5:57 am. The waves lap loudly at the shore, playing bumper-cars with each other, seeing which one's taller, faster, out-doing the others. The outlines of gigantic rock islands faintly illuminated against the gradually lightening sky. The stars slowly fading, one by one, winking their farewell to those below. The fine white sand pouring softly through my fingers, piling up perfectly, falling according to a perfect equation. Gently cradling me, the most comfortable seat.
All this after a night of dancing, drinking, taking care of friends. Philisophical conversations. Everyone in bed, and instead a barefoot through the dark streets of the small village/town of Watamu. The moon close to full, illuminating the path. Dogs guarding various establishments, while the noise of those getting up to start their day drift down over the dirt road.
Conversation, math, science, art, beauty, literature, pasts, futures, ideas, dreams.
Those of you who know me have been accosted by my trademark questions, the one I ask nearly everyone if the time is right is “If you could be anywhere, right now, where would you be?” I have always been obsessed with that question, I want to know where you would go, why, how, you're underlying motivation. As I turned to my friend to ask, the question froze in my throat....I couldn't ask the question, because I didn't have an answer. For the first time in my entire life, I was absolutely content. There was no where I would rather have been than on that beach, waiting for day to break, the fishingboats coming back in after high-tide, tired, sunburnt, and perfectly content. My little version of paradise. Absolute beauty.
The sun rose slowly, the rocks were illuminated in detail, and more and more people wandered onto the beach. The fishing boats came back in, and the day was begun. My friend and I stood up, and shoes in hand meandered tiredly back to the house to sleep until the afternoon.
A momentary paradise, yet paradise all the same.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Week 4...1 month
So as of 2 days ago, I have been here for a month...and well, again it feels like years. I have learned so much, gone so many places, and had my world turned on it's head, I have experienced a paradise, and I have gone through a mental hell. My goal from now on is to update 1-2 times a week, I tried to a few days ago, but the internet in africa and I got into a little battle, so it didn't quite work out.
Last week on Tuesday I was sitting in my room around 1pm, and I was bored. Now, a little known fact about me is that people scare the crap out of me, I just have a habit of finding something that scares me and running at it head on...so as soon as I know that I'm scared of something, I have to do it...so anyways I was being shy, and deliberating about what I should do in my room, when I decided to go and wander down a path near the school. I walked for a ways, saw some interesting (and by interesting I mean rather bizarre) bug life, and a giant hole maybe 4 ft in diameter and 12-15 ft deep. I'm not sure why the hole exists, and it's right in the middle of a path, but if someone were to fall into it they would definitely not be able to get out if they were not some crazy gymnast. Anyways, this path goes through some bushes and trees and fields, and there was this wall of bushes with a hole for the trail to go through. I walked through the hole, and there was a person crouched in the shade of a bush, and random goats wandering around. At this point I got slightly nervous...wandering around alone in the bushes isn't the smartest, nor the dumbest idea, but definitely not on the side of really smart, so again I deliberated with myself over what to do while crouching in this hole in the bushes, when I heard a noice behind me. I turn around and there's this lady who froze when she saw me. I smiled, she smiled and I took a step towards her. She took a few hurried steps back and looked like she was going to turn and run. I stopped, held up my hands, and shrugged, trying to look as non threatening as possible...she stopped too, pointed nervously at the hole, and asked in broken english "I pass?", I said yes, and went like 10 ft off the trail. The lady scurried past me, smiled nervously and dissappeared through the hole...I stared at the empty space she had just vacanted, and I decided to continue on my way.
I walked through the doorway in the shrub, turned and the man squating in the bushes saw me. He jumped up, and stood awkwardly next to his bush. Lying in the dust below the bush was a machetti (sp?). The boy/man (he looked to be about 17, but i'm horrible at judging how old everyone is) awkwardly said 'hello', again in broken English, and that was the beginning of my friendship with Paul. Paul is an amazing person, he's from the western province of Kenya, and came to Nairobi to get a job with a family here, taking care of their animals and house and such. He gets up every morning, makes breakfast, kills a chicken or something for food, goes to the local produce stand, cleans the house, then in the afternoon he herds the goats, and makes sure that they eat and dont' run away. He is paid 1,500/= (kenyan shillings) per month, which is approximately 18$. I'm now meeting up with him every few days, when classes and such allow, and teaching him various things from international relations. He went to primary school, and was in secondary school, but couldn't afford to continue, so now he's working for a few years and hopes to get to finish school sometime in the next few years, but it's expensive, so he has to save up...
I don't know what to think about that, other than meeting up with him is one of my favorite parts of the week.
Last Thursday night a group of 10 people made an 8-10 hour journey to the coast, and stayed in our friend's brother's house in one of the cutest little towns every. It was a phenomenal experience.
One morning I got up a few hours after I watched daybreak, and I was sitting in a little food place/cafe thing writing in my journal outside, drinking chai, and a man started messing around in a shanty across the street. He started to paint beautiful pictures on canvasas that were absolutely phenomenal. I sat at the cafe place for a good few hours, watching him create art with quick, simple brush strokes. It was beautiful. So if you know me, you know my obsession with trees...at one point i was watching him paint, and al of a sudden he created a tree...it was one ofthe most amazing depictions of a tree that I've ever found, and I sat there awestruck while he simply wiped a tree into existence. It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. I really wanted that tree, however it was on a canvas that was 3ft by 5 ft, and that was a bit large to take home, so I went up to him and asked if he would be willing to paint a tree on a smaller canvas for me to take home. He said yes, so we bargained down a price, I paid part of it at the time, and watched my painting be created.
On campus there is a dirt road that goes down to the football pitch (real football...not american) and track. The first time I walked down the path was around 10pm at night, and there was the silhouette of the perfect tree. Gigantic, majestic, and absolutely amazing. When I first saw the tree I stopped walking, and rambled about perfection and whatnot to my friend who I was walking with. When I picked up my picture and while I watched the random stranger I'll never see again paint the tree, he was painting the perfect silhouette of the perfect tree. It was amazing.
Those are the random updates for now. I'm gonna post my little bit about paradise in a bit...it's straight off of what I wrote for facebook.
Last week on Tuesday I was sitting in my room around 1pm, and I was bored. Now, a little known fact about me is that people scare the crap out of me, I just have a habit of finding something that scares me and running at it head on...so as soon as I know that I'm scared of something, I have to do it...so anyways I was being shy, and deliberating about what I should do in my room, when I decided to go and wander down a path near the school. I walked for a ways, saw some interesting (and by interesting I mean rather bizarre) bug life, and a giant hole maybe 4 ft in diameter and 12-15 ft deep. I'm not sure why the hole exists, and it's right in the middle of a path, but if someone were to fall into it they would definitely not be able to get out if they were not some crazy gymnast. Anyways, this path goes through some bushes and trees and fields, and there was this wall of bushes with a hole for the trail to go through. I walked through the hole, and there was a person crouched in the shade of a bush, and random goats wandering around. At this point I got slightly nervous...wandering around alone in the bushes isn't the smartest, nor the dumbest idea, but definitely not on the side of really smart, so again I deliberated with myself over what to do while crouching in this hole in the bushes, when I heard a noice behind me. I turn around and there's this lady who froze when she saw me. I smiled, she smiled and I took a step towards her. She took a few hurried steps back and looked like she was going to turn and run. I stopped, held up my hands, and shrugged, trying to look as non threatening as possible...she stopped too, pointed nervously at the hole, and asked in broken english "I pass?", I said yes, and went like 10 ft off the trail. The lady scurried past me, smiled nervously and dissappeared through the hole...I stared at the empty space she had just vacanted, and I decided to continue on my way.
I walked through the doorway in the shrub, turned and the man squating in the bushes saw me. He jumped up, and stood awkwardly next to his bush. Lying in the dust below the bush was a machetti (sp?). The boy/man (he looked to be about 17, but i'm horrible at judging how old everyone is) awkwardly said 'hello', again in broken English, and that was the beginning of my friendship with Paul. Paul is an amazing person, he's from the western province of Kenya, and came to Nairobi to get a job with a family here, taking care of their animals and house and such. He gets up every morning, makes breakfast, kills a chicken or something for food, goes to the local produce stand, cleans the house, then in the afternoon he herds the goats, and makes sure that they eat and dont' run away. He is paid 1,500/= (kenyan shillings) per month, which is approximately 18$. I'm now meeting up with him every few days, when classes and such allow, and teaching him various things from international relations. He went to primary school, and was in secondary school, but couldn't afford to continue, so now he's working for a few years and hopes to get to finish school sometime in the next few years, but it's expensive, so he has to save up...
I don't know what to think about that, other than meeting up with him is one of my favorite parts of the week.
Last Thursday night a group of 10 people made an 8-10 hour journey to the coast, and stayed in our friend's brother's house in one of the cutest little towns every. It was a phenomenal experience.
One morning I got up a few hours after I watched daybreak, and I was sitting in a little food place/cafe thing writing in my journal outside, drinking chai, and a man started messing around in a shanty across the street. He started to paint beautiful pictures on canvasas that were absolutely phenomenal. I sat at the cafe place for a good few hours, watching him create art with quick, simple brush strokes. It was beautiful. So if you know me, you know my obsession with trees...at one point i was watching him paint, and al of a sudden he created a tree...it was one ofthe most amazing depictions of a tree that I've ever found, and I sat there awestruck while he simply wiped a tree into existence. It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. I really wanted that tree, however it was on a canvas that was 3ft by 5 ft, and that was a bit large to take home, so I went up to him and asked if he would be willing to paint a tree on a smaller canvas for me to take home. He said yes, so we bargained down a price, I paid part of it at the time, and watched my painting be created.
On campus there is a dirt road that goes down to the football pitch (real football...not american) and track. The first time I walked down the path was around 10pm at night, and there was the silhouette of the perfect tree. Gigantic, majestic, and absolutely amazing. When I first saw the tree I stopped walking, and rambled about perfection and whatnot to my friend who I was walking with. When I picked up my picture and while I watched the random stranger I'll never see again paint the tree, he was painting the perfect silhouette of the perfect tree. It was amazing.
Those are the random updates for now. I'm gonna post my little bit about paradise in a bit...it's straight off of what I wrote for facebook.
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