September 2nd

For all the times I’d imagined the phone call, for some reason I had never thought about it coming in the middle of the night. I’d thought about how I’d feel when we got it, what I’d say and rush to do first, but for some reason I never thought about it coming when I was sound asleep. But as it turned out, it did.

At one am on Thursday night I woke to Bryan saying softly, “I just got a text from Michael.” My brain was still foggy with sleep so for a moment I all I could think was , why would he be texting us in the middle of the night? But then my mind began to clear as I recalled all the messages this close friend and political informant had been sending us in the past couple days. The government has just moved 40 tanks to the state capital. This might trigger war in the near future. Call me please. And The rebels are sending additional forces to the front lines and they are on standby (maximum alert) for any eventualities. My mind cleared quickly as I sat up and Bryan read the latest from the screen of his phone: They have started in the stare capital just right now (fighting) security source said. Be vigilant. Bryan and I sat in the dark in our pajamas and I remember taking in a deep breath of the quiet night around us and thinking, this is it. After all this time this is really it.

Bryan got up, put his shoes and headlamp on and went next door to tell Dan and Laura the news. I laid there in the dark for a few moments, listening to Annabelle baby snore in her Pack N’ Play beside me and trying to collect my scattered thoughts. I flipped on a flashlight and started to journal, but Sept second’s entry in sloppy blue ink will forever read only, “Well, we just got the call…” because at that moment I heard something outside that made my skin prickle. I turned off my light, lifted the mosquito net and tiptoed to the back window where I pressed my face to the screen. Outside in the night lit only by the sliver of hungry moon, I could hear footsteps, hundreds of them moving quickly and quietly on the path just behind our bamboo fence. There wasn’t a single sound to mark their passing other than their steady footfalls – no throat cleared or knuckle popped – just the monotonous thud of boots on earth. Hundreds of soldiers were moving past in almost absolute silence. And within minutes, even their footfalls had been swallowed up in the night. If I had been asleep I would have never even known of their presence. I wasn’t scared of these men in that moment; I knew they were rebels interested in protecting the same people we are here to try and bless. But it was still eerie to think of the discipline it takes for so many to move so quietly and of the reasons why they would. I think it was this eeriness that snapped me out of my stunned inaction and got me moving. It wasn’t time to journal. It was time to pack.

The night felt too short to get everything done that we needed to in order to leave but far too long to shake a growing sense of unease. Annabelle slept on, oblivious in her mosquito net womb, while Bryan and I rushed to dismantle solar panels, clean out the refrigerator and prioritize the few things we could carry with us. We stopped every few moments, straining our ears for the sounds of planes overhead or ammunition fire, but never heard either. Even so, the night took on a cliché feel of ominous foreboding, as though scripted by a melodramatic writer. An owl cried hauntingly from the hill behind our house and lighting flashed beyond the horizon giving me the unnerving sensation of someone in my peripheral vision taking my picture. While we worked news and rumors continued to filter in. The rebels have been pushed out of the state capital but are advancing on other fronts all across the state. There was a firefight at the airstrip. Someone is trying to arm the police against the rebels in town. Planes could be overhead to drop bombs by early morning.   

We contacted an organization in Nairobi who said they could have a Cessna caravan to us a few hours after sunrise. The plane was set to leave Kenya at first light, but if there was increasing conflict in our town or if Antinovs began dropping bombs, we would have to try and find a way out over land. Although this sounded a little exciting to me in principle (“Just think about the blog I could write, Bryan!”), the fact of the matter is an over land evacuation in ATVs at the height of the rainy season could have been disastrous. There is at least one river crossing on the route we would take, and we weren’t confident that we could cross it, safely or otherwise. Not to mention the security on the roads. We were praying the plane option would work.

Dawn came, calmly and unhurried. Somehow being able to see made me feel better even though the sounds around us became more pronounced in the light too. On the road we could hear cheering and the high pitched squeal of whistles. Later came the coughing roar of tanks rolling down the road out of town belching acrid smoke that took its time dissipating over the mountain. By eight we were putting the last few padlocks on the doors and carrying our suitcases (and Annabelle’s Pack N’ Play) out to the front gate. Annabelle sat contently in her baby carrier snuggled up against my chest and inspected the flurry around her with minimal interest.  We said final goodbyes to our guards who were eating watermelon by the front gate and swapping the latest bit of news they’d heard with rough laughter and tired eyes. They chucked Annabelle’s cheeks and salaamed her again and again in a way they made my heart heavy. For the millionth time this week I found myself trying to cram a world of emotion and meaning into simple words. We will pray for peace. If God wills we will return. Goodbye.

 

The town doctor, a brilliant physician and local hero from his service here in wars gone by, roared into our compound in a land cruiser minutes before we were to meet the plane at the airstrip. We shoved bags into the back of the car where a soldier escort sat with two Kenyan medical staff also being evacuated and clamored in next to them. Annabelle and I were ushered to the front seat and we hoisted ourselves in, being careful not to brush the doctor’s wood-barreled AK-47 wedged next to his seat. When we were all in and before he reversed out of the gate, the doctor twisted around in his seat and in a voice more serious than I have ever heard him use before, said, “Okay now everyone listen. We are driving to the airstrip. Everyone keep your eyes on the sky. If you see a plane I will slam on the brakes and everyone jump out of the car and run. Do you understand?” We all nodded mutely. Apparently satisfied that we at least partially grasped the gravity of the situation, he slammed on the gas and we went careening down the road on our way. And as we jerked from side to side over potholes I thought of how grateful I was to have made the decision to wear pants. I don’t know how fast I could move with Annabelle in my arms anyway, but it would be a lot slower if I was in a skirt.  

Up to this point the emotion that I was most aware of in myself was one of excitement. I wasn’t scared for my life or that of my child. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that a childhood spent in the back yard running from “bad guys” from the tree house to the “flying machine” we built on the swing, with a baby doll tied to my back was probably the best training I could have possibly received for this moment. It felt surreal. Like pretend adventure. But on the drive to the airstrip, that excitement bowed and made a graceful exit so that sadness could make its grand entrance on the stage of my heart. We drove down roads we have spent two and half years on and yet overnight they had become unfamiliar. Soldiers in green uniforms with big guns were everywhere, not bored or intoxicated as I have seen them before, but alert and focused. They strode down the road purposefully or stood at corners and under trees watching us roll past. But more moving than the soldiers were the townspeople themselves. Like us, they were fleeing – women with beds on their heads, children with younger siblings in tow, men carrying heavy satchels. People were scared and running for their lives. But unlike us they weren’t heading to a plane that would carry them to another home in a safer place. They were heading to the bush, to the border, to refugee camps and homelessness. It was like driving through all the pictures I have ever seen on the news from a hundred other places in someone else’s home, someone else’s war, someone else’s pain. And for the first time that morning I felt the tears burn the back of my eyes. But I blinked them away. Not yet. There will be time for that, but not yet. 

When we reached the airstrip a military commander who didn’t know the doctor flagged us down and slowly circled the car, peering through the windows at us to make sure we weren’t smuggling out a spy or government soldier. I knew he meant us no harm, but his angry eyes and refusal to respond to greetings weighed heavily on me and again, I knew that this was not pretend. When he was satisfied that we were all who we claimed to be he gruffly waved us on and we drove on through and then all tumbled out on the dirt airstrip. Dan and the doctor drove to the end of the strip to lay out an old white bed sheet, a signal to the pilots that all was clear for them to land. While we waited for the plane, now only minutes away, we milled tensely and watched the soldiers clustered under a tree behind us. At one point we heard raised voices and watched as a young man in uniform sitting on the ground with his hands behind him was shuffled into the back of a truck which drove away quickly. “A prisoner of war,” someone explained. “He was injured and found hiding in the grass over there.” My stomach turned at the thought of what his day had already been like and how it would end.

The Cessna caravan droned overhead moments later and came in for a quick landing. The small plane taxied in front of us and the back stairs were instantly lowered to the ground. One of the pilots jumped out and waved us to him and we all shuffled over through the hot blast of the plane’s engines as quickly and as orderly as we could. Bags were tossed in the back, seats were taken, seat belts were clicked into place and in mere minutes we were racing back down the runway. As we lifted off the ground I strained to see any evidence of the conflict that was forcing us from our homes below me but I couldn’t see anything from the air. No tanks, no running people, not even my white sheet on the ground. Everything was green and quiet and still. But even with the illusion of peace below us, it was a relief to be in the air, to be moving above and away. A heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, soul-aching relief. 

We landed in Y___ about twenty minutes later, a town in the far south of our state, to pick up a young man who was just needing a lift back to Kenya. He was on board quickly and again, we were back up in the air in minutes. I feel like we all started to relax into the flight at this point, laying our grief and worry aside for a moment and just letting the exhaustion take over as we sank into our seats and tried to find comfortable rests for our heavy heads. I hadn’t fallen asleep yet when I felt the plane bank sharply to the left. I opened my eyes and saw the pilot carefully maneuvering the plane in an arc, turning us back in the direction we had just come from. The co-pilot removed his headset and turned back to shout to us over the roar of the engines: “We just got a call that we need to go back to Y___ to pick up a couple more people. We are going to drop you guys off in a little town just across the southern border so we can refuel and better assess the situation before we go in and get them.” We all nodded, a little uncertain of the situation, but trusting of the pilots decisions. We landed fifteen minutes later on an airstrip much rougher and more overgrown than our own. We were met by a crowd of half-naked children and a few khawaja women who worked at a small clinic. As we climbed out, already weary though it was only mid-morning, we were greeted warmly by the crowd. You’ve come from K___? How was it? Are you okay? Were you there when the bombs were falling? We smiled reassuringly and said, “No, no we’re fine. We left because of trouble in other parts of the state. It might get bad soon but there were no bombs in our town.” I will never forget the way the smile froze on the face of the woman I was speaking to when I said those words. “But there were bombs,” she said slowly and looking almost apologetic. “We’ve been hearing the reports all morning. An Antanov flew over not an hour ago and dropped bombs on K___.” For the second time that day my stomach reeled and I felt tears pushing at the corners of my eyes. Annabelle suddenly felt heavy in my arms and I wanted to sit down somewhere but there was only gravel and grass. I felt stunned, weak with gratitude and the fear that had already missed the show but showed up late anyway. A few phone calls confirmed everything. Less than ten minutes after our plane had taken off, the Antanov flew over and started rolling bombs out of its belly. What’s more, it has been behind us in the air all the way to Y___ and less than two minutes after we picked up the one passenger there, it had bombed the airstrip. Bombs rolling out over the place where our plane had sat only 90 seconds earlier. And we had no idea. The phone calls to friends back home were painful. Michael said his wife and children were hiding in a dry river bed by the border which had been closed against the flood of people trying to cross it. Osman who had come to see us off at our home that very morning, said he had run to the bush and was hiding with his friends. The doctor said already the injured were being brought to the hospital – men, women and children. Ten minutes. Two minutes. My memories are of rushing and watching and flying away. Ten more minutes, two more minutes and those memories would be so different. Like the memories of so many we left behind.

I am writing these words from the upstairs room of a big house in Nairobi, listening to the rain falling softly outside. I tried to nap a little while Annabelle did but sleep won’t come easily until I get these words off of my heart. People keep asking how we’re doing and what we’re feeling and it’s hard to know what to say. I am not traumatized but neither am I unaffected. In the days ahead I will write more as emotions and thoughts settle. But I must close for now. Thank you for listening.