There is so much more color in Africa. Nature takes on different shapes and sounds, yet it all blends together in one entire sense of being. As we drive through small towns outside of Nairobi, many stop to stare at me. I am, as you may imagine, utterly out of place. Yet, at the same exact time, I am completely content. Merchants line the roads, their tables each display colors…colors in fruits, colors in jewelry, and colors in clothing. Everyone has a purpose, a reason to be. The dust is almost like a fog there, and it settles on everything, covers each object and person, almost protectively. The roads are full of potholes, and our van bounces constantly, like it is a piece of the beating heart I am now a part of.
Many do not understand why I have such a fervor for Africa. Maybe I will never fully explain my love for it and its love for me. It called to me. At a very young age, it called to me. And now, I am the one who has been blessed by answering.
I remember the first slum I visited on my very first trip to Africa. My eyes panned the infinite display of metal and cardboard constructed into boxes they called homes. Each rooftop was a slightly different color, pale from the sun, and entirely too tired to care. The children ran to me, grabbing desperately at my hands and arms, anything they could run their fingers across. I embodied life outside, a life that wasn’t based on surviving one day at a time. I felt the mud crusted to their hands fall over me. And, when I stooped to hug them, it was then that I knew they owned me. I was their’s to love, and I was certain I already loved them…with every bit of myself.
I walked through the pathways of mud, a crowd gathering quickly behind me, following me, as if I would lead them out, away from all that they knew.
We stopped on a hill made of garbage and plastic, and I watched as the children slid down it. I sat there, stuck somewhere between anger and sadness and happiness all at the same time. They surrounded me, kissing me. I felt their sores scrape my face, and my soul danced. I was a part of something that was much larger than myself, caught up in a rapidly paced tornado. You know, the little ones that form from dust and disappear in an instant?
As we pulled away, they shouted and waved. But I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking at the tiny fingerprints that painted my arms. I realized that they had taken shape there but had planted their seeds on my heart.
A Country Mother's Heart 