An Afternoon in the Life

It seems like I can measure so much of my time here in Kenya, perhaps Africa in general, by how much time I spend going somewhere. Walking, taking a local bus, a matatu, a cross-country bus, an airplane, even a camel, but that was just for fun at the Kenyan coast.

I have figured out that, on the very best of days, a commute from my apartment in the greater Nairobi area to Karen, where The LCMS East Africa Office is (still technically part of Nairobi), takes about 45 minutes. It averages 30 minutes down Ngong Road-assuming that the driver and conductor don't wait for 15-20 minutes trying to pick up more passengers so that they can have a totally full bus-and 15 minutes down Langata Road to our office.

Ngong Road is a really interesting place because you can see something new happening all the time. I pass markets, football (soccer) fields, plant nurseries, goats, geese, cows, forests, and a lot of construction happening as Chinese construction crews work with Kenyan crews to continue finishing the big Southern Bypass project. I always like to see the animals made of metal, though. The carpenters and metalworkers who set up shop along Ngong and leave their furniture and art out for the world to see endlessly impress me. Hippos, crocodiles, and giraffes that are very nearly life-size give me pause no matter how many times I see them. They take on different colors as they sit outside in the elements, making the hippopotamus I can even now clearly imagine appear a muddy brown, as if it had just risen from a river.

Today really made me chuckle throughout my commute. I was in a very reflective mood as I left the office, pondering Job 38 which had been posted on Facebook as a devotion earlier, and recalling the lyrics of a hymn which has proven very moving lately. I had to leave early to run an errand and attend a video conference with the LCMS Communications Office. Lost in my thoughts, I was surprised to see a matatu wait on the other side of the road for me to cross when traffic was clear. The conductor was actually pretty friendly throughout the journey. As I continued to think, I noticed his head was outside of the van for much of the journey. He had produced a large stick, rather like a homemade baseball bat, but looking like a bludgeon to me.

The conductor would waggle this stick outside of the matatu, gesturing at passersby and speaking in a combination of sign language with his free hand, waving the stick with his other, and either Swahili or Sheng. Sheng is a version of Swahili, like street Swahili, but it seems to become more difficult to understand the more Swahili I study. He seemed to be bickering with a car that followed us too closely for some time, and this display proved too amusing for me to maintain my contemplative state. I was happy to see the conductor use his cudgel to stop traffic and help a woman leaving a nearby hospital cross the street to board the matatu. Even better was when he shook the stick at two children sitting by the side of the road, staring at the matatu, and shouted "Wee! Wee!" (You! You!) I couldn't hear much else, because everyone on the van started laughing hysterically. I think it would have been enough for me to see someone passing in a noisy van full of people, dangling out the window, brandishing a stick and admonishing children in a tone both brusquely concerned and comedic.

After I made it to the end of the matatu's line, I began to search for a bus that looked mostly full so I wouldn't have to wait long for it to fill. However, five different conductors approached me simultaneously insisting that their buses had the best fare. Luckily, two with a good fare found me first, and I ascertained this price, trying to follow them. The three others tried to direct me to their bus, and I put my hand out, meaning no without saying it, and tried to follow the first two. The other three lagged behind me, and out of nowhere, at least 10-15 voices began chanting "BEBA BEBA BEBA BEBA!" (CARRY CARRY CARRY CARRY!- this is a common thing to hear when you ride public transportation, as conductors call it to potential passengers) louder and faster the closer I got to the bus. I had never seen or heard such a thing and unconsciously quickened my pace as the bus's engine revved threateningly. I am still uncertain whether those voices came from the other passengers on the almost-full bus I boarded, or from the people standing around socializing, eating, and waiting for other transportation at the bus stage.

That bus was the loudest "party bus" I've been on for some time. I sat at the front, right under the blasting amps and the blinking capacitor that apparently promised to boost the music's power. It's not uncommon to board a bus or matatu and find colored fluorescent lights, a crazy sound system, passages of Scripture, pictures of rappers, celebrities, sports teams, and even C.S. Lewis with one of his profound quotes, in one rare instance. The lights and noise really come on at night, around 6:30, and almost feel like a club, but I try to avoid being out that late on the evening commute.

The one upside of the party bus's sound system? The music was actually pretty good. My ears were ringing for about a half-hour after I disembarked and my chest buzzed with the thump of the bass but the remixes weren't bad. The driver chose to capitalize on every avenue of progression available to him, and I seemed to be one of the few passengers up front not bracing for an inevitable impact. The bus shuddered and shot along the shoulders of the road, crushing rocks and churning dust as the driver decided to avoid the traffic on the road proper. Even better, I know this stretch of road well enough to know that it goes pretty straight, and the buses do, too. Imagine my surprise when it seemed we were making an impromptu turn! No, we were only cutting through a petrol station, not to fill up, but to dodge more traffic on Ngong Road. And at high speed, of course.

When the bus dropped me off, I found that I had fallen into step with a young Kenyan boy heading the same direction, snacking on a banana. "Howahyou?" he said, with a twinkle in his bright eyes. I said "I am good, and you?" "I am good, too," he responded, and I complimented him on his English. We chatted just a little bit, and I unintentionally walked ahead of him with my longer stride. I heard his voice from behind, and said "sema" (speak, or say- in this case, what he had just said). He said "buy something for me!" I chuckled and said that I was sorry, I didn't have any change, which I didn't. "What about your banana, your ndizi?" I reminded him. He looked at it, shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, and discarded the peel on the path, as most people do with leftovers or trash. He looked up at me with a smile, and I laughed again. I wished this "little brother" siku njema (good day) and bid him adieu as I reached my apartment complex.

That all occurred hours ago, and yet I can still hear them honking on Ngong Road out there, and it's well past sunset now. Honking is called "hooting" in Kenya, and with the modified horns found on many buses and matatus (seemingly to make them so obnoxious you can't ignore them), sometimes they do sound like a flock of owls hooting, or a trump of trumpeters blowing for all they're worth. An aside- clearly a group of trumpeters is not called a trump, but a group of owls is called a parliament. That's knowledge for you!

I would feel deeply remiss if I did not include some Scriptural reflection in this recollection. What always amazes me is how I have been taken care of and provided for in Africa, even when I seem to feel so alone. If I am sick, if I have found myself in a strange place with no one I know, if I wonder how a day will work out, or when feeling overcome by circumstances far outside of my control, things just work out. I can't explain it, even when they occur through instances as approachable as, say, getting some good news, or someone whom I need to see strolling just around the corner. I am a Christian man, and I gave up believing in coincidences a long time ago. I have seen too many "coincidences" and too much "good luck" in my brief, brief life to think that my life, small and pitiful as it may be, could warrant so much simply by "fortuitous movements of the heavenly bodies", "freak accidents", or even it just being "the ups and downs of life". I call them miracles, plain and simple. Some people will disagree with me, and that's their prerogative. But I like to think about how many things "work out" in a day so that I can be healthy, reasonably happy, and make it to and from work in one piece, looking forward to a restful night's sleep at the end of the day.

As people go, I am not popular, I am not a "Time's Most Influential" or "Forbes 400" kind of person. But every day, I have food to eat and a place to sleep. As if that wasn't enough, I am forgiven daily, constantly, because that's how often I need it. I have the Holy Word of the One Living God that I am blessed and privileged to carry with me every day, so that when I need to be astounded, humbled, forgiven, reassured, and moved in the depths of my wretched sinful heart back to the hope that exists only in Christ Jesus, I can open it. Any time, any place.

While I don't drive a Lamborghini (I don't really want to) and my name doesn't roll down in movie credits, I am blessed. It is enough for me to know what I deserve- eternal damnation- and to think that God loved me so much that He humbled Himself to the point of becoming human and dying in an excruciating, embarrassing way, to rise again to life having overcome sin, death, and the devil...for me. For you. For all of us. To utterly remove the stain of our sins, to renounce the power of Satan. To make the true wages we have earned from toiling in original sin, death, not the end. One of my favorite passages states this, that regardless of what we deserve, we have been given a much better deal by Him who had no need to visit us with such mercy: reconciliation- our debts settled.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)

Sometimes, it seems to me that a stubborn man has to go far and see much before he realizes what was in front of him all along. After two people (at least) have jokingly reminded me of the story of Jonah while in Africa (oddly enough, for the same reason), I am working to be more like Isaiah and praying that God doesn't need to send a monstrous fish to keep me with the program:

"And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."" (Isaiah 6:8)