Why did the coffee taste bolder today, the prickly burrs less tetchy and the -ituses of life feel less inflammatory? How come the sun shone with postwar respite? Why did it seem like all the trees cast knowing winks? Today the unmistakable crisp of societal rebirth was in the air. Had a UN body gathered…
I not sure how to tell you this story. If I introspect, I’m uncertain of either side of an extreme—worried that the medium of writing won’t throw the curtain separating a happening and it’s recounting far enough for you to peer behind, and also fearful it will swing too far, leaving me exposed. I’ll do…
Why To Lend A Hand It wasn’t our original impetus for coming to Kenya, but after we read Calvin’s email, it became our raison d’être for being here. Calvin, had come across three AIDS orphans (Wilfred [17], Samuel [15] and Simon [13]) a half-kilometer from where he and his brothers had been orphaned by the…
On Monday, with Tyler finally here, we left the cray-cray-craziness of busy Nairobi to the countryside to discover the youthful stomping grounds of our brotha-brothers, Calvin and Joash. As if reminding us why we were leaving, Nairobi showed us one of her least attractive qualities and kept us fighting traffic for three hours before we…
Our rail car tumbled through lands now hidden by the set sun. To my right, a baby fondled his sleeping mother; two snack venders sat across from each other, pulling at their pant legs to examine their knees; a boy in a tie walked past selling soft drinks, eager to profit from our thirst. The…
Travel To Kenya and Cook Like A Caffinated Maniac Calvin diced tomatoes and peppers with the fervor of carrying out a tyrant’s justice. His cousin, Steve, stripped chicken from bones of the bird his mom had butchered a few hours before. The salt tin in my hands, apparently suicidal, leapt to the floor and became…
Kenya Travel and Diner With The Motikas Finally—and praise be Kenya travel for this—I can eat with my hands, lick my fingers and do the the very “gross” things that led Anna to tattle on me in the third grade for “grossing out the girls” at the lunch table (That’s right Anna, I’m still not…
Yesterday I went with Steven, an American I met on the plane from Cairo to Nairobi, to Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa. At a given time up to 1.5 million people are living in the slum’s 2.5 square kilometers. Rick, a 26 year old man who has lived there for much of his…
When I was in high school, my parent’s adopted two Kenyan orphans, Calvin and Joash. After their parents passed away from AIDS, three brothers, Roger, Calvin and Joash, were left alone in their mud hut. Calvin, after reading a novel titled The Color of the Carnations about a Kenyan boy who studies in the USA, began to hope and…
They say that dogs experience a much different world from people because of their heightened sense of smell. When they walk into a room, their nose tells them things like, “Oh, yep, Marve was definitely here a few hours ago, and he was definitely eating a ham sandwich. Boy, could I go for a ham…
