Greetings from Nairobi. Jambo Sana, etc. I am sitting huddled next to a large bubbling pot of soup trying to keep warm. The presence of a cat named either Bill (girl) or Bob (boy—just to be unwoke…what’s the opposite of woke? Slept?) on my lap means I am typing with one finger.
My mother has gone from 11 cats to 8, which must be progress, defined one way or another. This cat woke, hem, me up this morning by smacking me in the face until I pet him, or her, for what felt like the totality of Christ’s millennial reign, assuming the literal one thousand years.
So here I am for the next ten days. In a few hours I will go to the airport to collect a dear friend who agreed to come with me so that the two of us, on behalf of our church, can have a look at a little missionary endeavor we have going here in Karen—a beautifully high, lush green part of Nairobi, and, for this time of year, very cold.
Knowing it would be cold I hauled socks and jackets to Jerusalem, shoving them into the dark recesses of my suitcase and not giving them a glance for those golden few days of sun. Now they are out and adorning my person. I have one three layers plus the cat, and so am surviving well enough, at least until I have to get up and leave my place at the stove.
I must say hunching over on a stool balancing a cat, an iPad, and the warmth, is tricky. Even trickier is getting a selfie.
Where was I? Oh yes, so here I am. This is my third time to Kenya, and the first without a health crisis to clear my mind and provide an internal blogging plumb-line. I kept thinking all day that I had something to do, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Every time I come to this continent, no matter the circumstances, the moment I step off the plane a deep peace descends. I just sort of float along, radically untethered to the anxieties that border and confine my ordinary American life. I’m sure that if I actually lived here anxiety would crowd itself in, but it would probably take a while. I know that Jerusalem is the City of God, that it is the place God likes best, but unless he wraps all of Africa up into it, whenever he gets around to coming back, I’m going to whine my way through many thousands of years, not just one.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must pet this cat or I will be smacked once more.
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