Thursday, February 16

Today nine or ten thousand miles might be just about the right distance to want to be away from me. I have passed a good deal of the day furious. And tomorrow I will go to the airport to do battle with customs agents over their position that I should pay about $1500.00 import tax, duty, declaration tax, filing fee to pay the declaration tax–and so on. That is probably more than twice the value of the ancient computer tower that they are holding there that has some specialized hardware in it to run a light that has been a big part of my regimen of staying healthy and keeping the internal bad guys at bay. I have been without it longer than I’d like already, due to shipping, etc. and now it is near but being held for an outrageous ransom.

See what I mean about the distance. Today I’ve probably been closer to creating a few more orphans (by ringing some adult necks) than I have to working toward building a home for them. In between hollering at the weaver sparrows outside to pipe down so I could hear yet more unbelievable stuff on my barely audible cell phone, and being transferred from Pricilla to Chastity–again, I did have some moments of lucidity. Really short ones most of the time.

About 5:30 I took a walk down the dirt track I’ve shown you a picture of, toward Athi River. It was more a stomp than a walk at first. Then I saw a few hedgehog burrows with plastic wrappers dragged down in them and that sort of lightened my footfall a little. Then I found a pretty white quartz rock. Then a Masai herdsman from far off raised his hand in greeting to me.

Back home I turned to music. The London Years,Vol. 3. Rolling Stones. Street Fightin’ Man, Brown Sugar, Sympathy for the You Know Who. Then the Jesus and Mary Chain, and I thought my student Rosie who gave me their music and wondered where her sweet, complicated path had taken her. Some live cuts from Marvin Gaye, very full of himself, but still helped with the healing. Oliver Mtukudzi, Tuku Music, finally danced me to the position that I should continue to obey the Fifth Commandment.

In a classic case of nature mirroring human psychic activity, a large fire swept through a quarter of a mile or so to the south. Huge wind whipped dark orange flames and light grey smoke. One person was injured, I don’t know how badly. We were on “high alert” here–I found out later.

I was able to let go a little bit the wasp’s nest of this day, the lawyer delays, the title questions, the customs situation, and pray for some peace. Baby stepping today.

I’m going to include some more pictures of the little heart bandits from Kibera, just to help remind me, and you, what in the world I’m doing here.

The names of the kids in the pictures are: Jack, Sylvester, Fiona, Baleigh, Evans, Eric, Braden. You can put them where you want.

Posted on February 16th, 2006 by david
Filed under: David's Journal