Mosquito Nets Are From Heaven

“This work requires a big heart and shock absorbers.”

- Beatrice

We met the printer:
Here is the template.
Here is the text.
Can you make me a protocol?

I met a guru named Tito
He’s a Brazilian photographer
But even cooler than that

We talked for 2 hours in the only proper coffee shop on the island

Yeah dude –
Totally

The Plane flew a sine curve
Kisumu, Eldorat, Nairobi, Milinidi, Manda

We learned that biscuits taste like pie crust, and tea
Costs ten times more in an airport than in a
Tea stand by the clinic

This place – Lamu – is a world heritage site
Maintaining balance between decrepit
And… not beautiful, but something like it

The wooden doors having carvings as intricate as any mosaic I’ve ever seen

My friend told me ancient Islamic art has patterns like that
Because it was blasphemous to portray living things
So they needed to express the world through abstract images.
Sometimes a rogue artist hid the image of
A bird or a woman
In the tiles. Top secret

Wooden doors = hidden art =repression = prayer.

Was Arabic first written in the sand?

Walls here are made from coral.
I want palm trees in Brooklyn

Our first night: We took a tour (first mistake)
“This mosque from 1320. this stone where soldiers sharpened their swords”
And so on.

On our own we
Found the only place to buy wine on the island. It is next to a graveyard
Where a tree grows like a god would if graveyards had gods.

When it rained we ran into a restaurant.
An Israeli woman made me jealous because she had interesting things to say to strangers. Because she spoke at least 3 languages.
We ate fish and shared a coconut milkshake.
The night ended on a roof, full moon, wine, and a candy bar

I have been thinking about how life is at the opposite side –
25 years left, rather than 25 years lived.
Will it be easy to look forward, when there is more past than future?

An Israeli woman might still make me jealous.
Artists might hide birds and women in their calligraphy.
And graveyard gods could lead me to wine when
there is a full moon lighting the rooftops of a world heritage site
that’s coral walls maintain balance between decrepit
and … not beautiful, but something like it.

Welcome to Kisumu
I think as the plane lands
I will do my best to show you all the mysteries
That you can’t see through my camera lens

How to Make Two Months Fit Into Nine Minutes And Twenty-one Seconds:

I watched my life flash before my eyes
In the form of rural health clinics and staff meetings and community outreach
Underscored by a narrator with a Kenyan accent

I added subtitles
So one day other people will understand.

A student at Sisterhood For Change had a daughter
The baby’s name is Lavender
She is four days old today
When I held her she didn’t seem to notice me. She just slept

Maybe it’s overwhelming to be a new person. I don’t remember.
I bet she has a lot on her mind.

I celebrated the fourth of July the best way I could. Maureen met me at the supermarket. We paid for her groceries, and then caught transportation to the ancestral home of Barack Obama. What better way to honor my country than see my presidential candidate’s paternal grandmother’s hometown?

There are moments when the Kenyan countryside resembles Middle America. There’s a lot of corn. These moments are sporadic, since the landscape typically also includes tropical plants and mud huts with thatched roofs.

The closest I came to seeing Mrs. Obama was when Maureen pointed out her street – which was also identified by a large metal sign that said “SENATOR BARACK OBAMA” in blue letters. It’s an hour outside Kisumu.

The van drove a few more miles before we got out at the side of the road. I’ve been misleading you about this excursion. (sorry for that). I forgot to mention that we were running an errand to see Maureen’s younger brother. He is in an all boys’ boarding school, finishing the equivalent of his first year in high school.

People associate boarding schools with one or two things:
1) A prep school with a bunch of rich kids
2) A chilly New England landscape in autumn, complete with brick buildings and over-manicured lawns.

Not in Kenya.

The campus itself is secluded. Imagine one of those prisons on an island/ mountain/ the moon. It’s not quite as bad as that, but not so far from it either. To get to this boarding school, you ride a bike about 15 minutes over narrow dirt roads, through semi-tropical, semi-agricultural scenery.

We signed in at the gate and waited. There were a few long one story buildings, a water tower, and a big field for sports. Laundry was drying on branches and on a fence by the cornfield.

Within ten minutes, five hundred adolescent men gushed from the classrooms. Seriously, they ran. We’re talking a collective panic worthy of a bomb scare, terrorist attack, or alien invasion.

It was time for lunch.

Collins found us. (Not that we stood out at all…) We hung out with him for two hours. He explained the school system, the courses they take, which ones he liked (business class and religion) and which ones he didn’t (computers). He introduced us to his class. As an American woman, of course I got no special attention.

* note: plane and bird photos are stolen from www.lumaretreats.com and a Kenya bird watcher’s site respectively. I’ve seen both planes and birds, but my photos aren’t as good.

They carried Flora’s son from the hut to the blue truck.
His thighs were as thin as my arms; too thin to walk on.
Flora supported the weight of his hips. Bea supported this shoulders.
His torso sagged in between.

I have this all on tape.

The TB clinic looks like the lovechild of a prison and a tropical resort.

I was asked to film it too.
These lenses are a precious opportunity
Everything they see becomes permanent
A sick man
A congested waiting area
A slum
A mother dressed in orange
They could all exist forever if I wanted them to.
But today I kept my camera in my bag.

We went into the office when the appointment was over, so we could carry him back.
A crowd of men had gathered. They were yelling. Something exciting was happening.
I barely saw the puddle of blood and the man fall before the door closed.

When the emergency was over, we took Flora’s son back to the home to rest.

He has new medicine now, so hopefully he will recover.
Meanwhile, I decided there are things that should not be recorded.