This is a view of the land facing the Athi River, where I walk very often. The two flat topped trees in the distance are acacia trees. The giraffes love them.

Wednesday, February 1

You know how packaging can drive you crazy. Open a bag of potato chips (if you’re Hercules) and it looks like someone beat you to it and ate about two-thirds of what should be there. It’s not like that with Aquamist bottled water. It’s only now, with about two weeks practice under my belt that I can open a bottle without spilling some. The half-liter bottle is filled to the very brim. To the very brim. The pressure of my hand holding it would cause it to overflow a little, no matter how careful I was. Only now can I just manage a dry opening. Its a case of a little too much of a good thing.

Mostly there is too little water. Everything is dry, so the Masai are seeking any grazing they can find for their cattle, including the median between the opposing lanes of traffic on the Nairobi/Mombasa Road. It’s a divided four lane road for only a few miles outside of Nairobi before it reduces to one lane each way and becomes the asphalt stage for the world’s longest running game of “chicken.” Everything draws to an impatient halt when the cattle cross, the Masai tapping them with their sticks. Trucks,matatus, busses, cars and motorcycles temporarily under the red flag.

That part of the road is relatively smooth, and the cracks, which follow their own wandering, ice crystal logic, and , I guess are slated for repair, are often outlined on both sides in white or pale orange spray paint. The result is very long, very thin figures on the road that look like the hauntingly beautiful pictographs found in Australian or Southwestern American caves, or else the crime scene of a vehicular massacre of alien beings who may have come in peace, but they made the mistake of trying to cross the Nairobi/Mombasa road and weren’t Masai cattle.

Thursday, February 2

I was walking with Wilson down the same dirt road where Daniel and I saw the giraffes. When we saw them I handed Wilson the binoculars and he had the exact same response as Daniel. Wilson is nineteen, very bright, and trying to find a way to study medicine at University. In the meantime he is husbanding the one acre plot by hand to “earn his daily bread” as he put it.

He was flabbergasted and delighted at seeing things so far off seemingly so near at hand. I started thinking about this. It seems to me their wonder isn’t just at using a new seeing device, but that the relationship between time and distance is still intact for them.

A couple of weeks ago, I boarded an airplane in San Francisco. Whatever the plane was doing, I was just sitting, sleeping and reading Rolling Stone magazine–a flying ritual for me, the only time I read it– and , a few bad meals and a couple of otherwise unwatchable movies later, and I am in Nairobi. I don’t know, nine or ten thousand miles away. This has a way of corrupting the concept of distance for me. Let alone the whole, “One small step for mankind…” thing, or bouncing equipment-filled beach balls around on the Red Planet.

Daniel and Wilson and most of the rest of the world have still earned all the distance they have covered, most of it on foot, getting from one place to another. So when those far off things are brought right before their eyes its no wonder it seems like a miracle, an abrogation. In a poem by William Everson in The Residual Years, called “San Joaquin”, he is describing the beauty of the Central Valley and how it is almost always overlooked, unappreciated, because its nature is, I think the phrase he uses is, “neither freaked or amazing” (Chris, can you help me here). That it seems to me is what is happening here. The nature of time and distance is still manageable for Wison and Daniel, because it hasn’t been “freaked” by jet travel or Carl Sagan.

Friday, February 3

I watched the first television I’ve seen since I left California. Parts of two qualifying matches for the African Nations Cup soccer. I was watching with a group of CARE workers who have been here for several days from Somalia and had been teasing me about working all the time. Many of them live in Mogadishu, which with the continuing tension and unrest is no picnic. I saw the first half of the Senegal vs. Guinea match. Senegal came from behind to win I found out, and the second half of the Egypt vs. Democratic Republic of Congo. Egypt, whose goalkeeper looks exactly like Ray liotta in “Good Fellas,” won in a rout.

The work is going well, at this point mostly meetings and introductions and lots of behind the scenes stuff and setting up shop. I am meeting Wednesday with Mary Mshana who has been running a program for girls successfully for a long time. I am very encouraged with the progress and amazed at the difficulty. Keep the project in your prayers if you pray, please.

I’m also interested to know what you are reading these days. I’m about half way through a biography of George Washington called His Excellency, by Ellis. I’ve been on a little historical biography kick lately. I notice in viewing the published entry that none of the proper underlining or italisizing of titles comes out. I’m not sure why.

I think your shyness is wearing off and the number of comments is increasing. It’s kind of like asking a girl to dance in Junior High. It’s a little nervous, but it has its rewards.

Go on and do it.

David

Posted on February 3rd, 2006 by david
Filed under: David's Journal