We’re almost done!!! Here are a few screenshots from today:

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Like a winding river wrapping through dense jungle with all it’s subsidiaries, creeks and brooks stemming from it along the way, the washed out mountain roads of dirt and rock here in our village, break into smaller trails of daily swept orange dirt that lead to the simple homes of simple people.  Built on the foundations of over a thousand years tradition and local unearthed rock, the walls of many are not more than wet and dried and hardened soil smashed as an almost ancient mortar between a web of skinny, disjointed sticks.  Within these walls dwells the workhorse of a continent and the beating hearts of babus and bebes, babas and mamas, dadas and kakas, all whose daily routine revolve around a lifestyle of manual labor necessary for survival.  As an American walking on distant and foreign soil, I naturally first see the decay and weathered holes of exposed wood in these walls.  I see coca-cola bottle caps pressed into the mud.  I see the passed off, old shirts and pants that do not qualify as American rags in our thrift stores as the cherished drapes that block the harsh sun from the inner chambers of these homes.  Three weeks immersed and I have been granted vision to see past the American garbage that stuffs these home made walls.

 

I do not see walls of primitive construction in desperate need of repair by the savior concrete of the western world that were the images my American eyes initially betrayed me with.  I see walls that are weathered and cracked but I now see that these walls are as warm and strong as the dark black African hands that fabricated them from the earth. Warmth and beauty grow here, as tall and mighty as the baobab or the acacia trees.   Pride and nationalism resonate from the voices that greet each other on the streets here.  Although curious and ignorant, the eyes of youth submit with respect.  There is sincerity in the welcome of an elder, cordially declaring that you are their grandchild.  There is love for family here and love for God.  This is a spiritual land with spiritual citizens.  It is these ingredients that comprise the walls of every humble home here and that is why they stand today and will continue to tomorrow.          

 

Africa is not without problems as the rest of the world is not either.  Africa is not helpless, however because Africans are not helpless.  May we never solicit a perception of this place as one in need of a messiah from the West to others, or subscribe to the typical American stereotypes of a poor and wretched African culture that are advertised and sold to us daily.  May we see both sides of the schilling and open our eyes to pain paired with happiness and long suffering married to the profound and redemptive strength that saturates the air here.  Africa strong and Africa bold, this is the Africa I have come to know.   

      

With my schedule allowing little room to breathe, exhaling was not even an option before I departed on my journey here to Africa.  All the anticipation and excitement of a new adventure remained suppressed and tightly bottled inside as I traveled despite all conscious efforts up to that point to unwind and simply let go.  My mind sifted through thick stacks of personal worries and the weighty thoughts of disappointment in unfinished business of my own agenda as the engines grew louder and we began speeding down the runway.  On a lengthy recovery from an ordinary cold that proved to be more annoying than infectious, I quickly set four colored and glossy pills of generic sinus medication onto my tongue, sipped from my complimentary orange juice, swallowed hard and prayed my anxiety would grow as distant as the continent I was leaving behind.

To my satisfaction, I woke to a dry but crusted nose, another complimentary orange juice and a certain weightlessness that is only granted in that strange sort of post-stress moment when you realize for every mile you have traveled at 30,000 feet you have grown farther from the place you were so recently held hostage by your own situation and are another step closer to your destination.  Arriving early enough in Nairobi to make my first breathes of fresh non-re-circulated  air crisp and brisk, the fact that I had just traveled half way across the world to film a movie that could potentially affect the way thousands live everyday was a sobering reality that quickly made residence in the foreground of my mental landscape.

The terminals and the escalators, the moving sidewalks and the duty free’s and the foreign accents and unfamiliar buses all blur together in a sort of surreal, spinning carousel ride played in fast forward with only brief moments of real time that seem like they actually play in a distorted slower than life sort of motion.  To highlight one of these moments that stand in my memory outside of time and space, I recall a conversation I had with a man I sat next to on the bus ride from Nairobi to Arusha.

As we boarded the bus, the open seats all in a row in the back looked most appealing but the solo traveler right in front of us poached one to my dismay and left me, last to board among the team, searching for another seat elsewhere.  As divine intervention would have it, the only open seat was in the middle of the bus in the aisle, a few distant rows from the only people I could adequately communicate with.  Feeling isolated and alone, I took my seat with my briefcase at my feet and my camera backpack on my lap, too exhausted to care about any of it.  Not having closed my eyes but a minute, the Tanzanian next to me spoke up in a soft and cordial greeting.

Maxwell was born and raised in Tanzania but educated in Oxford so his English made for a wonderfully familiar but uniquely different experience all in one.  We talked about politics in America, politics in Tanzania, politics in Kenya and then how he likes to eat Snickers bars.  Feeling educated but bored with the conversation, I was still intrigued by this man next me smacking on an intensely potent menthol chewing gum and began to then rack his brain of every Africa question I could think of that I would want answered by a true local.  He was joyous to answer and as I was to listen and somewhere in the middle of all of it we found ourselves sharing war stories of a similar kind.  Disregarding the typical wisdom of his parents, Maxwell left the potential of a well paying job in the city to pursue the calling of his heart in charity and ministry.  His tales of journey, self-realization, mistake, ignorance, trial, blessing and sacrifice echoed through the expanse of my thoughts that day as an unannounced and unexpected voice of encouragement and affirmation, officially marking my welcome to Africa.

Upon arriving it was time for more farewells and good lucks, handshakes and hugs.  It was at this point that we boarded another bus from Arusha to Moshi and my fatigue of travel and feeling ill caught up with me all at once, sending me into a deep and peaceful sleep despite the frequent potholes and speed bumps of the two lane poorly paved highway.

Waking again, still half asleep and really just trying not get lost, I followed Megan and the team walking around Moshi to our first contact, who would store our bags for us for the day in his Safari Tour office.  Amazed at the immediate friendliness of the locals on the street, I found myself in multiple conversations surrounded by comedic Tanzanians speaking a jumbled English Swahili, all wanting to find out about me and my stay in Africa.  Skeptical of their true intentions, it became obvious after a few minutes of conversation that I was a walking dollar sign and assumed to be a European doctor.  This meant that I must want to go on a safari here in Africa and that no one could possibly give me a better deal than they could.  Unknown to me then, this would be a foreshadowing of how we would be perceived in our village as well as an interesting statement on how European and American cultures have previously interacted with those of Africa.

More to come…I can’t think straight to write anymore today and you probably can’t read anymore either.
Here’s the rest of the random quickies from the last few days…

Here are a bunch of little Oska’s photos that he took on my camera too…He’s a natural.