This time for Africa!

Love for Kenya and for Africa is growing on me every day. I will not say I want to stay here for good and I do think that at 11 weeks, I will be ready to get home, but I am really learning to love, appreciate and respect life here more and more.

I am continually surprised by the lack of suffering. Despite poverty and hardships, there is continual joy and happiness. It is striking how content people are. I do not know their hearts, but I do not get the feeling that any of them want to be extremely rich (or rather, that they are trying to get rich). Instead, I feel that they just want to work hard, grow their crops, support their families, go to church...in other words, just live. Just be.

The desire to be better and to improve oneself is not necessarily a bad thing. Without it, the western world would not have many of the comforts we now enjoy. Each of these comforts are provided to us because someone saw a need, and, in striving to improve their own lot and their own life, has fulfilled it, thereby improving OUR lives. Indeed, our entire economic system is based around the principle of self improvement. There is not anything wrong with this.

But it is astounding how different life appears to be here in Africa. It is not that people do not want to improve themselves or their lives, but they seem to be aware of a limit, of "good enough", and can be content. To phrase it better, they wish to improve their lives, but they do not desire it so strongly that the quest to do so makes them miserable. This is not a generalization of Kenya or of Africa, but just what I have seen here. The people seem contented, they seem happy. They seem to say, "if my life improves, that is good. I will work hard, I will endeavor to be better, but I will never let that endeavor leave me discontented." It is remarkable how different this is from America, where the ceaseless quest for improvement, growth, betterment, literally takes over our lives and becomes an end in itself. It often leaves us empty and always wanting more.

I expected to found suffering and found more joy than I see in America. It shows so clearly that poverty is only a small part of life in Africa, instead of the defining factor. I believe that this joy and this contentedness may stem from the close social ties of society here. The people are never lonely. Families are close knit and live together or nearby. Women are always laughing and walking together as they take over the multitude of daily chores they must complete - cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, each of which is infinitely more difficult than it is at home. I wish I could describe how vibrant and ALIVE they seem, and how closely connected they seem, to each other and to their children and to their husbands and to the earth...I cannot accurately describe them and others here, other than to see I sense a deeper connection with humanity than I have seen before. I think that this is what brings people joy amidst their hard lives.

Anyway, time is moving on here, slowly but steadily, blurring together. The World Cup has started and immense pride at the games being here in Africa (for the first time!) is evident among all the Kenyans with whom I speak. A new song by Shakira is played at every commercial break, proclaiming, This time for Africa. We watch the games on a tiny TV in the hall, the kids crowded around on benches, and one holds an old radio which broadcasts in Swahili or Kikuyu. The TVs picture is about 6 seconds off, so we heard the announcers shout GOAL in the US-England game before we saw it. The kids support African teams first, and then whatever we tell them to support.

Thats all for now. As of tomorrow, I have only 7 weeks left in Kenya, a surprisingly short period of time it seems now. Who knew?