from my journal...day one

...taken from my journal, Thursday morning...

The rooster is crowing and I can hear children playing outside—shouting things I can’t understand.  But laughter, the sound of happiness, is universal.

It takes me a moment to realize the white cloud I’m enshrouded in is just my mosquito netting.  My face is a little damp.  My whole body is a little damp.  I think dampness must become my friend.  Otherwise it will be a constant unwelcome companion—and who wants someone annoying hanging around all the time?  The dampness does bring the mosquitoes, which are annoying—which reminds me, malaria meds time.  The sooner I take it in the AM on an empty stomach, the sooner I can eat breaky.  Sometimes it makes me think my body is fighting the war against the malaria right then and there.  But my body will win, the nausea will pass.  It’s amazing to me how the one tiny tablet, seemingly insignificant, smaller than a frosted flake, could protect me from the #1 cause of death in Africa. 

And I have it. 

I paid fifty cents a day for it.  I fundraised and got donations for it.  But why me?  Why me and not the feverous boy on the streets just on the other side of town?  Why me and not the mother of five who can no longer work because of her violent fever shakes so strong sometimes she can't stand to fold the laundry.  Why me and not the millions more who deserve it just as much?  This is the first of many of these questions.  Questions that will be strung together like heavy beads on a frail chain.  Brilliantly colorful beads that reflect light and create dancing images of different colors flying through the room.  Beads that are so old, their origin is unknown.  Beads that are sometimes seen as a nuisance because of their heaviness, the weight they carry.

Those that have, those that have not.  Those that are healthy, those that are not.  Those that are safe, those that are not.  Those that welcome destiny, dreams, futures…and those that welcome food on the table and can’t see past that which will sustain them one more day.  Why me?

As I rose above the clouds of London on my way here, I realized I was leaving a world of haves, a world I am used to.  A world of organization, of order.  A world I can understand and predict.  A world of $5 coffee, designer jeans, make up, do ups, whatever ups.  Street cleaners and park cleaners whose job is to make the trash and themselves invisible.  I leave my clean, pristine, organized, routine, complicated life—for one much simpler. 

It is now 7:30 am and I hear the world is alive outside, not just the rooster.

I am tired.  I don’t even know what time it is at home.  But I am excited.  To see my new life splashed with daylight, colored in—and maybe not all within the lines.  Maybe a little messier than I am used to.  The simple beauty of a painting that does not claim perfectionism—but rather realism.  Because life here is messy.  Life everywhere is messy, but here they don’t try as hard to complicate it by making it look neat and put together.  Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

But will my heart be content?  Will my selfish, egocentric, instant gratification seeking heart be content?

It is 8 am.  The NPA just left the country.  No, not some political group.  Just the National Power Authority which rations the country's power to different areas at different times everyday without warning.  To most in this country, they will barely notice.  Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos. 

I take off the heavy string of questions that hang inquisitively around my neck.

It is time for a cup of coffee and the beginning of a brand new day, a brand new story.