Thursday, 29 October 2015

And Then...

.... I drank local medicine meant to cure all manner of maladies out of an ancient gin bottle.

.... I saw a bus driver pull over to the side of the road, open the cargo hold and forcibly remove a very startled looking goat.

.... Our car overheated at the top of the mountain and I volunteered to go with the local men to find water to put in the radiator, even though I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t about to be married off to a Maasai warrior.

.... We found a mouse in the toaster.

.... A motorcycle drove past us on the highway, the passenger on the back sitting sidesaddle, calmly reading a newspaper.

.... A lizard fell on my head when I was closing the curtains.

.... As I sat in the District Commissioner's office I saw two men side by side – one wearing a traditional Maasai shuka, the other wearing a silk Armani suit.

.... They named me Mama Mchungaji, “the pastor’s wife”.

.... A goat chased me in circles around a bush while the local children screamed with laughter.

.... Tizo asked if we could stop the car so he could tie a donkey that had been half eaten by wild dogs onto the roof.

.... And then I ate too much and made a lot of new friends and had a thousand hugs from dozens of children and I played a game made up by six year old Dorry which involved a handful of pebbles and nothing else. And I held my sweet friend’s newborn baby and watched as he opened his eyes and looked at the new world around him for the first time.

.... And then I laughed until I cried and my stomach ached and my cheeks hurt and then little Millen called me “mama mdogo” (my young aunt) and I felt my heart constrict and then open even further.

.... And then I realised that my life is crazy and busy and I love it and that God is so good and I am so blessed and I wouldn’t change any of this. Not for anything. Not for the world.

xoxo,
-Hannah

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