Letter Home

Dear Family,

 I sat down to blog but have been staring at the blinking stationary curser for so long I decided to write you instead. Somehow imagining you on the other side of the screen, reading my words on your phones in your classroom or on your laptops in the living room after a long day of work makes me happy. It seems like I always have words when I am talking to you!

We arrived safely in M yesterday. The day started early, the taxi came to the house in Nairobi at five (!) but we just bundled the still sleeping babies into the car and headed to the airport in the chilly dark. It is amazing to see Nairobi without traffic. We were travelling heavier than I would have liked, but I am coming to terms with the fact that our days of the big travel packs only are long gone and to just gracefully receive the flurry of proferred help from “porters” at the airport who grapple with our trunks, pack n’ play (“What is this again?”) and diaper bag.

Mkat slept most of the way to J which was nice for me. We had a pretty tight connection to the MAF shuttle so I was braced for chaos when we all shuffled off the plane, trading out light sweaters for sunglasses and hats, while digging for passports and pens to fill out immigration cards in the sheer pandemonium that is the J International Airport (One of our favorite games to play at the J airport is the “Imagine-what-so-and-so-would-be-like-here.” Perhaps not the most gracious game in the world but good for a laugh when the kids are about to melt and the immigration officer is just about to hassle you for some stamp you didn’t know you needed). Good gosh I hope they get the new airport built soon. Even with the crowd-thinning conflict of late that has driven a number of NGOs away (and not only NGOs. You should have seen how many people were packing out the plane (after plane after plane) that were heading back North to K. The good ol’ “We were better off back in Egypt!” effect.) that place is crazy. Anyway, never underestimate the charm of two little Khawaja girls in SS, melting or not. They charmed the pants off of just about every 8 foot weapon-wielding military police officer in the joint as we sashayed through security, immigration and security again without so much as a raised eyebrow (other than the ones directed at our children running between peoples legs and shaking strangers hands).

Anyway, we weren’t in J more than an hour or two so and never left the airport so we never saw any signs of the recent fighting. (There were even some skirmishes as recently as last week.) Everyone was friendly and crazy and happy, just like usual. And even a part of me shudders with relief every time I leave that city, a part of me was experiencing a great surge of happiness to be back.

We have been so warmly received by our teammates in M; they have made us feel right at home. We are staying in a dense village on the edge of town on Leah and Melinda’s compound. Leah is travelling out of country so we are staying in her tukul. Melinda has her own tukul with an attached kitchen that she is graciously sharing. But when you hear tukul please don’t imagine the mud-walled rat-infested monstrosity of days gone by (you were there Abigail, you know what I speak of!). These have brick walls with painted ceiling and indoor shower areas (bucket baths but inside). They have city power until 11 at night and there is plenty of space for beds for the girls. And no rats! It just feels so homey. Dave and Bre even brought by a basket of groceries for us to use too (you can get BlueBand here, and you should see the fruit!!!!).

M is a fascinating mix of all the Africas I have ever known, or at least my experience of it is. Mama and Papa, the area we are staying in reminds me quite a bit of Mutangani in the old days. It is a closely clustered village, mostly mud and thatch but a cement house here and there, some with tin roofs. The mango trees are thick and huge and heavy with mangoes not quite ripe enough to be pelting the village but soon we will be inundated from above. People are friendly but familiar enough with our teammates that we feel welcomed but not besieged with Khawaja curiosity. Annabelle has been thrilled at her renewed barefoot freedom and spent the morning next door with a cluster of kids playing kick-the-mango and eating fried sweet potato. Clothing (I feel so naked without my head covered), stuff in the shops and even the terrain are so reminiscent of East Africa to me. Even so, communication has been a lot easier than I feared it would be (people say we have the “hard” Arabic but seem to understand us) and everything from food and tea shops feel very familiar. Bryan pointed out last night that we have lived in two places in S that were at war until 2003 at least (current conflict notwithstanding of course) while M hasn’t seen war since the 80s. You can tell the difference.

We are not yet sure how long we will be here. Maybe a couple of weeks, maybe longer. Probably longer actually. If a miracle happens we will go home to D at the end of the month. But Bryan talked to Musa the other day and it seems very unlikely that it will be safe enough to go back yet. The UN just did another food distribution that was close to half of what the refugees normally get, just lentils and oil. The conflict at large has completely disrupted supply lines and now there is no more food to give and people are hungry. Last week fighting between refugees (the J were not involved) and the host community left over 120 houses and tents burned to the ground and several people dead. So now there are displaced people within displaced people camps. And anti-government forces continue to build near the border of our county (one of three left in the state still held by the government). So none of it sounds good.

But then again, if I talk about all the things that “don’t sound good” and they sign a peace agreement tomorrow and we are on the first plane home people will panic because of all the things I have told them before. It is just so hard to know what to say. Because on the other hand, D is one of the places that has still had no outright fighting at all yet. And that is certainly a good thing. So be careful what you tell people when they ask about us. We just don’t know what the future holds and don’t want to unfairly spin it in one way or the other. This could be a long difficult road for a lot of people, ourselves included, or this could just be a blip on the historical radar. As they say here, “Mafi zol barif ila Allah.” No one knows but God.

I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel like my arm is being shaved off slowly slowly, a bit with every news report or phone call. And I keep putting Neosporin and Mickey Mouse bandaids on the wound and it scabs over just in time for the next slice. Sometimes I worry that this shaving is all leading to my arm just getting shaved off completely. And if that is the case I would like to know that right now so I could get started with the business of learning to live without my arm instead of spending so much time healing something that is really just going to be a comparatively minor problem in the long run. But of course, none of us know what is going to get chopped off when do we? (Line of the day, you can quote me.) So I stick with my Neosporin and bandaids and keep about the business of healing. Maybe in the end it will just be a scar with a good story after all.

I love you guys so much. It’s fun to be emailing again, just like we did in the old days (though Mama, I will try to call you this evening, probably before you get this email actually. Our little internet modem hasn’t been able to connect yet so who knows when you will read this.) I feel like miss you all more and more the older I get, the more the girls grow, the more life gets muddled and in the process, illuminates those things that really matter. Anyway, we are counting the days until we see you.

Hugs and kisses all around,

Elizabeth

P.S. – Mama, do you have a good recipe for mango chutney? I left my cookbooks in D. and if we end up being here for a couple of months I may need one. ( :