this is how we learn how to live

There are at least a kajillion of us packed in this matatu, barreling down Ngong Road toward Karen, reggae music blaring in our ears, the driver fearlessly maneuvering the potholes, when we run out of gas and chug to a stop. I lean my head back against the seat and wait. There’s nothing else to do, anyway. I’ve temporarily escaped, my only task to develop some pictures to take to our caretaker on Wednesday.

Sunday. Rest. This morning Susan and I didn’t go to church. Instead, we showered and dressed and skipped breakfast and called a motorcycle taxi and climbed on the back of the bike and rode up, up, up the hill, to the home of a woman whose husband died last week. Every day since his death, people have gathered at their home to pay their respects and prepare for the burial.

Today we are making lunch for the church, who will come after the morning service to pray for the bereaved. We have our work cut out for us. Food from scratch takes a lot of time and energy. I sit in a circle with a dozen other women and we sort through rice to remove stones. We peel carrots and potatoes, we wash tomatoes and we cut onions. We pick kale from the garden and remove the bugs and the stems. We shell peas and husk corn and sort beans.

This is the closest I will ever come to camping in Kenya. A huge pot sits over an open fire. Our clothes, hair and skin smells of smoke. Cups of tea are passed around. A group of women wash dishes in large, plastic basins. Visitors walk past, offering greetings and culinary advice. This is community at its best.

A few years ago I was given the Kikuyu name Nyakio, which means ‘someone who is hardworking’. I was named at a party at someone’s house, when I sat in the yard with the other women and washed dishes after the meal. Apparently visitors sit in the sitting rooms, and they don’t offer to clear the table when they are finished. My mother would kill me if I behaved like that. Within my group of wonderful servant-hearted friends back in Oregon, I am far from the hardest working. But apparently my gift of adapting quickly to foreign cultures translates to ‘being willing to jump in and join people in what they are doing’.

I’m not sure I would be comfortable doing anything else.