Tuko Pamoja, a little phrase in KiSwahili that I have come to love. Used as both a question and it’s response, it literally translates to “We are one”(or are we one?) but it is used to say “Are we together?” or “Are we of one mind?”
This last week we ran into a family of German’s in the marketplace. This brings about, as I have recently discovered, two irresistible urges. The first is a shameful, uncontrollable desire to yell “Mazunguu!”, and the other is a desire to make friends, something that I feel has to do with being a minority.
That evening, my host Baba and I were invited to a dinner gathering at one of the neighbor’s houses. Later, to discover that it was a feast in honour of that German family I witnessed earlier. As I found out during the Kenyan tradition of formal speeches, the German dad has spent several years forming relationships with the host and his family to develop services for the community. The host presented a gift to the family, a carved statuette of two giraffes whose bodies faced in one direction but with the necks turned behind them to face the opposite direction. It was ment to represent how each family, though in different places and headed in different directions in life, still have a connection in such a way that you cannot tell where one ends and one begins.
It is such a beautiful picture, and one that I can hope to work by as I continue on with my next to years in Kenya. That I may live in such a way, that you cannot tell where I end and my community begins…
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