Letter to Mama

Dear Mama,

It was so good to hear your voice last night! I am so sorry I still can’t get your texts, even with my new SIM card. Bummer. I am glad you can still get mine though. While we were talking I was sitting in a camping hammock that Bryan strung up under a huge mango tree near the house. It was pitch black outside but the mosquitoes are yet to be back in full force since the rains have started so I just swayed in the dark and listened to the fruitbats chirp and whirl over your voice in my ear. If you hadn’t been paying a fortune to call me I would have told you all about where I was in that moment and how much it reminded me of sitting in the mango tree in the back yard at night growing up and waiting for Papa to scare the bats back over from the guava tree to where we perched waiting for them. Sometimes I still can’t believe you let us do that! But then I overhear other mothers whisper to their children, “Just because Annabelle does it doesn’t mean you can!” and I laugh inside I feel like I understand you better every day. Thanks for letting us sit in the mango tree at night.

Things are going well here. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind actually. Bryan and I finally sat down and had the “What if…” conversation last week and are facing the fact that we won’t be back in D in the next few months. There continues to be a steady decline in security that is quite concerning. I almost obsessively scour the news and twitter feeds searching for any scraps of information available from anyone anywhere (the phone network has been down for well over a week; we can’t get a hold of anyone) and every little thing I read just feels like a new stone in my stomach. We are past the point of hoping this will be over quickly and are just left now praying that it will in fact be over.

That being said we confronted the question of what to do in the meantime. It’s far too soon to jump ship to something new. A year, even two in the big scheme of things could be manageable I think (though we are still hoping it won’t be that long) if we could still pick up the pieces on the other side of all this. But the truth is sitting and waiting all this out in Nairobi or Kampala sounds truly awful to me. Running water and frozen yoghurt can just go only so far in filling the deeper needs of the soul. And there is a certain kind of emptiness that makes ever the most luxurious limbo unbearable.

And then we looked around here in M and thought, “We could stay here for a while.” It was as simple as that. Melinda had already suggested it, only-half in jest, and we have been so encouraged by how easy it is to communicate and slip into simple life routines without too many ripples. We could keep working towards our goals for the J people from a distance, unideal yes, but possible. And to be honest I am thrilled at the thought of helping out with the literacy programs here. I need some experience so badly and Melinda is even holding a Writers Workshop next month with a focus on helping women who have been affected by the war write their stories. Isn’t that amazing? I feel like it will finally give me the chance to try my hand at my own dream job!

Anyway, if the approval of our colleagues here and regional leadership wasn’t enough, on a cursory walk through the neighborhood we found a simple cement and zinc roofed house just behind Melinda and Leah’s place that is available to rent. I prayed so hard that if this wasn’t the right move that the rent would be outrageous. But it wasn’t. So….

It looks like I will be living in a little pastel house (currently full of bats) on the side of a little rocky hill in M for the next few months! This realization brought with it a tidal wave of emotions for me. The excitement of setting up our own place (and by setting up I mean buying a few jicky bowls and chairs from the market) and resting into just being for a little while. The heartbreak of fully embracing not being where I most want to be and the fear of putting in even the most shallow of roots again.

There are passing moments where I am washed over with a wave of deep contentment and sheer happiness. I feel this way walking around the market picking out fabric to make dresses for the girls, or walking with Melinda and my family to church, or sitting outside in the evening and drinking a cup of tea while the girls play in the dirt. But these moment catch my off guard and take my breath away in a way that makes me wonder if they are unexpected, and if so why. Are they the exception?

Some of my happiest moments, and I’m almost embarrassed to concede this, are not moments of particularly articulate Arabic usage or preparing for a Writers Workshop. They are standing over a cantankerous burner, stir-frying a wilted cabbage I was thrilled to find on a mat on the ground in the market and seasoning in with nam-pla to make Thai food for my hungry daughters. Who would have thought that the potent smells of Thailand would have travelled with you from Asia to East Africa and on North with me. I wonder where they will follow your grand-daughters some day. But anyway, I am never happier than when I am feeding someone or cleaning up behind someone. Not very romantic I’m afraid, but thankfully not very hard to come by either. I guess my chances are quite good of being pretty happy for the foreseeable future.

I should close. You should be working on one of your grad school papers instead of reading this novel and I need to go to bed. Bryan is slumped over on the table next to me and the bugs are getting bold.

I love you more than I can say. Kiss Papa for me.

Love,

Elizabeth