June 8, 2012 – CAR – Kenya
I am writing reports and catching up on my receipt record keeping this morning, while taking brief breaks to read about the history of the wars in DRC. It is a terribly complicated history and I am not sure that I understand any more now than I did previously. All I know for sure is that evil is everywhere in this world and that it has manifested itself if such violence in northeast Congo that it makes it hard to comprehend how people continue on with their lives once they’ve faced what they have witnessed and in many cases, endured. It is also incomprehensible why these wars have not been covered by the media. Is the loss of 5,000,000 lives not worth mention?
As I wait for my flight from Bangui to Nairobi (where I’ll continue on to Mombasa), thoughts keep recurring in my mind and there is no end to what one could ask and to what one would receive no satisfactory answers to. Sometimes I hear things that make me so sad, so weighed down, that it is hard to know what to say or think next. I feel like clutching my stomach and rolling up in a ball to not feel the pain I know others feel daily. I pray because it is all I can do and it is all I know that will make a difference, as peace can only come through the One who IS PEACE.
June 9, 2012 – Mombasa, Kenya
My flight from Nairobi to Mombasa has been delayed and I find out my bag is lost. I am hoping the bag will arrive today because I would love to change my clothes. These travel clothes are red with dirt and if asked, no one would say my boots are the purple I knew them to be. A pair of sandals would be perfect right now, as would a clean shirt into which I can sweat anew.
It is so good to be among friends! I love seeing Veronica’s face at the airport and we laugh as we compare our grey hairs which we agree are due to stress and not age. She searches through my hair as though looking for lice and I tell her we look like monkeys and need to behave. This makes her laugh out loud, as though behaving is not something she can do.
She asks how Juju is, seeing a kindred spirit in her. One day again, they will see each other and will recognize each other in the other’s eyes. She asks for Malaika (angel), which is Aiden. He was so young when he went to Kilimanjaro to wait for Eric to climb that everyone loved holding him. He was called Malaika because he was so white.
Today’s schedule is hectic:
- Play with kids at the clinic and attend Kid’s Day (favorite part of these trips)
- Visit a community garden
- Discuss garden Internship and way forward
- Work together with Veronica (head of this program) on a grant
- Follow up with some of the children who receive schools fees
- Buy milk for our family’s stay in Zimbabwe
- Check email – I hope, I hope, I hope!!