In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.

9:15pm

I just got back from the nursery. A baby peed on me.. I was wondering when it would happen. (Sorry about the skirt Chels!) I spent most of the night feeding Joseph and trying to get him to smile. He’s lagging behind on development. For example, most babies smile at 3 months, but he’s already 5 months old… The nurse on duty tonight, Rispa, and I were wondering if it has something to do with the fact that he was abandoned. It was feeding time, so many of the mothers were in the room and for the first time I got to connect mothers to their babies. When I was there earlier today I got to sit and talk with Dr. Bemm and hold Ester. Ester is one of many “miracle baby’s” in that room- baby’s that in medical terms, should not have survived- but did. She has a cold right now so she spent most of the afternon screaming. Her head is so big for her tiny body! I also went to the pediatric ward and practiced more Swahili and Kipsigi. The little boy with the burns was up and moving around.

During most of my time at Tenwek, I will spend more time in an office struggling to teach computer skills than hacking my way through the tangle of jungle vines in the nearby rainforest. Being here in Africa is still not quite real. All through my time here, I will have one eye on the calendar knowing that I will go home. One interesting thing I’ve learned- even the long-term missionaries who were raised here and have chosen to raise their families here (the Steury’s specifically) do not try to live just AS the people live. What I’m realizing, is that you can’t do that. If I were to come here and leave all my wealth at home and live as the people live, they would be suspicious, and ask, “Why are you trying to cheat us? We know you have more money.” There’s no way to ever be on the same level because when it comes down to it I will always have people in America as back up. As a non-native (even if you’ve grown up here), if you get sick, you can always go back to the US to receive the best medical care. You can pretend to live “as the people live,” but they do not buy it for a second. Even if you are a poor college student in America’s eyes, here, you are super wealthy just because of the fact that you’re here. You can wear the same clothes every day and insist that you do not have any extra shillings to give away, but you had enough money to buy a plane ticket to travel around the world- and that’s a lot more than most here will ever have.

Tomorrow is Madaraka Day and we will celebrate Kenyan’s independence. Here, it’s just a day off from work, but John Wright is set on having a party. So, as Patti (a medical intern from Nairobi) went around inviting people to the bbq she explained it as, “Americans celebrating Kenya’s independence… the American way.” There will be hot dogs and hamburgers and baked beans- and maybe fireworks if John can get in touch with the Whites to find out where they’ve hidden their stash!

Yesterday I climbed Mount Montigo. It’s the highest peak in the area and offered a 360* view. It’s about 8,000 feet up. It was absolutely beautiful and the weather was perfect (as always). It was probably a few miles there and a few miles back. We crossed the river that provides all of the water for the hospital. I came back totally beat and collapsed in my bed for a few hours before heading up to the hospital. Tenwek is about 6,938 feet up. Because there’s no way I can convey the beauty, I will quote it from Out of Africa:

“In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.

“The geographical position, and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colours were dry and burnt, like the colours in pottery. The trees had light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that of the trees in Europe; it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like fullrigged ships with their sails clewed up, and to the edge of a wood a strange appearanceif the whole wood were faintly vibrating. Upon the grass of the great plains the crooked bare old thorn-trees were scattered, and the grass was spiced like thyme and bogmyrtle; in some places the scent was so strong, that it smarted in the nostrils. All th! e flowers that you found on the plains, or upon the creepers and liana in the native forest, were diminutive like flowers of the downs,–only just in the beginning of the long rains a number of big, massive heavy-scented lilies sprang out on the plains. The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.

“The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it, was the air. Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigour in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning; it scintillated, waved and shone like running water, mirrored and doubled all objects, and created great Fata Morgana. Up in this high air yo breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be. ” – Out of Africa description of where I am.

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. & there is nothing more to it than that.