My neighborhood

This evening after work I took a walk & much to my surprise, it was a peaceful and serene event. The neighbors are getting used to me now. The ladies across the road from Medair seem more cordial, especially after I gave one of them a ride to the hospital a few weeks ago when she was too ill to walk. They wave & greet me, I smile & greet back. The children come running to shake my hand or just yell at the top of their lungs from wherever they are, “Mzungu!” and “Byebye”. Again, I smile & wave. I met one man along the way that does some work with Medair and found out he lives just around the corner from us. He asked where I was headed & my answer is typical to the culture here, “just to that rock there, on that side” as I point to my destination in the distance. Then I head on, with a few little ones probably no older than 2 years in tow as they can’t seem to unglue themselves from my hands. A bit further & they are called back home by someone. So I continue on my own, marveling at the beauty of Kaabong – boulders and rocks sprouting out of the earth randomly, huge cactus-trees, and an amazing sunset towards the west against the silhouette of many more mountains and rocks. I greet a friend, Christine, who helps us with some washing and cleaning a few days a week at our base – its good to see some familiar faces while I’m out and about. Another few minutes and I hear this distant shouting, “sister, how are you?” and two teenagers emerge from some gardens about 100meters away. “Where are you going?” they ask in really good English. I tell them I am walking to the rocks there & point that direction as I continue to walk – they say they will come too. So I tell them I will walk a bit slower, but they will need to walk a bit faster to catch up with me! They quicken their pace & in a few minutes we walk on together. Greeting them I find out they are sisters, Margaret & Joyce – 14 & 15 years respectively. They are in P6 class at the Pajar primary school just down the road from Medair. They have just come from their garden & were headed home. I ask them a bit more about themselves, but they seem content to just walk & not talk much – so we walk on in silence for about 20 minutes. Its nice to not be alone. Even nicer – when we turned around & came back to where they joined me to begin with, they said goodnight and headed home. That was it. Why is that so nice? Because almost every single person I meet here asks me for something. They want 100shillings or food or my shirt or my bag or my shoes…and they usually don’t just ask, they beg and demand. A normal phrase here is “You give me ….” Fill in the blank! Even the little ones who know just a bit of English can spit out “HowareyouI’mfinegivemeonehundred”. It’s exhausting…and I feel like a resource not a person. Yeah, so I was really grateful to take a quiet walk with some kind girls who wanted nothing from me – they walked away without a word other than goodnight. On my way back at the house of the man I mentioned earlier a crowd was gathering & some girls had some long vine-like branches tied together to make a jumprope. They had stopped for the moment, but when I showed interest they got very excited and wanted to show off their skills, so I stayed for a bit & then jumped in for a few rounds. The ladies thought it was the greatest thing – and still, no requests of me. I just got to be me and enjoy the company of the people here.

That was my evening walk, wish you could have been there too!