Demons

I fell to my knees as I was praying
And found a demon in my safest haven
Feels like it's getting harder to believe in anything
Than to simply get lost in my own selfish thinking

Tragedy seems unending
As I watch people I looked up to bending and breaking
Taking shortcuts and false solutions
To hide the truth and appear to come out the hero

I want to know what it would be like to find perfection
To see beyond my pride, to see nothing in the Light
Sometimes I wonder if I'm better off just hitting the bottom
To stop hiding how I truly feel to attempt to come out the hero

No matter what we breed
We are still made greatly of greed
Who knows what's right
The lines keep growing thinner

I don't want to let you down
But sometimes I feel as if I'm hell bound
As if it's woven into my soul
This is my kingdom come.

That through this masquerade
All will come crawling out through this mess I've made
Look into my eyes, but don't get too close, it's dark inside
It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide

These Hard Times

These few weeks have been rough. In a lot of ways they have been adventurous and I've gotten opportunities that I didn't think I'd get for a while, like being able to see family and friends I didn't believe I would see for a long time.

However, I find myself fighting depression.

Everything is unbelievably unknown. I'm facing having a long term dream crumble down around me and possibly come to and end. I'm miles away from friends that I love so much and are continuing an amazing journey without me. I find myself riding a roller coaster of emotions that change with the slightest instance. All the while trying to look through the smoke where the answers and the truth seem like they have cut their ties.

It's not clear to me anymore the answers to the ugliness that I feel.  I want the answers to what I need.
I feel like I'm hiding in the shadows, afraid of the light. I feel like I'm simply standing on the outside of where I'm meant to be and the door has been slammed shut in my face.

All I can do is pray.

   Give me the answers
   Give me the way out
   Give me the faith to believe in these hard times

   Show me which way to move
   Show me motivation
   Show me all my heart desires, when I feel like you're not around

   For I'm a troubled mind and a callused heart
   A failing engine that was trying way to hard
   Always second-guessing that little voice I used to hear
 
   I'm finally broken from falling to far
   Burning up, I'm trying to pick up the pieces and searching for healing from the scars
   I ask you take this cup from me cause the fear of the future is stealing all my sleep
 
   Help me in this hour of doubt and darkness
   Cause who I am affects not just me
   So give me the strength, so that love can finish telling this tale.

Choodom or Kingdom of the Choo

The choo (pronounced Ch-oh) or as it is more universally know; the pit latrine, is a mixed bag of interesting that is a regular part of one’s life in rural Kenya. If you are unfamiliar as to the visual marvel that is the pit latrine here you go:

Now there are many benefits and disadvantages to the choo that are both humorous and an disasterous to one’s dignity. Let’s run through a cavalcade of pros and cons.

Pro: Squatting - it is said that squatting is the best position for eliminating waste, as it aligns in inner canal for effortless disposal and gravitational assistance.

Con: Squatting - while it is good for a thigh workout, after a long day of walking the last thing you need is
your legs giving out on you and having to put your hand down to prevent yourself from falling over…eww

Pro: Time saving - for many reasons (a.k.a. a need to inhale a non-choo breath of air, leg exhaustion, or
multiple spiders looking on and debating if you are indeed a tasty snack) it is in, out, and on with life.

Con: Choo Draft - that uncouth gust of cold air that rushes out of the hole in the floor to your multisensory
displeasure.

Pro: It’s green (in the ecologically beneficial for the environment) - No water, no fowl, right?

Con: Misses - Dear Kenyan who egregiously covered the floor with your waste, HOW!? I’ve only been
doing this for 5 months and haven’t missed yet… you’ve been doing this your entire life! WHY!?

Con: Choo sniffles - when you have a runny nose and accidentally sniff a huge intake of choo air. Bleh!

Out, It Must Go Pt. 2

I was awakened at the god-forsaken hour of 5.30am to be scuttled into the ambulance that was to take me to the air-strip so I could be air-flighted to Nairobi before my appendix tried to pull an 'over filled balloon' and blow this joint. Due to the fog the plane couldn't land on the original dirt and gravel air-strip so they had to drive me to the next town over to be launched into a whirl-wind of a morning.


A scenic (and sedated, thank you morphine!) 35 mins later I was being rushed into a check-up room of the E.R. at Nairobi hospital to be pricked and prodded to be absolutely 100% certain that the darn little organ was indeed the culprit that needed to go. So off to a freezing cold ultra-sound where three necessary, and four random people get to examine my internal infrastructure, where it was determined my two-sizes too big appendix was too risky, especially with fluids beginning to build up around it, to remain inside me and my surgery was scheduled for two hours later.

So there I was with two hours. Two hours to contemplate the fact that I was about to have surgery for the first time. Surgery, in a developing country, with nobody I know to be with me, and having general anesthesia, which can kill people even in America.

Suddenly, they’re prepping me for surgery, pushing me down a hallway towards the theatre that looks like the hallway to a basement. For some reason it is deemed necessary to remove my earring and bracelets even though the surgery is on my stomach… They stretch me out, Jesus style, onto the surgery table and warn me that I won’t feel a thing in about 2 minutes. That is when I finally loose it. This is for real…

If I Could Tell You (Would You Hold Onto Me?)

Time and time again I’ve wrestled my thoughts, uncertain if this end I’ve come to was right or wrong.
I won’t try to pretend I’ve got it all figured out, that I don’t have any doubts.
I’ve gotta busted heart, I need you now.

I wanna tell you that it’s alright. I’m tired of telling lies.
It’s ok. It will be ok.
I wanna travel back in time, to say all the things I should have said...
...to have been who I should have been.

I wanna tell you everything. If it’s not too late. Is it too late?
Will you be there if I told the truth? Or will you leave me standing in the rain?

If I say it’s who I am, will you love me still the same? Or will you walk away?
I understand if you’re afraid, but people change. Understanding changes

Will you talk with me? Tell me I’m not alone? Will you still hug me and tell me I belong?
For so long I’ve felt like I’ve been here all alone. Pushing on a pull door.

I long for the time when all is healed, and hopefully love’s to blame.

Locked In the Closet

My utility closet has one specific flaw in its working as a house; the outer gate/door to the building as a whole, locks (with a dead-bolt) from the outside.

I never figured that this would pose a significant problem until the group of contractors that were went to work on my new house arrived. A couple days after they came I had been sitting in my house after making dinner relaxing and I had to use the restroom which is located outside of course. To my shock and horror I tried to use the outer doors and they would not budge.

Slowly I realized that I was trapped and as far as I could tell no one could yet hear my pleas for release. I tried calling a couple of Kenyan friends and of course it is the one time they did not answer the phone. As the hours passed, the bucket I usually use for purifying my water was beginning to look very appealing as a pee bucket. This, of course, I still begrudged to do out of shear stubbornness, not wanting to adhere to fellow PCV’s argument that this is an ok and necessary thing to do. Jenn.

Thankfully, three hours later, I was rescued by a passing patient, who saved my life, my bladder, and my pride.

The Kiss

I think I gained a woman problem.


From all the stories that we heard during PST, and all the tips that they gave us to avoid awkward opposite-sex interactions, I swore that I would do everything in my power to make myself undesirable and make it obvious that I was unattainable.

Apparently, I failed.

Now, I have been very careful to never go to any particular mama too often to buy produce, as well as to never always buy the same particular item from the same mama. This mama has been no exception, however I did like going to her stand because her produce was always of quality and she has, from the beginning, always given me a fair, non-mzungu, price.

Then yesterday happened.

As I finished purchasing a couple items, I, as with any Kenyan, was leaving with a farewell handshake. Now it’s rare, but not unusual, for a mama to give what I call the “Double Bro-hug”, keeping the hand-shaking hands in between and proceeding to sort of chest-bump/hug. This is what she proceeded to go for but as I was turning to leave I suddenly feel a kiss on my neck.

My heart-drops and I hurry away without looking back as fast as possible.

On taking counsel with my counter-part, my worst fears were confirmed; this is definitely not normal for a strictly plutonic relationship, even amoung most family units. Ugh. So now I have to put shields up to maximum, phasers set to kill, and utilize every avoidance procedure I know.

If I Look Back Then I Am Lost

I really love hiking and exploring and it is so beautiful up here in the foothills of the Rift Valley that I do it quite a lot. Walking around forces you to meet and greet people along the way, not to mention that it absolutely helps me to clear my head.

I was reading a story about a guy who does a lot of backpacking and other exploring type trips and in it he says something that caught my attention; “When your exploring you are never really lost as long as you keep going, it is only when you look back that you become lost.”

Most days things are great. I feel “in the groove” so to speak. Yet every now and then I start to long for home and dwell on certain things I miss too much and get myself into a funk. This happened to me the other day. I looked back.

The area surrounding Ngorika reminds me remarkably of Oregon, which made me realize I am going to miss our family’s annual Polar Bear Jump on the 1st of the year, which, well you get the picture.

I’m not saying that I shouldn’t remember good times, or try to forget people or things in the past. Simply that now I need to remain forsighted, on what’s to come and the people that are here in my life now.

It is only when I look back that I get lost.

The Burden Be...

Love is hard.

Often it leads you to places you never expected and to do work that is so rewarding.

It looks like perseverance. A smile when you’re being stared at or attempting a conversation when you know your speech is going to be made light of.

Maybe it’s having your heart broken to see desolation and unlivable conditions, and have them seem viewed as normal by others, all while using everything in your power to keep it together.

It’s being bored out of your mind but sitting through the four hour church service you were invited to anyway.

Sometimes it is going to dinner and spending time with people who opened their home to you when you have a migraine and want nothing more than to lie down and sleep.

It is feeling lonely and missing out on the lives of those you love, maybe even not getting to say that permanent goodbye.

It is sacrifice. But the work that I do and the words I speak to convince a crowd, if they don’t have love, I leave a void attempt to do good and a bitter taste with every word I say.

If I don’t have love I waste my breath.

Storm Clouds Over Africa

Today has been a terrible day, and the weather is expressing the sadness of what I had to witness. I don’t know how else to express the weight of the loss of life:

The morning breaks a mother’s heart, leaves her crying in the rain.
Left alone with her thoughts, as the boy she’s grown slips away.
Melding into dreams and other people’s memories.

It's the Little Things

Today I learned a valuable lesson: Never wear gum boots when someone tells you that you are going to walk somewhere and you have no absolutely no idea how far this place is…

Since I did not think this out thoroughly I ended up walking, what I was told later, was close to 18km round trip (aka 11 miles) in just rubber boots =(  Needless to say the entirety of the bottom of my foot is one giant blister.

On the way back I reached to clear out one of my pockets of the old duct tape I had used and pulled out 50 /= (that slash-equals is the symbol for Kenya shillings). I don’t know why it made me so happy (because it’s only the equivalent of about 55 cents, but I guess it’s just the act of a random surprise that made me so happy.

Other little things that brighten my day:
1. Chapati – there is something about this overly oiled flat bread that warms my heart

2. Someone getting so excited that I said something to them in Kikuyu. Not even kidding they love it.

3. Chai – sometimes this tea is waaaaay to sugary, but I still love it (though not after being force feed 5 cups throughout the day)

4. My counterpart Esther’s laugh – it’s not even that funny or peculiar or anything but it makes me smile

5. A letter from home – honestly it can seem like nonsense to whomever wrote to me but trust me the sight of an envelope with my name on it sends me over the edge. (You don't even wanna see me when I get a package...talk about lack of propriety)

6. A kid yelling my name instead of Mazunguu – probably just because this takes me from being a 'thing' to being a person again.

7. Someone greeting me in Kiswahili and not English - I feel less like an outsider.

8. The stars – there is nothing like the stars at 7000ft on a clear non-light polluted night.

9. The smell of the Eucalyptus trees down the road from the Health Centre

10. Squelching around in the mud with my gum-boots. I'm 5 again.

There is Something About Blood

I honestly don’t know what it is, but some of my favourite fruits are “Blood” fruits. Back in California is was the Blood Orange. Sure a regular orange is delicious but the Blood orange is AMAZING! When my parents planted a Blood Orange tree I was ecstatic!

One of my favourite fruits so far here in Kenya is the Pashoni ya Damu a.k.a. the Blood Passion fruit. I think half of the allure of the fruit is it’s aesthetics, the beautiful drops of red within the yellow fleshy part of the fruit.

It looks like this:

And oh mama is it delicious! I mean passion fruits are good and all, but they are a weird texture and have a unique after taste. The Blood pashioni is a whole ‘nother relm of delicious.

The Explorer's Heart

The path softly crunches beneath my feet. It’s gentle moan assuring me that it supports me. Each step though, a risk, the unevenness threatening to do me damage, but I like it. It is a game to be played, not but a challenge to overcome.

The sun’s piercing rays lick at my skin, beaming down with the promise of life and punishment. The carefree clouds float lazily across the vast spans of the African sky. Twisting, forming and reforming their delicate shapes, as they move the spirit with the beauty of their dance. Leaving the heart to groan with the longing for the promise of freedom their movements represent.

The sweetest of smells assaults my nose and clouds my brain with its overwhelming allure. The seas of grass shake their long appendages at me, trying to point me in the opposite direction. The wind that blows them whips across my face. Each soft touch of grace whispers with encouragement.

Moving through the underbrush, I let the strange alien succulent’s needles to scratch at my flesh. It is a masochistic enjoyment, as my cells part to give way to bushes sharp protectants. It is a reminder that I am alive, a form of penance.

A brilliant, black and white bird’s song carries me to the peak, giving musical theme to my journey. I crest the rise of the earth and the air escapes my lungs. The awe before my countenance is wide and vast, beckoning with the promise of adventure.

Wildebeest graze far below, dotted beneath the canopied arms of the acacia, moving slowly towards the lusty interior that spans between the legs of the foothills. Completely unaware and unthreated by the humbled presence above them.

When Frustration Leads to Murder

Well not murder exactly.

This is a story about how an accumulation of personal issues led me to murder a chicken against my better judgment.

There are a couple things I like about my personality; I have a wide variety in things that I love, and as such I like to remain relatively unpredictable or surprise people because they don’t expect me to have done, or enjoy, one thing or another.

There are also a couple things that I hate about my personality; I have an insatiable need to prove people wrong when they doubt my abilities. This is doubled when my masculinity is brought into question.

This weekend I was over at a family’s place that I have recently become friends with. As with many interactions with Kenyans, this visit was full of “In your place (America) do you have, do, use ______?” This particular time we were going to prepare dinner and the son upon being asked to go slaughter a chicken asked, “In America do you slaughter chickens?” Which lead to an argument about whether I have ever killed anything, and ended with a statement of absolute assuredness that I have not, and would never, kill anything, followed by my angrily grabbing the chicken by the head and proceeding to take off it’s head in one clean stroke. (To the slack jawed gaping mouths of 6 Kenyans and 11 chickens)

Internally I wanted to vomit but for the sake of saving face and upholding my pride and honour, I continued to pluck and gut the chicken with not so much as a grimace.

Lessons learned: - Chickens can still cluck without a head
-The scales on their feet peel off like snake shedding it’s skin
- It’s ok to let people doubt you, they’ll get over it, but even so, there is odd satisfaction in proving that a Mazunguu can do (almost) anything a Kenyan can.

Donkey Blues

Donkeys are the bomb.

They are so useful here in Kenya; keep down the lawn, great source of transport, and excellent for labour purposes and they are so mopey it’s cute.

Yesterday, as I was walking home from Nyaitoga (a “nearby” community) and witnessed a poor donkey with a ridiculous load slip and fall over into a ditch. The owner was in a slight panic and I rushed over to see what I could do to help.

It was at just a wrong angle that even when we released its load from around it, it couldn’t wriggle to its feet. We were trying to help it by pushing its back end around so it was more downhill, when it freaked a little, and kicking, made contact with my thigh.

Needless to say it hurt, no broken skin, but the fattiest bruise is probably going to show up. We managed to get the donkey up, and I proceeded limping the last 5 km home.

Just another crazy day in Kenya.

Just A Little KuKu

Herein lies the story of a most peculiar occurrence during one of my opportunities to teach at a women’s group.

We were meeting in the living room of one of the women of the group. Now, in rural Kenya it is rather typical for animals, especially chickens, to come roaming through the house and then leave and nobody usually minds unless the animal is getting into or doing stuff it shouldn’t.

While I am teaching on proper hand-washing technique one such chicken marches into the living room and proceeds to sit between two women who are sitting on the couch. Though this is odd enough, the chicken proceeds to lay an egg. Yes, full on squawking, painful, awkward laying of an egg.

And nobody tries to shoo it out of move it. They just let it proceed with it’s business.

After about five minutes of complete distraction, and me trying to focus on the lesson without busting up laughing, it nonchalantly gets up and walks out the door like nothing ever happened.

Talk about child abandonment…

What Love Sometimes is; A Desire for Deepening Relationships -- Pt. 1

There are many times in my life where a relationship felt incomplete, where I would be left with the question, “Does this person have love for me?” The answer is; of course they do, but perhaps it just deep love being unreturned, the simple fact that my love for them might be greater than their love for me.

This brought me to wonder if this case is true for me. What causes me to have shallow love for others? A few realizations came to mind:

1. Often times love expressed is simply to fill an appetite. We are selfish creatures, only basically concerned with meeting our own needs; hanging out with someone to fulfill a need for entertainment, or doing a favour for someone, knowing they will return it someday. What if I was more concerned with meeting other’s needs? What would my relationships look like then?

2. Sometimes love has to be generated by an atmosphere. In a romantic sense; a rose, candle light, or sweet music. Friendship wise; some sports, good food and drink, or a great movie. Yet as I have hear it said, “Real love loves at all times, at the butt-crack of dawn or at gentle twilight, and whether the odor is Chanel No.5 or ‘Perspiration No. 6.’”

3. Most love becomes disinteresting once acquired. I hate this one the most but I know I’ve done it. Often it is the being or having of the relationship that people desire more than the object of the relationship. The worst is when it this happens in relationships with other people, especially if it comes down to bragging rights. Gaining the relationship is just the commencement; real character is never satisfied at this depth.

4. Often love never knows the degree or availability of depth. What do I mean? It should never be simply “in love or out of love” or love or no love. As one begins to learn how to love a whole world of possibilities and growth opens:

“When someone loves you, the way they way your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

Of Loneliness and Isolation

I still marvel at how simple conversations can impact your outlook and how little comments can connect aspects about your life that you hadn’t made before. This last weekend I got the privilege of having such a conversation this weekend with a fellow volunteer.

It’s content was simple; why do you identify the way that you do and how does that effect your directions and decisions in life. This of course became a mini Nathan’s-life history lesson; from relationships to bad decisions, identity crisis’ to how G-d’s timing has played its role to put me where I am now. Towards the end of the conversation she said nothing but a simple phrase that sent me reeling. “It’s funny how for so much of your life you experienced feeling utterly alone, then you find yourself surrounded by people who love you, and come to discover the levels to which that holds true right at the time when you have made a decision that truly puts you in a place of isolation.”

I’m alone, and it is unbelievably hard, but I want something more. I want to fully grasp what Paul talks about in Phillipians 4 v. 11, and come to see that just maybe isolation can be a gift, especially cause I am never truly alone…

The Road Goes Ever On

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

This has always been one of my favourite little tid-bits from literature. For those of you who are not familiar, this is the song Bilbo Baggins is heard singing as he makes his way from the doorsteps of Bag End, having given up the burden of the One Ring to Frodo, on his way to Rivendell and unknown adventure.

It has always gripped me with a longing for the unknown, and up until this point, has always seemed like pleasant fantasy and honestly just plain good reading. This time however, as I read it I am enamoured by the unexpected similarities of context that I find it has with my life now.

As I have been preparing for the adventure that is to come I have had to be persuaded to leave 'the precious'. To forfeit the people and things that I love in exchange for experiences and stories that I get to live when I move away. Or in another sense I have had to stretch out my hand and let go of a couple things I have held tightly to for so long. Allowing God to take them from me and allow him to deal with the consequences.

So here I stand, on the steps that lead out my door, looking down this great road that has been set before me. I must strive for it with as much effort as I can muster. It is a road that will join with many other people's paths as it goes on to join to some larger way. Where it will lead, I cannot say, but I'm about to find out...

"Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you should wander." Joshua 1 v. 9

The Art of Elimination

People have always stated that I am one of those people who's personality is, how do they put it?, "out of the box". I've always thought this as a curious insight, seeing as I know myself and I don't feel as if I'm all that weird, right?

I've always chalked it up to that fact that I am expressive and that as a personal mantra I feel as though "If God is watching the least we can be is entertaining"... This was of course encouraged and supported with my brief stint with the Improv Club in college and the four main elements to a great performance. But recently I've began to think it was something else. Began to question "Why is there even a 'box'?"

cause I haven't ALWAYS been this way.

In the beginning of elementary school I was a more boisterous child, but eventually found that squashed out of me:

"know-it-all" "loud mouth" "annoying" "girly-man" ...to name a few.

You hear things, you start to believe them. So I became the quiet one, the "eternal brooding grump", as my parents used to say, because while you're going through it, it becomes all you see.

Suffering. Death of family, physical pain, emotional torment, you name it, suffering. Your "box", the frame of reference for which you come to understand and see the world, the ways in which you go about your daily life, become shattered. So you have to figure out a new "box". I've began to see that I did.

I think that is what is so intriguing about the cross; it is a symbol. It is God stepping down and screaming with us. God saying

"I know how you feel."

I now know my answer to the question; "Why Peace Corps?" It's the Art of Elimination. My relationship with Christ compels me to eliminate the unnecessary, the trivial, the superficial. I seek to take off the things that are hindering me: wealth, comfort, easy access to food, etc, so that I can see, and eventually talk about, what matters most. So that I can stand by people who have live a life very different than my own and be able to say, "I know how you feel."

Michaelangelo is quoted saying that his david was "in the stone clamouring to be freed." That is how I feel. There is untapped potential in me, it's an unexplainable feeling, something like not feeling whole. There is real courage, desire, passion, loyalty, and love in there, somewhere, just waiting to get out. And I think it's going to take suffering to get it out...

2 Corinthians 6 v. 4-10