotions that allowed us to think first with our hearts and then with our wallets. I can't say we are in the wrong. Is it my fault that I come from a consumer state? What I value is different than what these humble workers value. What I do in my leisure time are things Nairobians deem frivolous. "Save the money for something else," they've told me time and time again.
But today on our twice daily drive to work I didn't see the swarms of people walking to work as an army of stick people. I didn't see them as cattle meandering to their next destination. I saw fellow men, fighting tooth and nail for their version of the American dream. The Kenyan dream. My only prayer for them is that they get it right. Is it wrong for me to look back at the US, and scoff at how we allow our dependence on the security in the promise of tomorrow to shape our moods. I never saw it before but looking at myself from Kenya I think I live a very disillusioned life. All my tears over spilt milk are suddenly irrelevant here... These people truly live as God asked them to. "Don't worry about tomorrow, you have enough to think about today." Even those considered "upper middle class" have one foot inside the slums. I shake my head at my ignorant folly. I'm ashamed. But then again, how can I avoid it?
So today I see poverty. I also see that the world is horribly unfair. As Casting Crowns put it, I don't think there will be a day when we don't "save the trees and kill the children."

nothing new is something new

A funny thing happened the other day. We were driving to work. you know the roads here are bad. Well in Nairobi they aren't so horrible. It's the drivers that are the crazy ones. So Peter is navigating his little red Toyota around matatu's (public transporation vans. Example to your left), cars pulling in front of him without signaling, and people walking in the middle of the road to hop into the still moving matatu's. All the sudden a biker swerves out of the way and we are coming up fast on a horse drawn cart loaded with vegetables. Except there's no horse (no horses in Kenya only something they call a ZeebDonk which is a mixed breed of half zebra half donkey. whatever anyway). Instead of a horse there is a skinny-as-sin man in floppy leather shoes and red pants that barely reach his ankles running up hill, clutching this two wheeled cart with the grip of death. he's running and behind there is another guy, equally as skinny in a half buttoned dress shirt pushing the vegetable cart from behind. The tales of his shirt flapping in the morning breeze. Peter slams on the breaks and casually whips the car into the right lane, cutting off a giant truck whose tale pipe is busy chugging black smoke at pedestrians walking on the median. I watch to my left as we speed past the two men and their veggie cart. The crazy thing is, none of this even registered as strange till about two minutes later. We were driving off the speedway onto the road leading to the Caucus when it struck me how nonchalantly I reacted to the traffic set up. Yes... in spite of all my cries for home I'm actually getting used to Kenya. Trash pits on the side of the road mean nothing to me. I think I'm starting to see past all the dirt and confusion. After nearly two weeks I see people, I see a civilization, I see a society thriving and flowing just like everything I've known in the US. Crazy right? I wonder what's next.

Badge of Honor

In this ever shrinking world the accent is a badge of honor. It says "yes I can participate in the universal currency of language, but when I go home I have a secret code common to only me and my countrymen."In my travels I have strained to hear past this badge of honor to hear traces of my native English more times than I can count. English comes in so many colorful influxes fashioned by so many lips, slung from the umlauts, diphthongs, and tongue clacking consonants that link the speaker back to all parts of the world.
Here I am proud to show my American accent. I walk up to a clerk and brandish my American English. Immediately the clerk knows I am traveling and my country is one of the wealthy ones. He knows Obama might be my next president. He knows I might not understand his vernacular, but save some repeated phrases communication is possible. And he knows that if no one is around to verify his lies he can screw me out of a couple hundred shillings (note: the exchange rate is 65 cents to 100 shillings). The theft is probably justified as vendor tax.
You come into a country and are immediately unarmed by your accent (sometimes your color), and you are forced to pay the tax of ignorance. You ask how much something costs or if the service is free. Your eyes say "tell me how this works, I'm new here." By your blank trusting look the vendor thinks, "I can see riches in my near future." Then he assures you that everything is fine. And if you can't spot a liar you will soon come to realize that the quiet ones are probably robbing you blind. The less they talk the more they are screwing you. I learned this about 2,000 shillings ago. But it's no skin off their nose. If it weren't for my damn "badge of honor" they wouldn't know my vast level of ignorance in the first place.

Carnivore!

Thursday night we went out to a restaurant on the edge of the Nairobi National Park called Carnivore. The name speaks for itself. The facilities are huge including over 300 person seating, in numerous open rooms, a landing leading out into the bare naked forests, and a disco dance room surrounded by more tables and chairs. In the center of this vast establishment is the grilling pit attended by 8-15 Cooke's and servers who randomly come and go.

While they are busy grilling whole carcasses waiters wonder in and around the pit with swords staked through ready grilled meats. This fleshy feast consists of any poachable beast under the African sun. Amongst Carnivore's finest delicacies are Ostrich meatballs, Gator steak, lamb, chicken, beef, pork... and a much more.

What happens is, you sit down at your table. Your server brings you your drink of choice, a plethora of sauces, salad, soup, and bread. Then and only then, the massacre is served. Guys dressed in stripped safari aprons haul a choice carcuss to your table on a sward and hack of the meat right onto your place. They continue to bring meat to your table until you've had your fill and are forced to surrender the little white flag on your table. AHhaha, what a beautiful finish. THEN they top off your meal with dessert and coffee. All of which is bundled into one tight price. I don't know how much cuz I didn't pay but I imagine it is expensive cuz the performance alone is worth a pretty penny.

Faith Despite the Negative

Today I actually broke down and checked my flight itinerary on BritishAirways.com. I came into the office in near tears. And when they finally broke free and poured down my face I thought I couldn't take the loneliness anymore. If my mother hadn't called offering gifts of support from family and friends at home the floodgate of tears would have happened so much sooner. I think it's all due to the fact that I've pissed away my second weekend in Kenya and still have no extravagant experiences to show for it. In short, I'm bored. I'm also not entirely healed from my semester of stress and pain. It's a good thing I brought my extra Bible to the office or I would have cried all afternoon. I was clicking through my flight details to figure out if I could leave early. I think I can deal with the loneliness, it's just the lack of adventure that is whittling away at my sanity. I realize that I'm sacrificing a lot for this Kenya trip and nothing seems to be coming of it. Nothing so far. God is bigger, I know, but when I think about it this trip puts me in the negative.
1. Because of my time here I won't get to go to Italy--not enough $ and not enough time (Italy was the BIGGEST reason why I wanted to go to the UK in the first place...)
2. It doesn't seem to be that Kenyans are in the proper financial state to purchase Cd's-- I need to pay for that brand spankin new laptop I got
3. I have an unquenchable desire to explore but my benefactors are so busy, there is little time to do anything but sit in the house.
Now, these are my issues and I need God to work them out. I just don't have the brain power or the strength.
One thing good that is coming of all this is that I am finding time and information to write my devotional. Waking up early and getting into the office is proving very lucrative for my thought process. And I finally found a place to run. Although it's a stretch to say that I will be ready for my marathon. *sigh... God is Bigger

Let those who have ears

I walked into the Kenyan equivalency of Wal*Mart to find a hair dryer. While browsing the isles of hair products and nick-knacks a familiar song began to play over the loud speaker. Before long I was unconsciously humming along to the tune of Kirk Franklin, “Without You.” And when the realization struck me that I was singing a Christ centered song in a public shopping center, I was struck dumb in song and stance. I even felt uncomfortable to be showing my love for God in front of so many others. It was both welcoming and shaming. I asked myself, “Does God belong here? How dare they bring Him into this common marketplace.” And then with the same passion I caught myself thinking, “how come we don’t play music like this in public in the US?” Honestly friends, when did we become as private with our God as we are with our love relationships? How dare we lock him out… Since when did I separate my worship from my daily life? It’s a disturbing thought, aye?

Wake me up for this service

It is strange that I have spent my entire life worshipping and praising my God in heaven, only to come to Kenya to learn what true worship is. In the absence of guitars and lighting I have found a group of people so set on praise that what they don’t have is much less then what they do have. Their overhead projector is wanting. The church rafters are planks of lumber. But it is not with the building they worship. No, these things are merely varnishes at the real meal. They worship with their entire hearts. In comparison to this absolute worship America has fallen away from glory. At home, for a church to qualify as a good place of worship it must be able to draw members with comfort, with technology, and a perfect pristine atmosphere. But the Bible says “that where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am also.” Well here, in the near outdoors of Kenya (Sabbath school was on chairs in gravel parking lot) more than just three people have gathered. I sit in a sea of hundreds of swaying, singing Kenyans, who worship whole hearted and unabashedly. We praise Him knowing he is basking in this divine atmosphere. It is truly an honor to be here.

Individuality

Horah I'm in Kenya. There is so much to do and so much to see. *sigh.

Right now I'm sitting in my office (yes it's a real office with 4 walls, a desk, AND a window) on my first day of internship at the Caucus for Women's Leadership. For more information go to kwpcaucus.org. I will be doing a lot of reading and writing while I'm here. Excited mostly because it will be hands on learning. Not only that but it's great experience.



I flew in on Friday night. The plane ride was long. 8 hours is the same no matter how comfortable your seat is. But I arrived safely into the hands of my hosts. When I got into bed that night the one thing that kept replaying in the corners of my mind was "I am alone, completely alone, with strangers." The Ochola's are related to friends back in the US. I feel so welcome, but the comforts and familiarity of home are all gone. What can I do but put myself out on a limb? I am learning to trust in people as well as trust in myself. I'm finding that in my 23 years of friends, family, and aquaintances, there are worlds of relationships I have not yet explored. Business as well as friendships alike. And in these new cultures I'm discovering that I can survive without familiarity. Being a part of this culture, partaking in conversation and seeing how life is run has given me the opportunity to look back at my own culture. I am an outsider to what is familiar now. It's hard to understand exactly what you want when you're in the thick of it. Leaving the US and all that I knew, I feel as if I've stepped out of a pool and am now wading in someone elses puddle. But this new perspective has allowed for shingles to fall from my eyes.

And while I look I can see the things that I was trying to gain at home. At school I felt as if I was spinning my wheels in water, plunging into the exercise but getting no results. Now I feel that I can weed out what was holding me back and move in a new direction, unencumbered by the spinning wheel factor. And I realize that I don't exactly need those things. There is a huge division between culture and necessity. One man's shame is another mans glory. In this way I can truly look at myself, now that I have been stripped bare of culture and duty, and decide independently what armor I want to acquire, what position I want to take, and what person I want to be.

just leafing through

sometimes the wind blows you and you just go. why? because there's nothing else to do. i like being in control of things. but this summer i have no power over anything. normally it would frustrate me, that i know so little about my immediate future, but right now i figure that if God got me here, he's going to push me through some open door right?
there's nothing wrong, exactly. it's just that everything i planned this summer in some way is happening, just not in the order i wanted it to... that and i'm not the one orchestrating it. it's like my life is being fed to me one flavor packed morsel at a time. and between these influxes of information and willingness to DO, i get to dilly dally, write my book(s), read, watch movies... and if i'm lucky go on random adventures across europe. hahaha... my God is a random God. and thus my life is a random life.

"Oh I'll just jot it down," say the English

Good news, Goood news. I finished the story board for The GateKeepers. Bad news is I seem to have lost one of my notebooks that is chocker block full of GateKeeper secrets and notes. But whatever. So I've finished the story board and now, besides printing some notes on characters and symbolic meanings, all that's left is to get started writing/ sifting through my rough draft and deciding on what I can salvage of the first six chapters. Writing a novel is a process that I didn't plan on picking my way through when I first dreamed up The GateKeepers. I've been dreaming it up for months and only now am I settling in to WRITE it all... but the process is good. It's even fun. So as mom would say "believe in the process." And as my cousin Sara would say, "picture the outcome, know that it will happen, and then just do it!" I believe in me. I really do.

Not London, but England

I'm in London, been here for the past 3 days. I'm settling into the family warmly. Haha. THeir is no danger, they seem to be accepting me as their own (as if they were a pack of wolves or something). But really, my family here is great to me. I believe that I will have a great time. I just have to be willing to look for my own adventures. Mostly I've spent my days drinking tea and writing. Haha, what is more English than that? Yesterday they took me to an English village. All the buildings are wicked old but in perfectly good use. School kids were darting all over the place in their various uniforms. And when we found a shop to settle down for tea in, it appeared that the whole town had the same idea at the same time. Ha, it was truly fabulous.
Upon arrival I soon discovered that my family's daily routine consisted of crouching over a keyboard, and staring fervently into it's screen. Their all computer techs (which helps cuz my computer is dying). And they all work at home, which means I only have to venture to another room for some good conversation. Ha.. What I did need was my own work space. And I found it. How surprising is it that it was the kitchen table. Funny? Well the table tips to the left whenever I lean over it, there's a window, and it's right by the tea drinkers traffic, but it's all mine. What more could a writer want? Now... I just need to forget about my lazy comforts at home and get on with the writing! Aha!

and he told me to drink

All this time I have been standing in front of a crack in a rock surrounded by sweltering dessert. And I’m begging for the trickle of water that slips from between the boulders to be at least a weak willed stream.
Be ye careful what you wish for.
Maybe it’s the object I’m looking at. Maybe it’s the source and not my inability to believe hard enough that God wants me to have the water. Because all it takes is my shoulders to slacken down in submission for the ground to start shaking in this wasteland.
I can feel the tremors of this dessert floor. I can see the crack lines along this natural fault. I can hear from my standing position a roar of water so faint it teases my parched spit glands. And I fear with any sudden move the ground will split and swallow me whole, sending my parched and sun bloated body between the mounds of broken earth and into the crashing waves below. I yearn to be carried off in that current. Like a sign from God, letting my body yearn like that in complete submission to His will is all it takes for my fear to turn into courage, for the ground to slip out from under me, for the water to ravage and consume me.

Life-sicles

Life is so much bigger than the plate that Andrews hands it to me on. When I am there I feel as if my vision is obscured and everything they give me and tell me is somehow OK. But when I am free of that pin holed perspective I can feel the magnitude of life. I can sense it like a hunter knows the presence of its pray. I want life. I want all of it. And I want it as big and as roaring as I can get it.

Strapped

Inside there is a war over my soul. It sounds melodramatic but I can feel the battle being fought in my subconscious. I'm often thrown into deeply disturbed moods. When I am there my body is next to immobile. It's as if all my energy is so consumed by these mental fits of rage that I can't control myself. These are short depressions that leave me stained with frustration. I can't seem to work it out. In my mind I am arguing about simple things, fundamental principles to my beliefs and even the way the world works. Yes, I am annoyed with school, I have questions about the church, but that has never put my day at such a dark stand still that I feel as if I couldn't continue. I've been thinking about it, and praying, and the only way I can ever get out of my mental arrest is through prayer or sleep. Whatever it is, the battle belongs to the Lord. This too shall pass.

It's a bit sappy, but what the heck

This morning I met Jesus at the beach. There he was riding up to greet me on the frizzy seems of the waves. So I sat barefoot hugging my knees, my sandals wedged under my butt, and watched him come. He soaked right into the sand and shells at the tips of my feet. I dug my toes deep into the beach to catch the traces of his salty oceanness. And then with a sigh I was overcome. “My God is beautiful,” I thought. I knew it so hard, so truthfully right then.
To my right my footsteps were disappearing into the soft surf from where I had walked from the hotel. The lawn chairs, tikki huts, and sky scraping hotels, grated roughly against the natural serenity I had ventured into at my spot by the rocks. But I knew my God had been here first, and would be here last. Again, I knew this so hard it quaked a shiver over my sun warmed shoulders. And I knew His love was the sun and His energy made manifest around me in the crisp morning light was his perfect way of spending time with me. Then he did the softest thing. He came right up and hugged me, starting out by my ankles, working his way along the lightly forested plains of my arms, into my sleeves and swooping up to plant nice salt spackled kisses along my hairline and face. He was so warm, so cool—all at once my sun ray and windy breeze. Sometimes when you forget yourself you become so happy it radiates from the pours of your skin. When I think about coming into that feeling of bliss I get the picture of walking out into an endless meadow of flowers after treading bare foot on a dusty rock ridden path. I’m almost too scared to let my bruised feet walk far into spongy meadow for fear that it will turn back into rocky path before my aching feet have regained their strength. It scares me a bit, as if I’m on the edge of happiness, as if I’ve stumbled across something so rare, so frail it could crumble into itself and disappear at any moment. That’s how I felt sitting there, God playing with my hair and over my tanned skin. I felt like our meeting there was far too rare to ever believe it could just keep on going after the tourists and merchants had arrived to ripen the beach into a trashy, sugar coated version if itself.
The sound of a squawking bird shot through my ears, making me look up from the scab over my fears I had been picking at. It was God grabbing my arm and pulling me farther into that meadow. I followed him willingly. All the while he was saying “Let me show you where else I am. Let me show you how far you can truly walk in this meadow.” My eyes were opened again to his beauty. My shadow a testament to the dawning day, faded softly into the morning. Two coke cans sat like towers on the pebbly shore. A forest of boulders cascaded into the ocean to my left. And there I sat, snug between night time and morning. There I knew he wanted more than just my temporary praise. “If you want me to come everywhere with you, you have to let me inside. You need to let me come along.” I bowed my head to him. But it wasn’t enough. He knew I was hiding. He saw before I could say that there were so many things wedged into that gap that he wanted to fill. Piece by piece he eyed those sensitive parts. He was there and I was there and I couldn’t hide my shame from him. And then I saw my own stupidity wash up like my old dirty laundry onto the shore. Those temporary issues I thought I was fretting over really had nothing to do with anything but my own inability to fix the gap in my soul. One by one he pulled the mess out of me until my heart was an open vessel, a whole and empty cistern waiting to be filled up with all of him and only him. By this time that grassy flower filled plain had grown so big and needy. Then it was just me loosing myself in his presence, falling into the endless plain of him feet first, running in and around and all over it. And I began to know that I would exhaust myself before I exhausted the bliss of that field.
Our conversation, his heart to my heart only rose and fell with the gravity of the oceans waves, rising and falling on themselves and then eating away at both sand and sea life, then spewing back onto the shore, back into itself. And I met him there. I met him in the sky, the mountain lines smug behind the morning mist. The palm trees reaching high into the sky saying “I see you sun and I welcome you today.” I met him in the crevasses of the large sloping rocks. Like giants curled over examining the seaweed and black creepy crabs on each others backs. He stretched out with one arm across the oceans treading wake. And again I thought I couldn’t follow him there. He didn’t care what I thought but brought me out anyway to see how big he really was. I saw his name written in the meeting and separation of the sky and waters. “I Am,” it read in what I was sure was his best cursive. “I Am,” repeated the seagulls as they sailed by the cotton ball clouds, only affirming what I had seemed to miss only moments before. “I Am,” came the echo of the wind lunging like an athlete from mountain to plain to ditch and skidding across the top of the ocean. “I Am,” it finally squeaked from the hinges of my open heart, and began to fill my gaps with spaces of divinity. And I knew him, right there on the simplicity of the beach, on the outskirts of the shoreline in Mexico. And I knew with the severity of a Father loving alike the mistakes and good deeds of his child that He, The Great I Am, could never leave me because he is in me. He is wrapped around my world so tight, so through and through that he can’t leave me. And he won’t even try to.

Michigan, let me go!

I'm going to Mexico yall! Freedom is mine! This morning I wrote my Lit test on Romantic poetry. Afterwords I went home and started tearing over a bowl of Kashi. AH! The day is finally here. My limbs are extatic, all I want to do is roll up and down the hallways giggling. *sigh. Up until that test I felt as if Berrien Springs were clinging to me like vines. Wrapped around my torso and shoulders I was fighting for breath and freedom. I feel as if nothing can touch me now. And if it weren't for the mud tracks I leave behind on the carpets from class to class I could swear that I'm floating on air. I'm still on the go till 8:30 tonight. I have 3 more papers to write today, but truely, nothing can touch me now. Don't miss me too hard yall. When I come back I'll be sun tanned with a wiff of ocean on my golden skin.