Termites

For the past several days it has been raining steadily here in Tanzania, a slow, chilly drizzle only occasionally perforated with diluted sunshine. It feels so calm compared to my last memories of rain. In North Africa it seemed that rain almost always came in on a storm, heavy-handed and insistent. This rain is far quieter, less exciting (for one, there are no floods to hold back under the door with towels, no basins and buckets lost off the back porch to the crazy wind). It’s more of a temperament that a mood and every morning that I wake up to grey light and gentle drumming on the roof, I feel thankful. That probably seems a bit odd, but I have always felt that way about rainy days. They come with a certain leniency. 

Last night as twilight eased in, we sat on the back porch and watched the end of a lull in the rain as a cloud grew too heavy to move on and began shedding its load. As the first drops began to fall, a space in the grass a few feet in front of us opened up as though in response to some unheard password and thousands of termites that had been hiding below the ground began to pour out on new wings. They rippled out like bubbles being blown through a ring and gave the sky dimension and depth as they scattered slowly upwards. It felt like we were in an upside-down snow globe, a little plastic family sitting on the porch of our little plastic house while glittery snow-termites showered upwards. We watched them until they disappeared, presumably settling gently on the roof of the glass dome above us all.

I struggle to write these days. The things I find myself wanting to articulate come out sounding melodramatic (Latest news says a total of 63 bombs have fallen on our town and 74 civilians are dead. Do we know any of those people? Would we recognize their faces as friends, acquaintances, or even strangers we sat next to in a tea shop one afternoon…?) to altogether detached (I made chicken alfredo for my dad’s birthday on Saturday and we played dominoes while Annabelle attacked piles of shiny wrapping paper. She is cutting her first tooth). I exist in two realities. In one I cook in the kitchen with my mama, play with puppies in the back yard with my baby and sleep safely next to my husband in a room full of things from my childhood. In the second I check the news with a sense of dread, pray for the safety of friends in North Africa by name and dream of a former home almost every single night. In one reality I am happy and excited about the future; in the other I am sad and mourning losses of the past. The two realities edge around each other tensely, like inflated egos in close quarters. The only thing they have in common is a very deep sense of thankfulness – thankfulness for what was and what was not; what is and isn’t. It is this gratitude that keeps them in check, creates a sense of balance. 

We’re getting ready to go back to the States for a visit in a couple of weeks, something that both thrills and terrifies me. It’s been two and a half years since we left. I have changed since then, as have the friends, places and cultures I left behind. Life goes on for all of us. Even so, I look forward to the little things that will bring us great joy in the weeks and months ahead. Watching Annabelle’s face the first time she sees mountains of shredded wrapping paper under a tree or throws old bread to ducks in a park with swings already makes me smile. I know that just as there will be things to miss on the road ahead of us, there will be things to celebrate too. As unexpected and simple as a sky full of termites in the rain.   

Thoughts on a Wednesday afternoon

So during the last air raid (that we know of) a bomb hit the Save the Children compound. One news source said the government is intentionally targeting humanitarian workers now, keeping foreign help (and eyes and voices) out. (But then again accuracy takes a big hit when you are just rolling your bombs out of a plane by hand so who knows what they were targeting.) The Save the Children compound is 200 meters from my living room. Two days before we evacuated Annabelle and I took a walk down the path that runs past their compound and down to the seasonal river with shin-deep water the color of chai. My plastic flip-flops were rubbing between my toes so I took them off. It had rained that morning and the skin of the earth felt intimate under my bare feet. We saw lots of red bishops along the way, their feathers so brilliant they looked like they were plugged in to a neon light.

All I have is my imagination now to give my emotions form. My made up thoughts fill the void left by memory or experience. I see the planes droning in high and small in the sky. I hear the bombs falling, making a silly whistle a la Wylie Coyote as they near the ground, followed closely by loud explosions and the hiss of shrapnel. In my mind all the women and children are gone by now but I hear men shouting in the spaces between the explosions. Or is there just jarring silence, awkward and unreal? And at what was once my house I see Nimir stretched out on an old mattress in our tukul, his black fur still shiny from a steady diet of rats and lizards. He yawns, caring as little for the chaos outside as he is by the fact that we have abandoned him. At least that is how I imagine it.

George Clooney’s satellite tell us all now that the government forces are much stronger than we thought and will likely be on the ground in our hometown sometime this week. Thanks George. This news is discouraging. Even our friend the doctor is pulling out and the hospital is left little more than a cluster of cement buildings full of injured soldiers left to contemplate life. I know the doctor would never leave unless he thought he would die if he didn’t. He has too many dying people still to live for.

I’ve imagined my house getting bombed a million times or even repossessed by the rebels for the advancement of the cause. But to be honest I haven’t really thought about government soldiers looting it or setting up camp in my garden. The scene is actually a bit comical, whether or not if ever actually happens. Rifle butts busting the locks of off our front door and rough hands sifting through unexpected things: a collection of Dr. Seuss’ best stories, a pile of pink newborn onesies, jars of Thai curry paste, a “Would You Rather?” board game, a heavy blue-bound copy of Norton’s Anthology of Literary Criticism (not my most practical choice for a round-the-world move but not one I have regretted before now). 

I wish I would have given my pots to Aisha before we left. If only I had known we probably wouldn’t be back anytime soon (my mind refuses to budge beyond that). They were a wedding present from my mother-in-law that we lugged around the world with us. How many times had Aisha held them up by their handles as she helped me wash dishes on the back porch, bobbing them appreciatively in her soapy hand? These are so heavy! You can’t get pots like this here. They must have been expensive. I’ll send you with some money when you go back to America to visit so you can bring me back one. Will 10 pounds be enough? Maybe I’ll send you with 15.They must have been really expensive! I can just see her squatting next to her cooking fire stirring sorghum mush in my stainless steel pot, grinning at how much nicer her kitchenware is than her neighbor’s. But as warm as the image is, it is silly. Even if I could have given her my pots she would never have used them. They were much too heavy for her to have carried when she ran away.            

     

Unavailable

Last night I dreamed we were back home. We had just landed in a little plane, and like so many times in real life, we were trying to lug boxes of supplies from the airstrip to the house. It was night and I could barely make out the shadowy form of soldiers on the blurred peripheries of my dream. As we waded through piles of cargo and I struggled to figure out why we had so much stuff with us, someone called Bryan and asked, “Why are you back? It’s still not safe here. Bombs will be falling any second!” In my dream I had a sinking sense of fear and in slow-motion dread began looking around for a hole to hide in with Annabelle.

It was only a dream, not a nightmare. It didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat but instead the dream slowly oozed to the surface of my consciousness when I got up this morning, like water seeping up to a hole in a dry river bed. But the dream, one of several I have had lately, reminds me of how wrapped up my thoughts and emotions still are with the place we so recently left. Two weeks ago we were getting daily security updates by phone call or through conversation over a hot cup of sweet tea in a private corner of the market. Now all we know is what we read on news sources online or in an email with second or third-hand tidbits via the doctor still on the ground. Bombs have been dropped at least twice since the day we left. Most people have fled our town. All the phone lines have been cut off. This last bit we know from experience. When we try to call friends left behind to find out where they are and how they are, a canned woman’s voice sweetly tell us in Arabic that the person we are trying to reach is “unavailable”. And for the hundredth time we hang up and wonder what kind of unavailable they are. In a refugee camp across the border with thousands of other people who have run for their lives? Hiding in the bush, living off of what they can find, build and make? Injured in a hospital with no running water or electricity? Our minds rush to fill in the big empty blank they keep running into and our imagination leaves us feeling heartsick.   

    

Bryan, Annabelle and I have been at my parent’s house in Tanzania for almost a week now. When we walked in their front door I felt like someone tripped the cord of adrenaline that had kept me going for the past few weeks and I immediately deflated into a puddle of exhaustion. I felt like I could hardly move for those first few days. But we are recovering. We don’t pause what we are doing when an airplane flies overhead anymore (but I have jumped a little at the occasional gunshots of my parent’s neighbors hunting wild boar nearby). Annabelle, my poor baby who has hardly been in one place longer than four weeks in her five short months of life, has finally begun to relax and settle into the comfort of having her own room for the first time ever. I love picking her up and smelling a faint scent of Mary Kay sunscreen in the soft fuzz of her head, rubbed off from long moments in the rocking chair with her grandmother. Bryan has been productive, hardly missing a beat in responding to work emails and chipping away at a big survey report. I am still trying to figure out where I am exactly. I feel relaxed but unexpected splashes of emotion remind me I am still processing everything. At various times I feel relief and guilt, irritation and grief, peace and sadness. But overall it is good to be in a safe place where I can sort them all out through scribbles in journals, quiet prayers and long talks with Mama in the shade of the tamarind tree while the baby wiggles on a blue blanket in the grass.   

Last week I was thinking about a day I remembered from at least a year ago. Bryan and I were out in a remote village in North Africa and spent the afternoon with a family that surely must have been among the most poor I have ever been with. Four adults and more children than I could really tell slept in one rotting mud hut. The oldest member of the family was a woman that looked like she was near one hundred years old. Her flesh was droopy, like chewed gum hanging from tired bones and her hair was sparse and white. Her eyes though sunken were still bright and alert. Too old to gather firewood or water or even pound roasted coffee beans, her primary job seemed to be caring for the youngest member of the family, a baby only a few months old and malnourished beyond belief. Though tiny, the baby bore a shocking resemblance to his grandmother with sharp protruding bones, coarse hair and eyes that carried more awareness of pain than they should have. You would think such a frail whisper of life would have been treated with the upmost caution. We often tiptoe around death, giving him a wide berth. But this baby wasn’t coddled. He was gently jostled, teased and kissed on the cheeks just as any other baby would be even as he pitifully struggled to cry. I remember thinking that there is no way this baby could live much longer and I am sure there was no one more aware of that than his family. But even with this painful knowledge, that family loved that baby full-heartedly, even while they recognized it would likely hurt them more in the end than if they simply cared for him with guarded hearts.

The metaphor is imperfect, but I feel like the North Africans that I think about these days as I wonder where they are have taught me something about life in the time that I have known them. It is worth loving, fully, even if you know it is going to hurt deeply in the end. In the weeks, days, even hours before we left our home two weeks ago, friends and neighbors laughed about the future together. They planted their gardens, repaired their houses and chatted over hot drinks about whether or not war would come and they would have to run away. They weren’t in denial; their fear was palpable, especially in those last few days. But they weren’t resigned and morose either. There was still music to write and dominoes to play, regardless of what tomorrow might bring. I am so grateful for this wisdom I was allowed to witness. Perhaps initially with a little guarded resistance of my own, I fell in love with a place and a people two years ago, knowing that it might end with me saying a hurried goodbye even if only for a season. I believe in my heart of hearts that there will be happy reunions again someday too. But until then I am hurting for those who taught me something about love and pain and life and praying that they will be safe.

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.