Imagine a sleek car, cornering a patch of asphalt in some place more beautiful than where you live. It glistens as your perspective pans and tilts with fluid motions, virtually caressing the vehicle through its circuit. The driver grips the leather bound steering wheel, and cracks a half-smile. He shouldn’t be having this much fun [...]
This is what they call reverse-culture shock. Take a bush pilot from the barren expanse of southern Sudan and drive him into New York City. I pressed my face against a cold window in my uncle’s mini-van. Stretching my eyes upward, I watched the massive girders and cables of the George Washington Bridge stream by [...]
I woke up on the wrong side of the ocean today. I could tell, in part, by the chill in the morning air of this old house in New Jersey. In part, because there’s a glorious box of Captain Crunch on the kitchen table. Our plane landed on Saturday, after a long push over the [...]
I’ve been here before. Disheartened at this very picture. The calculations say it will be fine. My heart says, “whoa!” You can only account for so much with a cardboard slide-rule from the bottom of your flight bag.
Update on Kenya: “A Kenya Redrawn” – NYT article We will soon have the luxury of packing our suitcases. Renee and I are preparing to head home for an early furlough. I’ve booked tickets for March 7th, and we’ll arrive in New Jersey the next day. And so, we are packing up a bit, which [...]
“I was a very bad man,” Timothy says as we rocket along in a rattling old mini van, a matatu, heading straight for Kibera. “I was a fighter,” he continues. “The man you see before you would be dead if not for Jesus.” He bows his head and invites me to feel a divot on [...]
IDP. Another acronym you learn in Africa. Internally Displaced Peoples are, by definition, refugees in their homeland. Presumably a little more fortunate than a flat-out refugee. A little less fortunate than a homeless kid on the streets of Nairobi. An IDP camp is a safe haven. An in-between. It’s food and shelter. A caring person [...]