Jamila

When we were here in Lokichoggio two years ago, we met a couple that I have often thought about even though our time together was incredibly brief. They are memorable for several reasons. First of all, he was German, she was Brazilian and even though their English was weighed down with heavy accents, it was all they had to speak to each other. They had met working in different development projects here in Loki, fallen in love, had one whirlwind wedding in Germany, another in Brazil, then moved back to Kenya to keep working in a place and for a people they both loved. Call me a romantic, but I thought that was really cool. But, that isn't why I still remember them so vividly after only one short chat over a cup of tea. I remember them so well because when we met them, they had just had a baby girl. She was just a few months old at the time, with serious grey-green eyes. Her name was Jamila, Arabic for beautiful. I don't remember either of her parents names, but I remember hers. I thought it was beautiful. I thought she was beautiful. At the time, meeting this random international family in the middle of godforsaken Lokichoggio was very meaningful to me. I was in the middle of moving to a place equally dry and thorny and babies were already looming on the horizon of my consciousness. Seeing a couple raising a tiny baby a good plane-ride away from vaccinations and grandparents, and doing it happily, meant something to me. It gave me hope.

Today Abigail, Annabelle and I walked to church with our hosts. Though only mid-morning, it was already blazing hot and Annabelle protested mildly from underneath the kanga I had her covered in. As I hoisted her higher up on my shoulder I pondered whether or not I had made the right decision to heed the baby sunscreen bottle's instructions and not slather it on her under-six-month skin. In the past seven weeks I have heard my own words ringing in my ears over and over again: Of course we are going to raise our baby in North Africa. We want to share our life and the world with our child. But it took less than seven weeks for me to realize that I am not immune to the fears that come with "sharing the world," no matter how much I would like to believe that I am. The world has sunburn and tuberculosis and soldiers as well as language and spices and music. You can't have one without the other, even if you want to. I was thinking about these things as we walked to church this morning.

Annabelle slept through most of the church service, oblivious to the flies and the little girl who had crawled under our bench to sit next to me and stroke her toes. But towards the end of the service she woke up and started fussing. I slipped out the back door and stood in the square of sandy shade under the tin awning bouncing my sweaty baby. As we bounced we watched a group of children playing nearby. The kids were trying to balance on top of big stones forming path markers around the church and were walking drunkenly over the stones until their giggles knocked them off. Among the dozen children, one little girl in particular caught my attention. She was babbling Turkana words with the rest of the children but was fairer and had a head full of loose brown curls. She was wearing a pink checkered dress and was barefoot. When she turned I noticed her big, very playful grey-green eyes. After the service was over I followed the little girl up to her mother who I recognized from two years ago (though I still don't know her name). I introduced myself and, a little awkwardly, explained something of what meeting their family two years ago had meant to me. Then I introduced them to the baby I am taking back to North Africa with me.

In the end, I am not sure how fully the Brazilian mother understood me, at least not all my words anyway. But she never stopped smiling at me and said Annabelle's name in such a gorgeous Portuguese accent that I almost didn't care what she was hearing. But whether or not she understood my words, I think she understood my heart. As her daughter ran off to play again she said, "My children are happy. They are very happy here." And I said thank you. Happy goes a really long way.