After some 30 hours on four planes and in five different airports, I am safely back in the States. Here’s a final brief chronicling of how it all went down.

Dave, Scotty, Chris and I woke up early the morning we left to climb the mountains before our flight. The taxi driver picked us up at 6 a.m. and drove us to the mountains. There was a thick fog that covered the city. The fog was so thick we couldn’t really see the mountains. It took over an hour to actually find the mountains as we plowed through rocks, debris and garbage in our SUV.

We finally found the mountains, but not before we saw an ornate sample of wildlife. Among the feral beasts we saw were vultures, foxes, warthogs, and one giant hyena. The hyena we saw was absolutely massive: the size of a tiger. We tried to drive close to it put it kept running away. We explored the land, which itself was a garbage dump; the rank stench of rubbish was nearly unbearable. All throughout our searching for the mountains, the vultures littered the land. They were ugliest, dirtiest, most mutated creatures I have ever seen.

We finally came to the base of one of the mountains. Dave, Scotty and Chris ran up the mountain rather quickly while I, with my bum leg and a walking stick, took each step with caution. They made it up to the top in a matter of minutes—it was more hiking than climbing—whilst I climbed about 15 feet short of making the top. When I got up that high I realized I had not the upper body strength to make up for my lack of lower body strength due to the injured knee, so I decided to cut my losses at about the areola level of the mountain. Only problem now was how was going to get down. With gravity now firmly as my enemy I couldn’t very well walk down, even carefully, for fear of the rocks shifting beneath me. So I sat down with my back to the mountain and crabwalked to the bottom. It took me a good 20 minutes to effectively buttskip to the bottom whilst the four of them watched. (Thanks for the help by the way).

On the way home we stopped briefly at the marketplace and the university for one last time. We made it back to the house with just enough time to shower, pack, eat, and say our goodbyes. If only it was that easy. After I got out of the shower I immediately felt ill in my stomach. It was like a mass had just formed in my lower intestine. In an hour’s time I emptied my bowels on a few occasions but it seemed to be getting worse. I took some pills and finished packing. Because I felt under the weather, I don’t think I got to say goodbye properly to everyone, which I regret.

From there it was a one hour flight to Djibuti, three hours of layover; a three-hour flight to Dubai, two hours of layover; 13 hours to Washington D.C., two hours of layover which included going through customs and an interrogation that narrowly got us on the plane in time for take off to Chicago for our two hour flight.

—–

So I am back and, as I warned by friends who have been on similar excursions, irritated by the pettiness around me. The instant we flew into O’Hare, I leaned over to Scotty and posited, “There’s our gray city.”

In the afternoon I stood in line at a supermarket figuratively sick to my stomach (almost worst than the literal variety aforementioned) by people’s fixation on the trivial.

I’ve never been this clairvoyant, I don’t think. And perhaps never this disdainful, either. “Get ready to hate everything,” I told myself. I went to a Christmas party in the evening entirely energy depleted. I shared some stories as best I could before coming home to collapse in my bed. Last night I slept the sleep of corpses.

—–

A couple parting thoughts:

I gave G_d every chance to kill me these last two months but he decided to keep me here. For what reasons, I am not completely certain, but I do feel responsible for exploring why. It’s not only my duty, but my privilege; and ultimately it’s for G_d’s glory and, for some reason, my joy.

To my dear East African friends, I will miss you. If Allah wills I wish see you again either in the immediate future or on the other side of death. As-Salāmu `Alaykum.

I ended up going “whole hog” as it were on our trip to the gulf. As I mentioned earlier, I was a little apprehensive about scuba diving, mostly on account of  my newly mended knee. I grew up in Tampa, Fl not far from several beaches, but for some reason up until yesterday I had only been snorkeling. With the help of an very kind gentleman teacher and a little added peer pressure, I suited up and got into the water. And subsequently reveled in it. One of the most beautiful sights I have witnessed in my short life. Above the water a stunning mountain range, below a utopia of reefs and other crustacean.

Our instructor was a kind gentleman from the U.K. I had met previously on our trip. I found out through word of mouth that he is actually a semi-retired journalist, originally from Manchester, but now spends his time teaching scuba diving at the gulf. “The water here is very underrated,” he assured us.

I have no idea what is considered a good reef or not, but from what I saw in two dives, it was pretty fantastic. On the second dive Matt, Chris, the instructor and myself spent about a half hour under the water exploring several reefs. Matt took pictures of us in water, so some of that should make it’s way onto the internet in some form or another.

—–

Scotty, Chris and I spent time in two rural villages for most of the day. We got a lot of footage of the health training that took places as well as several wildlife shots which included camels, goats, and warthogs. We saw a giant turtle as well, but he wasn’t quite gregarious enough to peak his head out at us. We did see a baby goat just moments after it was born; in fact, the umbilical cord was still hanging out of the mother’s womb.

We ate lunch at one of the villages. The locals dipped each of us a plate of spaghetti and placed a pan of water nearby. Each of us dunked our hands in the water pan to clean our hands because they were going to be our only utensils. Shortly after lunch we played catch with a Nerf football outside the training with about 20 kids. It seems to put everyone at ease when the locals see that we are interested in having fun with them, not just bequeathing obligatory training materials.

—–

Right now I feel a spectacular fatigue that I haven’t felt in quite some time. It’s actually quite euphoric in some ways.

Hopefully that carries into tomorrow. In the morning we plan to go out to climb two small mountains on the other side of town. The mountains have a name that translates to “Maiden Breasts,” or as Scotty has dubbed them “The Boobs.” After we climb them, we’ll run into the market one last time, come back home, grab our bags and head to the airport. And so begins our trek back home–in just 30 hours time.

Perhaps the most extraordinary part of our nearly two-month trip took place today. In the previous post I alluded that that might happen. Alas, my foreshadowing was correct. This morning we met with S.W. (East Africa’s “Mother Teresa”) at her office on the other side of town. My brief retelling of the story will do little justice to what actually happened, but luckily we got all of it on tape. Chris filmed video and Matt took stills throughout the entire three and a half hours, so thankfully it is all documented.

After a brief meeting at her office, S.W. took us to one of her 10 schools in the area. When we arrived we were taken into a tent that was filled more than 30 young students who were chanting loudly as we stepped inside. The boys that sat around me seemed extremely bright and equally gracious.

We were then taken to another tent to talk to S.W. about her history. How she began saving kids lives, how she maintains 10 schools, how many babies she’s rescued over the years and things of that nature. She spoke through an interpreter who was also our chauffeur for the day. Meanwhile, Mohammed Ali, once again, did the driving.

S.W. brought us into her home to see the young ones she is now currently raising. There were at least seven young kids at the house while they were there. Presumably these kids would have been left to die in the wilderness had the police not found them and given them to S.W. The kids love S.W. We wanted to have her tell us her story in more detail, but she declined to talk about what she does in front of her kids. I respect that about her: the ability to separate her home life from her work, which in itself is very rigorous.

We learned just how intense the work was when we arrived back to her office for a formal interview. She has been at this the last 28 years. She has affected the lives of over 3,000 families. To date she has adopted and raised 23 children, many of which have grown up to become teachers and government workers.

And the stories could go on and on.

What I took away from our time with S.W. is her matter-of-fact approach to how she does all this. I don’t think she worries much about anything—she simply doesn’t have time to. I think we could all take cues from her on that. But also the love that was beaming from her was a sight to behold. I thankful that I had a chance to meet her and all of the children she is teaching. It also looks like this has the potential to be a great partnership.

—–

This evening Scotty, Chris and I played frisbee with the kids as usual, but before sundown we decided to take a walk. We wanted to get a video of us standing in front of the infamous acacia tree in our neighborhood as the sun dipped below the horizon. We cut it a little close, mostly because I can’t walk quickly on my bum leg, but we did make it in time to see get the silhouette shot that we sought.

The three of us also took some time this evening to sit under the stars outside with our guards. Two of them made a fire, so we took a couple chairs out and sat with them. I brought out the guitar and entertained the group with a few songs. It was a proper way to end the day if you ask me.

Tomorrow we leave at 5:45 a.m. to go to gulf. We plan to scuba dive (likely just swimming for me) and some various other sightseeing. It should serve as a nice day of leisure in the middle of our busy week.

There is something to be noted about feeling dog tired and yet satisfied as a street rat. Today we spent most of the day on our feet fraternizing with the locals in one form or another. It’s the last go-‘round, I’m afraid, so I best make something of it.

This morning Scotty, Chris and I took a trip into the city search for various knick-knacks and such. Mohammed Ali drove for the third consecutive day. I would give you more details about what we purchased, but much of it was Christmas gifts—and we don’t want to spoil the surprise, do we? We did our darnedest to haggle the locals to ensure fair prices (or as close to “fair” as we could get). Before all of our purchasing was done, I think we came out of it alright.

This afternoon we spend time working on the football (soccer) fields in our neighborhood. Chris set up a couple cameras and shot with his handheld camera as well. Unlike the previous times we’ve worked on the fields, we only had about 25 kids helping us. Regardless, we made some decent progress given the manpower and resources we had. The video footage of us working on it was equally crucial to all the work we did on the fields today, so overall I’d comfortably call it a triumph.

Tomorrow morning we arranged a special meeting with a woman in the area whose been referred to as “The East African Mother Teresa.” S. has rescued and weaned over 200 babies who were left for dead by their unmarried mothers. Somehow we managed to etch some time to visit her and some of her sites located around the city. All of us in the house could not be more excited.

All of us men of the house just returned home from a special “Christmas” soirée hosted by a few friends from a local NGO. The event was certainly memorable. Here are the highlights, chronologically:

- Mohammed Ali picked us up in his taxi, so, as we have previously established, we rode in style. Before we could get out of our neighborhood though, Rooble ran up to the car to greet us. Before we knew it, he had taken Matt’s front seat. As soon as he sat down, he exclaimed something in his native tongue and all I heard was Dave laughing. “He just said ‘lets go!’” Dave said. Rooble’s mother called him back to the house and we were finally able to make our way to the party.

- The party we attended did not take place in a house. It was a palace. Luxurious doesn’t even begin to describe how lush this place was, by East African standards or suburban Chicago standards. All white two story building, with a balcony; in the back yard there was a farm complete with livestock, a fish pond, chicken coop, and a garden. We were given a guided tour by C., one of the three people who lives in the house. Everything he showed us was truly impressive. And, if I may slip in an editorial comment, more than a little ostentatious. (Hold that thought for later.)

- Dave, Scotty, Chris and I were keen to talk with the local East African men who are hired to keep this house afloat. The gardeners were kind enough to show us the chicken coop up close.

- The secondary reason for this party was the launch of an all organic food “restaurant” (think bed and breakfast) that the NGO is curating. To kick off their establishment they served us a three course meal and dessert. We were lucky enough to sit with a woman from the U.K. who worked for a local NGO. We talked with her quite a bit throughout the evening about working with an NGO, East Africa, and travel in general. Very pleasant. We also sat next to a table with the staff (all East Africans) who helped prepare all of the food/cleaning/etc. As the night progressed we found ourselves gravitating towards them more than the NGO workers. I guess it’s not hidden that we would like rather spend our time with them than

- Before the third course of the meal, C. made an announcement. What followed was perhaps the dumbest monologue I’ve heard since I’ve been here. I won’t quote him verbatim, but ostensibly what he said was that they tried to get a pig to make a “Christmas ham.” You’re thinking, what’s the big deal? Well, we we’re in a room with several East African men who do not eat pig meat because of deeply held religious beliefs. To take a jab at you staff—who are standing right next to you!—is just snobbish. Perhaps even more ridiculous is that he was actually trying to get a pig, which means that the East African people would have had to prepare it. Western hubris on display again.

- The bright spot of the night was when went upstairs to the balcony to enjoy some dessert and live music. Scotty, Chris and I got up to the balcony before anyone else besides the three musicians. One of the men spoke English. We politely declined cigarettes and khat before having a nice brief conversation with him. Soon enough the crowd from downstairs showed up and the band began to play. The band was a singer and guitar-like player (sort of a mandolin/nylon string hybrid), bongo player and an auxiliary background percussionist and singer. I couldn’t understand what the singer was saying, but the music was certainly skillfully played (I actually recorded some of it). After the third song they went back to chewing khat, and we made our exit. When we g0t to the taxi we found out that Mohammed Ali had been waiting for us the whole time we were there (four hours in total). Apparently he misunderstood when we told him that we would give him a call when he could pick us up.

Besides the party, our day was rather pedestrian. Chris is still getting over a cold/sinus infection (not to mention the jetlag/culture shock) so we’ve lain low for the most part. We did have lunch at the ambassador. We also fit in a little time playing with the kids outside our house.

Tomorrow: into the town to soak in the last few remaining moments of East African culture and peruse some various keepsakes.

We’re beginning to be a crowd now. My friend (and roommate) Chris arrived this morning after better than a day’s worth of travel. And we’re so happy to have him here to capture as much video as he possibly can in the six days that he is here. We originally planned for Chris to be here for 10 days but his flight was changed, cutting his trip nearly in half. But, no worries, we have a tentative schedule and we plan to stick to it.

Scotty and I called Mohammed Ali to pick us up to take us to the airport. Better than the mailman when you expect a package or the policeman when you dial 911, Mohammed Ali always shows up on time. As usual he picked us up in his modded-out white Toyota vehicle, upholstered with white pimp fur in the interior. As if that were not enough all he plays out of his stereo is old Michael Jackson and local East African music.

We arrived at the airport right on time, but that really didn’t mean anything. The flights here are notorious for being late by a minimum of a half hour. Scotty and I patiently waited outside to see his flight come in. About a half hour later a large silver hunk of metal landed on the runway, presumably carrying Chris in it. “I hope that death machine is carrying our friend,” I jokingly remarked to Scotty. Eventually, Chris emerged from the plane and a warm reunion ensued. It was short lived by virtue of the fact that we still needed to get him into the country, preferably with all of his belongings. No easy task, as it turns out. After waiting patiently in a crowded line we were told at the front desk that in order to get Chris into the region we needed to change $50 into shillings. The exchange rate on this would short us substantially, and we have no need for shillings. Beyond that, we are not obligated to change any money when we get into the region. It was just posturing on their part to try to get money out of some ignorant Americans. We’re well aware of how this works. Sometimes people just want you to know that they, in this instance, have more power than you. It’s a subtle dick swinging game, in which our only leverage is to demand our way or else. We have no other options. After several minutes of volleying for position, a manager came over, looked at Chris’s visa and finally sent us on our merry way.

We showed Chris a little taste of the region in his first half day. We walked around the ambassador hotel in the afternoon and the football fields in the evening. We were able to play with the kids as well.

Tomorrow we have on the ledger a few brainstorming meetings for video content, devotional time in the afternoon, and a party on the other side of the town in the evening. Should be a decent warm up for what we have in the days to follow. I’ll try to keep you updated, dear reader, as often as I can. My time here is short–it’s best to not waste a moment of it.

I’m inclined to tally today the “good” column.

In the morning the gentlemen of the house went to the ambassador hotel to meet with the O., the sultan we met by chance at a restaurant a few weekends ago. O., if you remember, has a playground for young children that oversees and gorgeous mountain top on the other side of town. The purpose of our brief get-together this morning was to talk about us using the playground. The idea is to bus in as many street kids as we can (50? 60?) in the morning and bring them in to play on the jungle gym, swingset, slides, etc. We set a date for next Tuesday. By then my roommate Chris will be in town with his camera equipment to shoot video of the day.

Beyond working out logistics on the playground trip, O. was a very kind, soft-spoken person to talk to. He certainly didn’t need to meet with us, but he took the time meet with us for an unhurried cup of tea and perusing of the newspaper.

This afternoon I went to the university in all likelihood for the last time. It’s rather ludicrous and irresponsible of me to say it, but I’ll probably miss that university more than my own alma mater.

The reason that I will likely not see the university in my last week is because we plan to busy next week with Chris in town. We have devised a rough schedule what we want to do while Chris is here and it is lengthy. The list includes travel to multiple trips into the city, two playground sites, one makeshift “school” (the location of which, we do not yet know), and perhaps at trip to the gulf. One other complicating factor is that Chris—who is only here for six days—has been ill for the last two weeks.

—–

With Chris coming into town on Thursday, we are treating tomorrow as our Sabbath. With that in mind, this evening the five of us in the house put aside our work for the day and dwelt amongst each other. Lots of good food, storytelling, and conversations followed by one drawn out board game. Fantastic.

Work summary for the day: (1) finished up some creative drafts on the project. They will be going around for review—perhaps even to you, dear reader—in the next couple days. (2) It looks like I will have a job interview waiting for me in Chicago when I arrive back home next week.

See, I told you it was a good day.

I don’t believe I’ve ever felt this peaceful amid such chaos. I’ve never been this comfortable with my own lack of control over a situation. I think this a good thing; perhaps more than just a softening in my process of aging. To elaborate that vague premise, this feeling has nothing to do with fear of danger. It’s more an observation on how helter-skelter my life is and that I seem to be relatively unfazed by it. It could be apathy, but I doubt it. I suspect, and hope, that it is a sign of maturity. If so, praise be to G_d.

I would expound on that thought more, but at present I am too bloody exhausted.

—–

On a lesser (and humorous) note, when it comes to swatting swallows that whizz in my vicinity, I am now on par with Mr. Miyagi (or Barack Obama). I found this out a 6 o’clock this morning when I woke up to see a mosquito lazily coming towards me. In one motion I slammed my hand to the bed. I brought up my hand to see blood smeared on my palm. I presume that was blood vengeance on my part. The remains of the little bugger left a quarter-sized blood stain on my bed sheet. I wish I could tell you that it taught me a little something about the preciousness of life. All it really did, however, was force me to get out of bed so I could thoroughly wash my hands.

Today, following a splendid lunch, I took a brief moment to sit on the living room couch to strum the guitar and sip coffee. I think Scotty has taken a liking to my serenading (though he’d never cop to it) whilst he lies on the adjacent couch reading or taking a nap. I must have gotten too loud, or the room too crowded, as he left after a few minutes of music.

At the time A.Q. joined me on the couch. He peered at me with a serious look and requested to ask me a question. I told him of course. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you have a B|BLE I can take?” I was somewhat taken off guard, but not utterly shocked. He told me previously that he had two of them at his home. In fact one of them was given to him years ago by Bishop Desmond Tutu, but it has since been absconded. I told him I would be glad to get him a new copy. I may need to pull some strings to have my roommate Chris bring one from home, but I’ll get one. I hope to give it to A.Q. as a parting gift, a Christmas present, if you will.

In class today I was put into yet another interesting situation. As usual I lead a discussion group in Sheena’s class, but today we switched it up a bit. Instead of going with the men, I lead the discussion for the women. Sheena recommended that we do this because some of the women were wanting to converse with a man because they have to do so on a professional level. One woman in particular said that she often gets nervous because of her lack of person-to-person conversations with men.

We couldn’t have picked a more fascinating subject for me to sub in either. Today’s topic was beauty. I broached the issue with extreme caution. I started off by asking how they would define physical beauty. Of course, the answers we illuminating. They all echoed the sentiment that beauty has more to do with outside appearance. In fact one had a subtle, but firm rebuke for my country’s standard of aesthetic beauty. “Women in America think they need to be thin to be beautiful,” she said. “It’s not like that here.”

I asked them if they felt that people paid too much attention to their appearance. Their answer, like in all places I presume, was a resounding “yes.” Still, it is interesting to hear this from women who are in a culture that requires you to hide your G_d-given beauty in their code of dress.

At the end of our brief discussion I even brought up the issue of plastic surgery. They said they were aware of it, but that it is not practiced in the region. They do, however, have a practice called skin beaching, in which people lighten their skin. Plastic surgery. Bleached skin. Which name do you think came up next? Yes, we touched on (poor word choice) the biography of the late great King of Pop Michael Jackson; everything from his rhinoplasty procedure(s) to his lightened skin due to vitaligo.

Before our time was up, one of the women slipped in a final parting question to me. “If you had a girlfriend, would you want her to have plastic surgery?” “No!” I immediately exclaimed. “But she may want me to!” We all had a good laugh at my own expense. I then politely explained that I prefer real physical beauty—“imperfections” and all—to the surgically sculpted kind.

Later, Sheena admitted that this might not have been the best subject for us to swap groups. On some level I agree, but I’m glad I was able to survey the females in our class. It was just another opportunity for me to gain insight into another facet of this East African culture. Those opportunities, sadly, are quickly coming to a close quickly, so I am grateful.

I’ve mentioned on a couple occasions how exceptionally East African culture is interpersonally. This is true in many Eastern settings. For instance, if you ask someone a question of which they don’t know the answer, the person would seldom say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” What they would do, rather, is nod affirmingly… silence… wait for you to answer your own question, and then agree with your answer. Some would call it telling people what they want to hear, whilst others would rightly call it dishonesty. Whatever you call it, it’s maddening as hell.

The latest saga in the never-happening CV writing class took place this morning. The university has now piddled away three weeks of time because of an immense lack of focus and strategy. Still, the plan was to eke out a week of class for 20+ lucky job seekers. I called O., the dean of the university, yesterday to ask if we were still on for starting our course on Saturday. He said he would call me on Saturday morning. Total time on the phone conversation: 19 seconds. (That’s another frustrating thing. When you are speaking with one of the locals on the phone they never prep you before they want to hang up. No goodbye. They just hang up.)

I hadn’t put much faith in the plan of us starting on Saturday, so I didn’t do any preparation. Weeks ago I had already drew up how I wanted the class to go, so in the unlikely event that we actually did have class, I would have something to build from.

Still, this morning I gave O. a call (even though he was supposed to call me) to see if we were a go. To my amazement, he said we will start today. Not only will we start today, but 25 students will be in attendance. That’s great, I thought. So, I prepared accordingly. I spent the morning and afternoon of my day preparing a lesson, which included making 75 print outs, researching jobs in the area, and drawing up a lecture. For the record, I’ve never taught a class ever, so I over prepared just in case I ran out of topic upon which to pontificate. Luckily, I would have Scotty with me to help lessen the dead spots.

O. came to pick us up, late, in his miniature jeep. Because Scotty was joining us, it was going to be a tight fit. Three of us gentlemen—Dave, Scotty and myself—squeezed into the back seat, whilst Matt lay in the trunk, and Sheena rode shotgun.  Our class was supposed to class start in 15 minutes and we were 20-25 minutes away. All of us crammed into the tiny jeep, we butt skipped across the rocky roads in our neighborhood. Poor Matt in the trunk felt the full force of every tiny bump and each gigantic thud. O. is not a particularly good driver either. We constantly need to remind him to look out for speed bumps in the road to help him preserve the bottom exterior of his vehicle and the placement of our internal organs.

It’s not that O. is aloof. He’s actually very bright. He’s just infinitely busy and easily distracted. Two instances on our brief trip will illustrate this. For starters, he stopped for petrol on the way to the university. At that point we were already five minutes late and nowhere near the university. Then, the rest of the way to the university, it was as if he forgot that we were in a hurry. The sense of urgency and acceleration both slowed. The reason: he was telling us a story. And when O. tells a story, it is always an epic tale because the intonation in his shouting voice is absolutely deafening. Unbeknownst to him, he had Scotty and I gushing with gales of laughter. It reminded me of an interview with Sasha Baron Cohen on NPR’s Fresh Air, in which he described a Russian doctor whose demeanor alone had him “crying with laughter”; he went on to say that the doctor was the inspiration for the character of Borat. O. has that same humorous quality with just a simple mix of half sincerity and maladroit wit.

When we finally reached our destination we were already 20 minutes late. Hope dimmed on our little class yet again when O. said that he was not sure if the students were going to come. That and we would not tell me if we had a room or not. You guessed it. Our class was cancelled. Scotty was left stranded outside the classrooms while I joined in on Sheena’s class. All of that preparation for bupkis.

Right now I’m sure I sound like a typical Westerner who cannot stand being inconvenienced by another one’s way of life. Allow me to pause and say that I don’t think that my way is always right and theirs is always wrong. Not at all. That arrogance is precisely why so many NGOs can be so ineffective here. I’m merely pointing out my exasperation with the culture at large when it slams into my worldview. If anyone has a problem, clearly it’s me. Still, as I think we would all should agree, I think it is only courteous to honor commitments.

Now, the status of the class—which just shrunk by one quarter’s worth of time—is scheduled to start tomorrow evening. I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, there is plenty else yet to do.

Dear reader, if you made it to the end of this little tirade, you’ve just read a story about nothing. My specialty, I’m afraid.