That I couldn't leave... means something
I said I was ending this blog. I was wrong. I haven't had this hard of a time sleeping in like... 3 weeks. That's probably the longest stretch of good sleep I've had since I decided to quit taking my malaria prophylaxis a couple months before I got kicked out of Kenya.
I thought it might help to listen to Teach Yourself Swahili clips on my iPod. For a few chapters I listened carefully, saying the answers before the recording could, impatient with the pace of the introductory lesson. Then something caught me off guard and scared me. I couldn't say 'sijambo,' a basic greeting, before the man in my ears did.
In my head I was guided through first-meetings, buying fruit in the market, and ordering at hotelis. I listened and my interest waned. As the lessons faded away, Kenyans started conversing around me. I lay in bed, warm and surrendered, when the first swell of homesickness came, bringing the lobby of the Malindi guest house where Susan and I stayed for two lazy days. The feeling of December-summer-sea-air glazing my skin pushed against me leisurely, teasing time with expanding glimpses of lightweight clothes and plastic tablecloths. It crested with the sound of flip flops shuffling over cement floor, a television set buzzing in the corner, my chuckle, her smile. Lastly it broke in a foam of broken still-frames: her hair in the breeze, a gloomy sky, dark tan sand on a season-muddied beach, the streets of Mombasa, the pillars in the lobby, the bar where we met the other volunteers and waited for the fireworks to start. That New Year, when I couldn't believe where I was.
Again and again came these waves carrying pieces of what I left behind.
The courtyard of my house: Betty laughing, Chepkoech hula-hooping with an old bicycle tire, the girls singing and dancing, Kiptoo's glaring white smile.
Cozy dim-lit hotelis: the satisfaction of 5-carb meals, the smell of frying dough and potatoes, the give of plastic chairs.
Walks that took me: squinting away a cool white-lit sun, rolling mountains gridded in shades of green, dust clouds hung desperately and faithfully around my feet.
And then: warm rhythmic water, warm sand against my back, warm air against my face. My eyes are closed and I am being toasted in an envelope of Earth's smiling yawn.
For a long time after I came back, I didn't really believe my butterflies would come back. Know what I'm talking about? The ones that live in your stomach? Those ones.
Yes?
Mine have been coming back slowly. I'm reluctant to give them too much flying room. On their wings are memories that stop my throat and sting my eyes. But they are trying to tell me -- begging to show me -- a bit about the things I've already forgotten.
I thought it might help to listen to Teach Yourself Swahili clips on my iPod. For a few chapters I listened carefully, saying the answers before the recording could, impatient with the pace of the introductory lesson. Then something caught me off guard and scared me. I couldn't say 'sijambo,' a basic greeting, before the man in my ears did.
In my head I was guided through first-meetings, buying fruit in the market, and ordering at hotelis. I listened and my interest waned. As the lessons faded away, Kenyans started conversing around me. I lay in bed, warm and surrendered, when the first swell of homesickness came, bringing the lobby of the Malindi guest house where Susan and I stayed for two lazy days. The feeling of December-summer-sea-air glazing my skin pushed against me leisurely, teasing time with expanding glimpses of lightweight clothes and plastic tablecloths. It crested with the sound of flip flops shuffling over cement floor, a television set buzzing in the corner, my chuckle, her smile. Lastly it broke in a foam of broken still-frames: her hair in the breeze, a gloomy sky, dark tan sand on a season-muddied beach, the streets of Mombasa, the pillars in the lobby, the bar where we met the other volunteers and waited for the fireworks to start. That New Year, when I couldn't believe where I was.
Again and again came these waves carrying pieces of what I left behind.
The courtyard of my house: Betty laughing, Chepkoech hula-hooping with an old bicycle tire, the girls singing and dancing, Kiptoo's glaring white smile.
Cozy dim-lit hotelis: the satisfaction of 5-carb meals, the smell of frying dough and potatoes, the give of plastic chairs.
Walks that took me: squinting away a cool white-lit sun, rolling mountains gridded in shades of green, dust clouds hung desperately and faithfully around my feet.
And then: warm rhythmic water, warm sand against my back, warm air against my face. My eyes are closed and I am being toasted in an envelope of Earth's smiling yawn.
For a long time after I came back, I didn't really believe my butterflies would come back. Know what I'm talking about? The ones that live in your stomach? Those ones.
Yes?
Mine have been coming back slowly. I'm reluctant to give them too much flying room. On their wings are memories that stop my throat and sting my eyes. But they are trying to tell me -- begging to show me -- a bit about the things I've already forgotten.
posted by Anonymous at
3:30 AM
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