On Saturday, September 27th, we flew east several hundred miles from Kigali, Rwanda, to Nairobi, Kenya. This part of our journey was an add-on, arranged through a fellow SMU student whose parents run a non-profit organization there. What we would see would expand our view of the horrific conditions in which some children live in this world.
Kenya has been a seat of reported violence over the months leading up to this trip. We all knew it was more dangerous than Rwanda, so when we arrived in Kenya, we were on higher alert. We waited at the busy Nairobi airport for a few hours (Africa Time applies in Kenya as well) and our ride showed up. His name was Jackton. Any anxiety we had about the wait at the airport melted away as Jackton swooped us up and began our tour of Kenya, with his gregarious nature and witty one-liners:
“There are some cows, just doing what they do.”
“I’m from the Luo tribe. Obviously, we are the smartest tribe.”
“Kenya is not crazy, it is alive!”
We saw only one part of Kenya, but the part we saw was very different from Rwanda. The most obvious difference was litter. The streets of Rwanda were very clean. The government had invested in infrastructure to keep it so. The streets of Kenya were not. Memories of Iraq surfaced in my mind as we passed through chaotic, disorderly markets and busy highways to our destination. Trash was everywhere.
There are about 42 different tribes in Kenya. The Maasai were the most visible to us on the journey. They are herdsmen. They move their cattle and goats from place to place along the highways, setting up camp in the medians, shoulders, markets, and anywhere else they can find grass until the grass is gone, and then they move on to the next place. They wear blankets around their shoulders and a machete on their belts.
We were in Kenya to visit an organization called Made in the Streets (MITS) founded by a wonderful couple named Charles and Darlene Coulston. After having met them, my idea of ministry has been reset. Made in the Streets is a gritty, bold, incredible organization. But more on Made in the Streets in the next post.
In Rwanda, we stayed in a dormitory-style building. In Kenya, the MITS staff put us up in their guest house. So the seven of us settled into the house a la Big Brother and rested from the trip. I had my own room upstairs, and that night it would be the site of an epic battle.
Kenya has been a seat of reported violence over the months leading up to this trip. We all knew it was more dangerous than Rwanda, so when we arrived in Kenya, we were on higher alert. We waited at the busy Nairobi airport for a few hours (Africa Time applies in Kenya as well) and our ride showed up. His name was Jackton. Any anxiety we had about the wait at the airport melted away as Jackton swooped us up and began our tour of Kenya, with his gregarious nature and witty one-liners:
“There are some cows, just doing what they do.”
“I’m from the Luo tribe. Obviously, we are the smartest tribe.”
“Kenya is not crazy, it is alive!”
We saw only one part of Kenya, but the part we saw was very different from Rwanda. The most obvious difference was litter. The streets of Rwanda were very clean. The government had invested in infrastructure to keep it so. The streets of Kenya were not. Memories of Iraq surfaced in my mind as we passed through chaotic, disorderly markets and busy highways to our destination. Trash was everywhere.
There are about 42 different tribes in Kenya. The Maasai were the most visible to us on the journey. They are herdsmen. They move their cattle and goats from place to place along the highways, setting up camp in the medians, shoulders, markets, and anywhere else they can find grass until the grass is gone, and then they move on to the next place. They wear blankets around their shoulders and a machete on their belts.
We were in Kenya to visit an organization called Made in the Streets (MITS) founded by a wonderful couple named Charles and Darlene Coulston. After having met them, my idea of ministry has been reset. Made in the Streets is a gritty, bold, incredible organization. But more on Made in the Streets in the next post.
In Rwanda, we stayed in a dormitory-style building. In Kenya, the MITS staff put us up in their guest house. So the seven of us settled into the house a la Big Brother and rested from the trip. I had my own room upstairs, and that night it would be the site of an epic battle.
HANNIBAL AT THE GATES
My bed was draped in a mosquito net. When I lay down at around midnight to fall asleep, I had full faith in my sanctuary.
But I had a martyr in my bed that night. It started just as I closed my eyes, drifting off to dreamyland. I heard the telltale whining sound. Not like a fly buzz. Higher pitched. She was inside my net. She was willing to die for her cause, and I was committed to ending her miserable little life. And so it began.
For her first attack, she circled me like a drone and did a kamikaze dive onto my face. I jumped a foot off the bed, levitated there for three seconds, every muscle tense, and slapped my hands together where I knew she must be. I was so certain I had killed her that I rolled over and smiled. And then the second attack came. She held a circular pattern just above my ear, and the whine of her wings now had an antagonistic, almost cocky, quality to it. Over and over she dove and attacked, and I swatted and parried. Over and over.
I was an hour into it. My next decision: should I get out of bed to turn on the light and level the playing field? So far, I was going off my wolflike hearing and catlike reflexes, and she was kicking my ass. I took inventory of my advantages over her: I had opposable thumbs, a (somewhat) developed frontal lobe, an education on the art of war from an esteemed military institution, combat experience, and a flood of adrenaline streaming through my veins. It was time to up the ante. It was time to even the playing field. The lights went on.
The battle moved from my face to the net. On seven different occasions, I saw her land on the inside of the net, and on seven occasions, I swatted, clapped, and clawed at her desperately, and on seven occasions, I missed. It was like she was teleporting herself to another location just as my hand would arrive. She would just disappear. I could hear her laughing at me.
The next hour and a half that bitch would disappear for excruciatingly long periods. She forced me numerous times to reevaluate the state of the battle during periods of prolonged peace. Had I won? Was she dead? Or had she just given up? And time after time, just as I would decide to turn out the light and claim victory, the answer came back in the form of her whining wings.
I began to call her Hannibal, because of her obvious similarities to both the brilliant tactician that plagued Ancient Rome, and to the man-eating psychopath from Silence of the Lambs. And then my next move came to me. Synapses started firing. Hannibal…Rome…a quote from the movie Gladiator. I remembered conspirators whispering about the snake that would lie perfectly still while his enemy nibbled at him, and when his foe thought him dead, the snake would strike. And I remembered how Clarice had been used as bait to lure Hannibal the Cannibal into the manhunt for the killer. I knew what I must do. Give ground to take ground. Bait and switch. Ambush. Malaria was now an acceptable outcome if only I could squash her.
I lay perfectly still. My heart beat in my ears. I was sweating and trembling with anticipation. And then….whhhhiiiiiiiinnnnnneeeeee.
She landed on my neck, on my right side. Perfect. My throwing hand side. My free throw shooting side. I waited. I could sense her hesitation. I could hear her playing through the scenarios in her mind, “Is this idiot trying to trick me? Is he really giving up? I just can’t help myself…his blood is so sweet…just one little taste and then I’ll use my magical teleportation device to the other side of the universe. Just one little taste.”
I thought of the movie Ghost, where the experienced ghost on the train is trying to teach Patrick Swayze how to move things. "You take all your emotions! All your anger, all your love, all your hate! And push it way down here into the pit of your stomach! And then let it explode, like a reactor! Pow!" I could hear that sound from the movie...that scratchy, burning sound that would build just before Swayze reached out to move something. Every muscle tensed.
I slapped my neck in the jugular so hard that I immediately lost consciousness. I woke up dizzy with ringing ears. What had happened? Where am I?
I looked down at her little tangled black body flattened on the palm of my hand, splattered in a pool of my blood, and I let out a war cry (in my head, so as not to wake the others in the house) the likes of which would have stopped either of the mighty Hannibals dead in their tracks.
3:15 a.m.
Victory.
My bed was draped in a mosquito net. When I lay down at around midnight to fall asleep, I had full faith in my sanctuary.
But I had a martyr in my bed that night. It started just as I closed my eyes, drifting off to dreamyland. I heard the telltale whining sound. Not like a fly buzz. Higher pitched. She was inside my net. She was willing to die for her cause, and I was committed to ending her miserable little life. And so it began.
For her first attack, she circled me like a drone and did a kamikaze dive onto my face. I jumped a foot off the bed, levitated there for three seconds, every muscle tense, and slapped my hands together where I knew she must be. I was so certain I had killed her that I rolled over and smiled. And then the second attack came. She held a circular pattern just above my ear, and the whine of her wings now had an antagonistic, almost cocky, quality to it. Over and over she dove and attacked, and I swatted and parried. Over and over.
I was an hour into it. My next decision: should I get out of bed to turn on the light and level the playing field? So far, I was going off my wolflike hearing and catlike reflexes, and she was kicking my ass. I took inventory of my advantages over her: I had opposable thumbs, a (somewhat) developed frontal lobe, an education on the art of war from an esteemed military institution, combat experience, and a flood of adrenaline streaming through my veins. It was time to up the ante. It was time to even the playing field. The lights went on.
The battle moved from my face to the net. On seven different occasions, I saw her land on the inside of the net, and on seven occasions, I swatted, clapped, and clawed at her desperately, and on seven occasions, I missed. It was like she was teleporting herself to another location just as my hand would arrive. She would just disappear. I could hear her laughing at me.
The next hour and a half that bitch would disappear for excruciatingly long periods. She forced me numerous times to reevaluate the state of the battle during periods of prolonged peace. Had I won? Was she dead? Or had she just given up? And time after time, just as I would decide to turn out the light and claim victory, the answer came back in the form of her whining wings.
I began to call her Hannibal, because of her obvious similarities to both the brilliant tactician that plagued Ancient Rome, and to the man-eating psychopath from Silence of the Lambs. And then my next move came to me. Synapses started firing. Hannibal…Rome…a quote from the movie Gladiator. I remembered conspirators whispering about the snake that would lie perfectly still while his enemy nibbled at him, and when his foe thought him dead, the snake would strike. And I remembered how Clarice had been used as bait to lure Hannibal the Cannibal into the manhunt for the killer. I knew what I must do. Give ground to take ground. Bait and switch. Ambush. Malaria was now an acceptable outcome if only I could squash her.
I lay perfectly still. My heart beat in my ears. I was sweating and trembling with anticipation. And then….whhhhiiiiiiiinnnnnneeeeee.
She landed on my neck, on my right side. Perfect. My throwing hand side. My free throw shooting side. I waited. I could sense her hesitation. I could hear her playing through the scenarios in her mind, “Is this idiot trying to trick me? Is he really giving up? I just can’t help myself…his blood is so sweet…just one little taste and then I’ll use my magical teleportation device to the other side of the universe. Just one little taste.”
I thought of the movie Ghost, where the experienced ghost on the train is trying to teach Patrick Swayze how to move things. "You take all your emotions! All your anger, all your love, all your hate! And push it way down here into the pit of your stomach! And then let it explode, like a reactor! Pow!" I could hear that sound from the movie...that scratchy, burning sound that would build just before Swayze reached out to move something. Every muscle tensed.
I slapped my neck in the jugular so hard that I immediately lost consciousness. I woke up dizzy with ringing ears. What had happened? Where am I?
I looked down at her little tangled black body flattened on the palm of my hand, splattered in a pool of my blood, and I let out a war cry (in my head, so as not to wake the others in the house) the likes of which would have stopped either of the mighty Hannibals dead in their tracks.
3:15 a.m.
Victory.
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