More often than not, I find myself telling people that I’m “going home” for lunch, or “I’ll be home” around this time, or “I’m waiting for my sister,” and know that by “home” I mean Peter and Monicah’s house or by “sister” I mean Serphine or Linette. These things so naturally became part of my vocabulary that I am surprised by questions like, “If your sisters are black, how come you’re not?” Or “If you’re from America, how will you go home and come back so fast?” I’ve only gotten questions like this more recently from the kids I teach. I just laugh and apologize for my familiarity, explaining that my real home is in America, but my home right now is only five minutes away, tucked behind a little blue gate. I also have come up with, “Sisters can be all sorts of colors, mine just happen to be black because our mamas forgot to color coordinate,” as an answer to the other question (even though I do end up explaining that they’re not my real sisters and are just part of my host family).
It’s funny, though, how the words “home” and “family” and “my friends” happen so naturally when you start to settle into a place. I’ve realized that these words can all be very relative, and not just in describing a host family. Familial ties in Africa are such an intricate and huge part of culture that I’ve heard Monicah and Peter refer to probably about 10 different people who are their “sons and daughters,” none of whom are biological. Serphine refers to Peter as “daddy” and we all call Monicah’s 92-year-old father Babu (who lives with us), well, Babu, meaning grandfather in Kiswahili. I don’t even know Babu’s real name! Then there’s this whole other network of people who’ve come and gathered around me throughout the time I’ve been here, and they’re just so relational. At least one person stops by every day just to say hello and chat for a while, and for about the first week I was shocked when they’d show up and say it was just to see me because they missed me! I always thought making friends was one of those long, slow processes of getting to know someone, but here I’ve been embraced with so much love I stopped expecting people to be hard to befriend and just opened up and started considering people friends after a first meeting. That’s how I learned the phrase, “Niko na-rafiki wenge,” meaning “I have many friends,” and find myself joyfully saying it as I walk home with my arms around about 5 children at once, or in the company of some of the HEKO ladies who stop by to see me.
Being around so many people who truly have taught me what it means to have “spirit” is one of the most rewarding parts of waking up every morning. I get to hop out of bed each morning and do life with so many different kinds of people. I have breakfast with my family, waiting to pour my tea until at least a few of them have gathered around the table to join me. I go to school and teach and then take tea again with the staff, sitting in a tiny office, sipping on what’s most definitely just a boiled version of the local water everyone told me not to drink (whoops.. I couldn’t say no, and I turned out fine so I guess it’s okay) with some sort of “tea,” that really just tastes like sugared water, with plain slices of bread as the accompanying snack. I go back and teach again until lunch time and am then met by one of my sisters to walk home for lunch and am given two hours to be at home laughing and talking with them, eating traditional Kenyan food with our hands and teasing Babu.
I go back to school around 2:30 in the afternoon, teach English, work with kids on how to write in cursive, and then, joy of all my joys, go outside with them and am absolutely mobbed with love. I have my hair done by the “saloonists,” which basically consists of about five people each taking a piece of my hair to braid. They all marvel aloud at “how soft!” my hair is and how “different mzungu hair is.” I teach them call and repeat songs I learned at camp, and usually have at least 4 people in front of me who still remember the “stick of bamboo” song (which I also learned at camp and sounds beautiful sung by little children) I taught them on my first day. So when anyone says, “Let’s sing!” They just break right into it, looking proudly at me for approval. I love it every time. We play toss with a ball made out of dirt wrapped inside a plastic bag. We play little Sally Walker (yes, I taught them the American summer camp classic) and “I want,” their version of that game. Then, finally, when we’re all worn out and their moms are probably starting to wonder where they are, we do lots of hugs goodbye and all walk home arm in arm (or in most cases, with about 2-4 kids clinging to my arms on either side).
I go home, spend even more quality time with my sisters, and brush up on my cooking skills for traditional Kenyan food. Visitors come by and they share their latest news, their day’s joys and frustrations, and a little piece of themselves, and then they go, leaving me feeling loved as ever. Everyone comes home and we eat together, and then the rest of the evening we just sit around talking and eating pretty much until your pants feel tight. “Be satisfied,” they tell me, but I doubt they know that whether or not they can convince me to eat another helping, I already am.
Each day here has struggles of its own and precious moments of pure happiness and pleasure just the same. No day is exactly like another, but I’ve been consistently reminded that each is sufficient, as it should be. It’s weird to think that I’ll be leaving my “home” in a few days to go back to my more permanent home, but everyone’s already asking, “And when do you return?” At first when people asked “when I return,” I assumed they meant to the states and would tell them what day I was set to land. After a while I realized they meant, “When do you return home?” Home as in here. I don’t know yet when I’ll be able to come back to Kenya, but I do know I’ll be back, and that when I do I’ll have lots of “rafiki” (friends) and family to come home to. God is so good.
The Transition Artist 