I’ve discovered that I love to read poetry while in Kenya. Somewhere during my junior year, in AP English, I found the beauty which poetry conveys (although I didn’t dare admit that at the time). During the horrendous ice storm of 2011, when I had recently returned from my semester in Kenya and school was closed for a week, I realized again the power of poetry. So before I left for Kenya in June, I compiled poems that I thought I would enjoy reading in Kenya, including those by Maya Angelou, John Donne, Pablo Neruda, and my favorite, Mary Oliver.
Over the last six weeks, these poems have brought me comfort, clarity, and serenity. I read them when waiting for meetings to begin, after dinner with family, at the nearby market as I sip ginger soda. I read them in quiet moments, on loud matatus, in the warm sun. Each time I read over the 11 poems, one sticks out to me more than the others, and means something more than it had before. A phrase or word or question strikes me by its relevance to where I am, what I am doing, and who I am becoming in each moment of my time in Kenya.
On my second day in Kenya, June 17, I wrote that my hope for my 7 weeks in Kenya was to BE. Today, as I reflected over the past 6 weeks and prepare for my last 4 days with the Umoja Project, I considered again what it means for me to BE in Kenya. I thought to this poem, “When Death Comes”, by Mary Oliver:
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
On June 17, I wrote that I wanted to BE courageous, BE strong, BE adventurous, BE curious – to BE. And I didn’t want to just BE these things on special occasions or in certain company, I wanted to BE this person, this Callie, in every day and in every step. I wished for myself that I would live in each second of each day, that I would take part in life and live it. I hoped to be an active member, to play a full role, in life. I didn’t wish to be center stage, to control, or to be put on a pedestal. I didn’t wish to have it all figured out, to help, or to overpower. I wished to, simply, BE.
As I read Mary Oliver’s words, I find that we agree. On June 17, I was hoping for myself that I wouldn’t “end up simply having visited” Kenya. And I don’t think that I have.
There have been bumps and frustrations, confusions and stumbling. But I believe that my hope to BE in Kenya became true. I was not anything special, I was not a hero, I was not perfect. I was not over-zealous, above average, or untrue to myself. But I WAS. I lived and am living.
Each time I ask a group of students to sing a chorus as we gather, I ask them: are you alive? Together we all shout a resounding “YES!” I ask them: are you happy to be alive today? “YES!”
And we are. I am.
So over the next five days I will prepare for and live out our last school visit, our last meetings, last meals with friends and family, last goodbyes, last glimpses of this place I love. In six days, I will prepare for and be reunited with the United States, chicken nuggets, my family, my community. I know that in our last week in Kenya I will BE. I will live. I will dance and sing with students, I will scream and run beneath the parachute, I will greet neighbors and friends, I will eat enormous meals, and will be present.
I will live out Mary Oliver’s words and with each step of each day will BE alive and will BE happy to be living.
My hope and my wish is that I can continue such BEing with fullness and joy, humility and courage, curiousity and strength when I return to the United States. I love Kenya because it lives. And because I live when I am here. On June 17, I wrote “why isn’t my Kenya self my everywhere and every day self?”
As I return to the United States on Friday, I hope full-heartedly that I am able to BE my Kenya self everywhere and every day.
callie daniels-howell 