the unknown

I’m back in the biggest city of the most violent non-warring country in the world, I’m alone, and it’s getting dark. But the tree begs to be climbed. Its branches hang low and strong, crossing each other to form a ladder that leads up and out on stretched limbs sprouting bright plastic leaves.

The city is preparing for night. Doors open and close abruptly. Footsteps quicken. I grab the lowest branch and pull myself up into the safety of cradled sky. Or so I think.

As I step into the tree a car stops. At a four way intersection. And stays there. I can feel them watching me though I can’t see their faces, like the hermit crabs at the beach somehow know when you’re near. I don’t move. I have no shell. We both wait. For a few minutes. Then I jump down. Actually I check to make sure there’s no glass under me and cup a limb between my hands and hang and drop. I start walking immediately upon impact. My left foot hurts a bit but I wait until I get to the street lamp to make sure it’s not bleeding. Another car pulls out in front and the one watching me must pass. They have to. Otherwise everyone would notice. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

learning to read water and sky

I made it home. I made it to the ocean—my ocean, the Pacific. Bathwater warm and black sand. The sand cradles my body. It’s like holding hands. We press against each other and drift in and out of delirious sleep. I confuse my own breath with the slurred whispers of waves.

Two little boys fly a kite from atop a rock island. It catches the last sun in gasps whipping back and forth. Peachy cream curls with silhouettes floating through open sleeves. The sun sets red in the west, and the moon rises orange and upside down like a bowl. We think for the first time in years how the moon we see is an illusion, our angle of reflected light. Somehow the earth feels the same.

How strange that we have only one word for light when there are so many experiences of it. We should have thousands of words to describe the intimacy of each relationship: the rose of sun on ocean ripples—maritessia; the brilliant corona on a blue day—shontan; the first glow on mountain outlines—spectoscura. How can we have one word to describe all of existence, all of energy, and not recognize that we are all one?

A star falls on an arc long enough to breathe but not create a dream. In the glow a massive boulder struggles to break free from the sand. Front flippers rise and press down but without water are too weak to lift the massive shell-cased body where it lies. She strains her neck and eyes bulge and search for answers and find mine. I want to help her but I see the trail she has made up and down the beach, the slow progress of primal nature, smooth belly stokes punctuated by fin prints, and I know she will make it back alone. A great wave comes and wraps around our feet and lifts her body back to the ocean. She’s gone. I silently pray for her baby.

la triste verdad

San Marcos is a divided town. The main road splits it into two disparate worlds and few cross the boundary. On one side lies the maze of restaurants, resorts and healing centers. The extranjeros live here and the gringos have a space in which to play. On the other side are the barrios where the natives dwell. There are steep cobbled streets and a few small tiendas, empty dirt lots with sticks and futbol goals and children one tenth their size guard them. A single gnarl of rose brush crowns an alley in arch, dripping goblets of crimson onto steps below. Coffee fields with rich ripe berries—yellow, red and dried to brown. Young boys march in at early morning with empty milk crates on their backs and return to fish hooked weights and tally the harvest and go home hungry. Buildings stenciled with Unionista sun symbols and branded murals: Tigo, we are with you.

The people are surprised to see us pass. Some of the children chime greetings. Others run and hide. Because of my sunglasses, Israel tells me. The sun is not bright enough. It makes me seem frightening. I take them off. We reach the mirador, a plot of land owned by his friends.Lago Atitlan spreads her fingers before us, intertwined with golden inlets rising into mountains of cross hatched crops, colored crosses and green jungle. Beams of prismed colorless light strike each lakeside town. De dios, I say. No, de San Pedro. This is his land.

The man is wearing overalls with bleached patches on his joints and building a hospital on this plot. They have carried the construction materials up the hill—the same way we have come but with cement and glass and steel and wood. He asks me where I’m from and tells me how it came to be known. The Jesuits, he says, were like the conquistadores. They wanted all the land for themselves, so they gave the towns good Spanish names to show their strength and solidarity. From Los Angeles and San Diego through San Antonio across to La Florida. All of this. To name a thing is to try to take its power.

I never learned this in school, I say. This is why I travel. To come to know new things. And old things in other ways.

Learn from people, Israel tells me. They experienced it. Son historia viviendo—they are living history. But the books are necessary too. For names and dates.

La cosa es que, I begin… it’s easy to remember that the stories people tell are their own. It’s more difficult with books. Books are stories too. Each one has a perspective. But because they are written and bound we believe they are truths, facts, and we trust them . En realidad, you must find many ways to see a thing and decide for yourself which you feel is right.

Twenty three Mayan tribes exist today. Each with its own language. Each with its own style of clothes. The clothes themselves speak, showing language, tribe and town. Patterns of peacocks, of rain, of crops, of blood. The Mayan Cross is a universal symbol. Its four points represent the cardinal directions, the four colors of corn, and the four realms of social life: priest, king, artist, and the rest.

Ixchel Diosa is the goddess of the moon and the textile. She comes often to this world in the form of the serpent. The women wear almolongas, long, intricately designed bands around their heads to serve as snakes that connect them to her. In Guatemala, most wear the traditional dress. But still, little by little, they are losing their heritage. People come to see them as puppets and take photos, and buy trinkets, and leave. Con ojos que no vean, corazones no sientan. With eyes that do not see, the hearts do not feel. I am told that "the elders and leaders often stand fast and steady in their homes, suffering silently with sullen hatred in their eyes" as the others pass blindly by.

of darkness and light

A man darts onto the trail, scrambling through the heavy vines and bushes that hold up the cliff. He shifts his weight with the grace of a white buffalo. He carries a load of fresh wood on his back, a day’s work though its early morning. A silver machete is strapped to the bundle; a broad brimmed, felt hat rides low to keep the heat in and the sun off his face. The weight of three days food and warmth digging into my shoulders seems to lift.

Strange plants peer down from their perches in the great trees they’re slowly killing, red cactus-like creatures with menace towards the world. Occasionally, it seems, the trees purge themselves of these parasites and discarded carcasses liter the path. Flowers everywhere: giant yellow daisies, purple mourning glories, orange curls, pink petals that cover a cupped palm and float across red mud and river pebbles. Butterflies frolic much faster than my mind can move at this steady gait. But not many other insects. It is a strangely quiet cloud forest.

In the early 1900s, Santa Maria erupted, spewing out about five and a half kilometers of magma and killing over 5,000 people. The volcano had been dormant for 500 years and the local people never knew the signs of seismic activity. The king at the time did not want the world to know of this disaster. So he denied it and refused aid, while his people suffered greatly. A great epidemic of malaria broke out in the aftermath, and the world finally heard. Toxins to kill the mosquitoes were poured into the jungles, the villages, the streams and rivers. Life has returned and recovered, but we see no ants for the first two days.

Maize grows tall and strong—higher than the adobe houses. Beans and squash intertwine to cover the land between town and jungle. Children lead herds of black sheep across dusty roads to green knolls rolling in the grass, squinting, echoing hola, hola, hola to passerbys.

Mist swallows the mountains one by one before the departing sun. The last solemn shapes of tree covered crests disappear with the valley. A wave of isolation sets into the small ghost town. No flowing water can be heard. The few people walk with heads down. Broken ceramic bowls. Closed comedors. We are cut off from the world and I shudder. Descanzo en paz.

A blood curdling scream rips through the darkness beyond our glow of dying embers. The children have just run out of the house where we’re staying the night, threading arms through sleeves as they run. We look at each other in the pale light, afraid to investigate, more afraid not to, and slip out the gate. A great beast is being carried upside down through the street: a man holds his front legs, another his rear and his tail. He thrashes wildly as they heave him into the flatbed of the truck where two other enormous pigs are waiting'

Mine’s bigger, says little Alvarado. Want to see?

We look down. Yes. He leads us back into the compound and grabs a flashlight. We creep up to the back gate and look over it. Alvarado looks between the two top planks and shines his light through at bushes a few feet away.

He’s over there.

Oh. I’m sure he’s really big.

Si, muy grande. I will show you in the morning.

But we will be gone.

There is no sun rise. Just a gradual becoming of light. It first infuses the clouds, bringing gestures of volcanic mountain ranges, then the water, tracing the currents softly. Slow spreading across the sky to dim the stars and breathe form into inlets and coves. Not rose like its counterparts but cream—leche con café—see the warmth before feeling comes to the world. Stirring of birds. Sensual realization and confusion, of sounds and touch; water begins to boil as raindrops on a bundled body. Glowing wetness blanket wrapped.

a poem for the people

With feet deep in the earth

and souls guarded by the angels,
we climb the stairs
formed by silhouettes of
cloud forest.

In the shadow of the mountain
we bury our forgotten dreams,
worlds that would have been.
Rain falls and tears and sweat.
Corn grows, beans, and squash.
The three sisters with faces to the sun
feed the people, so that
this world may continue and dream on.

Swallows carry seeds across the valley:
the voices of our ancestors;
the hopes of our children.
We work from birth until death.
And we sleep, and we listen, and we live.

una poema para el pueblo

Con pieses profundidos en la tierra

y almas cuidadas por las angeles,

subimos las escaleras

formado por las siluetas

del bosque de las nubes.

En la sombra de la montaña

Enterramos nos sueños olvidados,

de mundos que habrían sido.

Lluvia caye y lagrimas y sudor.

Crecen maize, frijoles, calabacera.

Las tres hermanas con caras al sol

alimenta el pueblo, para que

continue este mundo y sueñe.

Las golandrinas llevan semillas a través de el valle:

las voces de nos ancestors;

las esperanzas de nos hijos.

Y trabajamos de nacimiento hasta la muerte.

Y dormimos, y escuchamos, y vivimos.

darning holes

Traveling rekindles gratitude. For the little things we often overlook. Pillows. The color of real coffee. Clean socks. Free water. The love of strangers. Children’s dirty hands.

A steep cobbled street turns sharply off the main road. I follow it and climb until the rocks turn to soil beneath my feet and the path stops at a large flat patch of grass. The children see me and come running. Gringa! As if they’ve never seen one before. There are many and no adults to be seen. They are beautiful, with horribly crooked teeth and giant smiles, eyes both bright and dark, and tiny mud-creased fingers that reach out for anything I have.

Que es este? I ask. Un parque?

No. They all laugh. El campo.

Then it is their turn. Where are you going—always the first question. Just passing. Just walking. Here. Next my name, my age, where I’m from, am I married, do I have a boyfriend, a picture, a dollar? What do my bracelets mean? What is my religion? What is in my bag? Can I see?

I take their pictures and show them how they look. I wonder if they’ve ever seen themselves like this before—in an instant of frozen color. It seems like magic and they want more: one with the baby, one with mi primo, one with the flower.

They ask me to play futbol and everyone giggles as I jog across the rugged grass and stumble on the rocks. I kick the ball once, and my shoe flies off. I missed the goal. I bow. They burst out laughing. Then we fly kites. Thin pieces of plastic scraps held together by straws. I can’t get mine to stay in the air so I ask them to show me how. They are so proud to teach me, though no one else can make it fly either really. Good job, I tell them. They take turns. They take care of each other, the older ones holding the babies on their backs, giving them the ball.

It’s time to go; the dark clouds of late afternoon are coming in. They ask when I’ll return. I don’t know what to say. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. I never lie to children. But even without promises, they ask me to come back with little gifts. To make one girl a flower for her hair like the one I wear. Another asks for a piece of candy. A little boy wants shoes.

I decend back from neverland into the city below. The colors of peeling paint on cracked cement buildings are a strangely overwhelming beauty. Red flowers grow out of ruddy brown ceramic tile roofs, but only on certain homes, and I wonder why they chose just these. The flowers, not the people. A stray dog sleeps in a doorway, and his muddle clotted coat and mustard fur match the backdrop. A bicycle with two flat tires sucking along the street. Black hat, black sweater and spectacles knocking on a door. Twisted tree framed by crumbling walls. Women in woven cloth balancing baskets and bolsas overhead. Se vende tortillas.

Memorias Muertas

For a long time I thought it was a canon. The explosions seemed to come from everywhere at once, unlike gunshots that let you feel their direction of origin in your belly. The noise bounced off the mountains and a puff of smoke held high overhead. It isn’t until the old man lights one off next to me, and the sound makes me almost deaf but leaves just enough so I can hear the second blast a few moments later that I understand these are fireworks.

I watch as he reloads. He holds a small newspaper bomb up to the sky and against his breast to bless it. There is a cringle of paper as he wraps another layer around it and slips it into the metal cylinder. I suppose it is like a small canon. He moves the cylinder around on the dirt, finding solid ground and searches his pockets for matches. When he bends the fuse down a woman nearby stops wailing and walks away, just behind a concrete grave. The man stoops to light the wick then takes several swift steps back. It explodes. Little pieces of charred newspaper hang in the air like black snowflakes and fall to the ground. And the man moves on, to honor another ancestor.

Each mausoleum is painted in bright colors and patterns and adorned with wreaths of plastic flowers, bouquets of lilies and marigolds and gaudy garlands. Offerings of thin burning candles and scraps of food and juice frame the names of loved ones. Families eat ice cream bars and smoke cigarettes and sit and talk. Several marimba bands move from one group to the next, playing the favorite songs of dead relatives competing to make themselves heard by the living and the dead. Libations of alcohol and water and coconut juice pour upon concrete.

In other towns, people fly spectacular kites that represent dreams or messages to the gods, to the ancestors. The tails carry evil thoughts back to the earth while the pure ones remain in the sky. I remember that ala means both wing and soul and almost understand.

I have no altar, no family here. I buy a garland of paper flowers to give as gifts to the women I love when I come home. A drunken man tries to interrogate me when I place one over the gated entrance to the cemetery. I watch the others mourn and think of my own ancestors-- the ones I’ve known, the stories I’ve heard, and the ones that are lost, except in me and my brothers. Invisible hands that shaped our minds, bodies, hearts. But my soul belongs to me alone. I move on and feel the eyes of angels.

Todos Ganan

It’s only 8 am on Dia de Los Santos, but the men of Todos Santos are already completamente borrachos. They have been celebrating through the night, and several are slumped over on staircases or in gutters. Pools of dried blood stain the dirt but no vomit. Streams of drool spill from the sides of mouths and a pile of clothes begins to twitch as we pass.

Despite the incredible debauchery of the local people, Todos is a pueblo from fairytales. The clouds roll in and the rest of the world disappears, until its existence is forgotten. We are an island in the sky. A certain silence passes in waves, of rushing water and whispered secrets, broken by the burst of whistles and trample of hooves, the confused rooster’s crow and the melody of a marimba trio. Shots ripple through the valley and a puff of smoke rises high above from homemade fireworks.

The children, like their parents, are all dressed in the same traditional trajes. Boys in red and white striped trousers, shirts with embroidered collars and straw hats with thick blue bands. The girls wear blouses that all but the littlest ones have made themselves and sheets of thick purple fabric as skirts. With raw cheeks and large dark eyes they look more like dolls than real children. They stay close to their mothers, and some cling to aprons spattered with the grease of fried chicken and samosas.

The riders lean far back in their saddles and swagger back and forth with the movements of their horses, tempting fate. Colorful streamers fly behind their hats and fake feather plumes protrude from the tops. Occasionally, one lets out a long ululation and his face cringes with pain. A man beside him hands over a clear bottle of aguardiente, whispering toma, toma. He takes a swig and passes it back. The air is heavy with emotion… anticipation, celebration, defiance.

When the conquistadores first came here, they did made it forbidden for the Mayans to ride horses. This was an incredible form of oppression for a people cut off from the rest of the highlands by steep and narrow passes, but they did nothing for a long time. Finally, one day, an old man became very drunk. He stole a horse and rode it round and round the centro. He was killed but his legacy lived on and the people of Todos Santos have celebrated his courage for the last 200 years. When someone dies in the fiesta, their life is considered a sacrifice to the ancient Mayan gods. With this gift, the whole village will prosper.

A burst of whistles is blown and the horses turn and trample the sand, kicking it up into the faces of people pressed against the railing, who squeal and gasp in delight and dismay as the riders fly past and fall. A few cling to the sides of their saddle when they begin their decent, and breaths are held and bodies lean in closer. Each time a man lands in the sand there is a moment, a pause, where the collective crowd wonders if he will move. Then he does. And there is a sigh of relief. Or disappointment.

The riders shriek at the horses and crack leather whips against rolling flanks. As they day wears on, they fall more often. The ones in the lead are given beautiful chickens as symbols of their strength and sacrifices to the gods. Most beat the horses with these gallinas until resistance and motion die. Then feathered carcasses are thrust toward the crowd and passed out of sight. One man rides with no hands, gliding over the horse’s body. When he is given a speckled hen, he holds her wings spread wide out in front, and she acts as the carving on the prow of an ancient warship.

The riders, the horses and the crowd are growing weary with this test of endurance. The ones that remain on their horses until the end are said to have blessings for the next year. The ones that fall, mala suerte. The horses get no reward, but, as one man explains, this is tradition. Eso si que es. Y en realidad, los que ganan son dioses.

Agua Pura

El Zaite is built into a steep slope that is now cloaked in green. The cement and sheet metal shacks, like the trees that surround them, seem to cling to the wet earth and teeter towards the valley below. Despite the grey clouds, the air is hot and heavy and traps you in your own clothing. The children are dressed in collared shirts and jumpers but run and climb and swing about, uninhibited by the polyester pleats.

The first one I meet has high white socks worn to brown. She is coming to class late and shows me a bandaid on her elbow where she’s just had blood drawn. Carlos tells me she may have parasites. She tells me only that her arm hurts. But she soon forgets and hugs me close, swinging her long dark hair across my hips.

“Sueno con un mundo lleno de paz, armonia y solidaridad,” is painted across the stucco wall beside the mural of a world held by children of all colors. I recognize the faces of our children from the pictures I've seen. They look healthy—much better than the ones in Africa. Their cheeks are round and rosy, and their eyes are bright and alive. Their uniforms, though patched and printed with dust are not in shreds. I am grateful that this center is here, and I wonder what they would be like without it.

It’s snack time—though for some this may be the only meal they have all day. They eat with an eagerness that exposes their hunger. They rip their papusas to pieces and lick their fingers when they finish. They have no water to drink but sip the hot chocolate before it cools and burn their tongues. It's so good they say, too good to wait.

They proudly show off loose teeth, colored drawings, and the way they wash their hands—all in a single shallow bucket using antibacterial gel rather than soap and a shared towel they play tug-of-war with. Then the cook washes the stack of plastic plates with another single bucket, this time of soapy water, throwing a cupped handful on each one. I notice that no one—not the principal nor the staff is drinking water, but they give a small amount to each plant.

Water is a major problem in El Zaite. During heavy rains the streets flood and the uncovered walkway becomes treacherous for little running feet. The crops are drowned by torrential rains. One of the teachers was unable to use the rope pully system to cross the river from her house, so they moved her closer to the center. And all this water is contaminated, by trash and human feces. I’m reminded of some fragment from my childhood—a song or a poem… water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The lack of clean water is the underlying cause of most illnesses in this community. Last month, there were 841 reported cases of diarrhea, 671 of parasites, 329 of amoebas and 29 of giardia in children under the age of five in Zaragosa.

In a focus group with eleven mothers, every one had family members who have become sick from drinking contaminated water. Often the illness had spread to other children or even the entire family. One, a woman with 7 children, gets her water from their well without treating it. Her oldest (age 13) recently got sick with amoebas, which quickly spread to the four-year old girl, then the boy, then the mother. She never was tested herself, but the children were, received appropriate medication and are doing fine now. Still, she does nothing to treat the well water and prays that her youngest, a four-month old infant, will not contract a dangerous disease. As one woman tells us, “sin agua, no vida.” No water, no life.

Marta, one of the teachers at the center, is young and beautiful and never stops smiling. She was sick for a full month before doctors realized she had amoebas in her brain that had attacked her central nervous system. She was tired and pale, and it gave her great pain to see light or hear sound. She had a lazy tongue and tremors so bad that at times she thought she might fall over or faint. She got treatment, she's taking vitamins, and the pain has subsided, but she still gets migraines. I'm told that amoebas can lie dormant in the body for 3-5 years without symptoms. With the worst cases, like hers, treatment will kill the adult amoebas but not the "juevitos". Marta will undergo treatment every six months for the rest of her life.

Three other children at the centre have been infected. Alonso, who is three, Marta who is six, and her sister Maritza who is 13 and attends the tutoring program. I can only imagine how many of these children many have them without yet knowing, and how many others are suffering in silence.

transpire

stalks of collapsed corn like
the carcasses of abandoned infantry lost en el conflicto.
white flags furious in the wind.
paper kites trapped by telephone lines,
butterfly wings torn on barbed wire.
¨sin agua, no vida.¨
but still the flowers grow
up through cracks in the cement and
turn their faces towards the passing light.
children run barefoot over glass shards
without breaking skin.
blind corners peer over shoulders
along the road where
buckets of white lilies yawn.

Cement Rain

Cities scare me. Not the people or the crime but the very essence of the city—its structures. Armies of cars that move faster than I can think; the buildings so tall they block the sky, sock you in, separate you from the rest of the world; the lights bright blinding us to stars just beyond; the advertisements’ abrasive toxic commands.

No city overwhelms me more than the one I grew up next to—Los Angeles. The heavy buzz drains me, and the exhaust chokes my lungs and turns my stomach. Without stars, without trees, a sailor lost at sea. A few days ago, I saw a stray coyote in downtown Hollywood at around 3 in the morning, looking bewildered and hungry. I felt so sorry for him. Then I realized we are just the same and will both find our way home.

San Salvador is a city like any other: huge and loud and fast and modern. There are only chain restaurants and international brands. I immediately don’t like it. I am out of place and out of breath. I seek solace in a small nursery, where potted plants hang from a barbed wire perimeter. Who would break in here? I wonder if the plants feel protected or trapped. Every other store is guarded by a stocky man with a large gun. The guns are mostly pointed upwards at the rain clouds, but they still make me nervous. One man has a long dagger in a black leather sheath with fringes on both sides.

The guns and knives don’t make me feel safe. They are a reminder that this is not my city and one of the few distinguishing characteristics I’ve seen. When we meet Carlos, our Project Coordinator, the first thing he tells us is he is upset. That’s so rare. Refreshing in a way, coming from a land of good and fine. Then he explains why. One of the women in the community was killed recently. She had been riding a bus when robbers had boarded it. They immediately killed the driver. They stole from each of the passengers. When they came to the woman, she refused. The little money she had was to pay the rent. For her store. She sold small things. She had so little. She could not give it up. Then she would have had nothing at all. So they took her life. She had three children. Though they are grown, she was still actively contributing to the center. She was a good person, Carlos said, and he was sorry.

I look past Carlos at the cars, at the people, at the guards, and I miss the lush green hills we’d rolled in through. The mist and dark clouds mingling like a cool, calm blanket. The pyramids of coconuts I had forgotten my love for. A gentle rain had begun to fall as we rode along. Cada dia, our driver told me. With the window open and the tropical wind in my face, I breathed deeply my favorite scent in the world…water on dirt. This is the smell of life. It’s not the same when rain falls on concrete. And think of the steep slippery slopes and mudluscious children tomorrow will bring, and I smile.

dance of dawn

Two fish with long sharp snouts swordfight. Moments earlier they had been swimming side by side when—without warning— they about turn and face off. Mouths open and scissor close twice: on guard, touché. Other fish wrestle and frolic, fins almost touching, dancing like butterflies. A giant sea slug moves forward slowly, extending a handful of dark tubes from his mouth to feel his way along. Enormous porcupine fish with spots blend into coral. They are larger than the rocks but nervous, and stare up at me from directly below. A school of zebras zig zags. Shifts in sunlight fractulate their scales into rainbows. As I watch their seamless synchronicity, I am challenged to communicate without words.

The coral glows yellow and green; it actually seems to emit ultraviolet light. I hear something high pitched and constant, a crackle, like static electricity. I don’t know what is making this sound. Perhaps it’s the coral breathing.

Dolphins are near. I cannot see them, but I feel it and it makes me happy. Flying fish scatter beside the wooden boat, like skipping stones with hummingbird wings. Everything on the dhow is made by hand: the body, the sails, the hinges for ropes; the mast is several long pieces of wood strapped together—not one. Does that make it strong or weak? It would be incredible to depend so completely on something you made yourself. Something soft but hard. Something real. This is trust. Struggling for survival is the only and most complete way of being fully present.

My last African sun ripens on the clouds and reflects golden peaches onto surface ripples. Sand and leaves are caught in the cast off color. I rub the light into my emptied eyes and walk towards the ocean, to greet the day. A Masai man merges with my walk. He is missing his bottom front bottom teeth and he smiles often. He has scars on his cheeks, like the others, two overlapping circles.

The beach is empty; only a few fishermen in cut off pants and baseball caps untangle their nets. Some tie rocks to woven cages used to catch fish. The cages form a “V” with a tunnel in the center and look like the wicker of chairs, like the old one with the hole in the middle that still sits my garage back home. The men tie plastic bottles to the tops of the cages for buoys, to find them again. I’ve seen parents tie the same large bottles to the arms and legs of small children to use for floaties. We pass a ball made of rags and a large beehive-like fruit.

The boy touches my hair as it blows and tangles. He asks me why Germans and Swiss and people from England and Europe all have hair like this. I tell him we were born different. The higher up you go in Europe, the farther north, the lighter people’s hair and eyes are. He holds his forearm up to against mine and smiles. I like yours better, I say. I point at black—safi sana, very good—and white—apana, no. It is the best I can do. When I speak he inhales sharply and often, as if surprised by even the simplest things. He is my age but acts like a child, and also like a very old man.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I let it rest there for a moment before shifting my scarf. He tries to hold mine but I won’t let him and keep getting distracted by shells. He asks me to come with him to his village, to meet his family, “to see life.” I tell him I cannot. I have to go home.

He sings a Masai song for me, softly. Not words but sounds, noises, whispers and gurgles, like the grass, like the river. At the end he pounces, and his necklaces jingle. He spreads his arms and leans back with his eyes closed to feel the sky upon his chest.

A black bird clutches a white flag blustering in the wind, shuffling his feet, and dips his beak deep into the flag pole to drink fresh rain.

the beaten path

The good god smiles upon us; rain sheets across white sand, black lava rock. Warm water soaks thin cotton, sand climbs up calves. I run past rocks coves and strange abandoned Arabian bungalows rising like a mirage between outstretched palm fronds. A woman beats an octopus into the sand with a stick, over and over again. Another slams heavy cloth into coral. An old man with yellowed teeth hisses tst, tst, as he guts porcupine fish, slitting a steel blade from jaw to tail. He removes the meat with a twist and scrapes it aside into a pile. The spiny skin is spread flat on the rocks like a map of the world, eyes still bulging bright in sockets.

I come around a rock outcrop and the women washing shout Munzungu! and run towards me. They come close then stop and smile and so do I. Only one speaks English. She asks where I’m from, what I’m doing. Walking, I answer. She seems confused.

“Are you washing your body?” She gestures towards the aquamarine ocean. No need--the sky does it for me, I laugh.

The women are jabbering excitedly in Swahili, and Fatima, the largest boldest one in bright yellow, bellows and I know they laugh at me and I wonder what about. They stare at my bare feet and cringe when I walk. It’s okay, sawa sawa. It makes me strong. I flex. Their flat black feet with light underbellies float upon recycled rubber. Shreds of fabric wrap around ankles and arches.

One approaches me with a translucent white and blue squid hanging from hooked fingers. Its tentacles hang down, swaying slightly like dreadlocks. “Photo!” she demands. I have no camera. But I hold out my fingers and replace hers, hooked in the creatures brain. Guts and tubes ooze out, engine parts. It’s heavy and limp. I hold it until I feel awkward and then I rub my finger down its face and pretend to lick it, safi sana!

We all start walking back the way I had come. Moments later an older woman shouts at these young ones who are about my age. I ask if they are in trouble, but they don’t understand.

You give me money, one tells me. I have no shoes, no camera, you think I have money? I explain. But Muzungus mean gold, as the man in the market had warned me, even here when there is no path and all pockets are empty.

The full moon is cause for celebration: fire dancing and eating and breathing, and acrobats dressed in beaded fringe. I join a train of locals, moving with jerky spasmodic motions, like the swell and crash of waves. A boy with a crown of woven palm asks me to dance, and we spin faster and he puts the crown on my head and it slips again and again. I dance in the moonlight in at the water’s edge, my feet feeling the path of trenches left by rain finding its way home. A ghost crab scampers around me, and I let him lead, and I follow. He stops and we stare at each other and I curtsy away, and he burrows down to bed.

The fire burns long and late, even when there is only wet wood left that crackles and smokes. I sit on a long bench to watch it, next to a man I’d met on the shuttle, a Muslim man whose family has lived here always, and I wonder if that means they were slaves and can’t trace their origins beyond this island anymore or if they were born here, free. We speak of God. He tells me, “Everyone is same blood. Same people. Same everything. One God.” Only many ways of seeing, I say. He reminds me of the first man I’d met in this country, a taxi driver you insisted, “We respect each other here, because we don’t know who is right.” I stay on the beach in a hammock into early morning, watching the sky so carefully, trying to detect the movements of the stars and decipher time from bird calls.

A river of red ants winds through the rain forest, forming complex patterns, hypnotic paths and tunnels. I wonder where they’re going with such ambition, and where are we.

My ranger carries a loaded gun. The food chain here is strange and unnatural. Rangers protect the animals from the poachers and the tourists from the animals. I tell him that if it comes down to killing an animal or the animal killing me that he should not shoot. He thinks I’m joking, and I can’t convince him otherwise. I wonder if anyone has ever told him that. If he would listen when the time comes.

The solo safari is lonely at times, but only because the animals make me feel like a third wheel. I watch the dik dik, a small antelope, twitch anxiously. They travel only in pairs, and he fears for his mate. Baboons part each others’ hair and search for insects. I ask a stranger to check mine. Two giraffes eat lunch in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. Bird calls sound into the night— some never answered— echoing silent vibrations in distant hollow caves.

The bus carries me east along vast plantations, rows of yucca and maize that climb the green mountain slopes. The villages we pass in the heavy rain seem quiet; boys in torn western clothing perch on tables in empty, dripping, wooden stalls. Little ones lug milk crates of empty glass bottles on their backs. Women carry bundles of wood or sacks of meal on the crowns of their heads with steady gaits and deliberate gazes. I can see them at work far off in the fields, but their bright cloth makes them seem like jungle birds twittering in the bush. In the backdrop, layers of mist slide in and out of valleys and ridges; one man tells me, “the mountains are undressing.”

The skyline of Dar sprawls across the horizon and suddenly it’s upon us—blocks of glass and concrete and decrepit tug boats with peeling paint or dhows with translucent, skin-like sail and more, higher, piles of garbage everywhere. I sprint up the dock and onto the boat just as it sounds its horn and pulls back. The passengers are all black, and the cargo is all red: meat rotting in the sun and rice bags of belongings.

Zanzibar is and will forever be a trading town. Everyone is shouting, buying, selling, loading, carrying. Fish and trinkets and pyramids of produce splayed across the sidewalks. High stone buildings with intricately carved teak and brass doors-- the only visible signs of owner’s wealth-- form corridors, a maze of alleys to bewilder passerbys. Three young minstrels are making music with wooden blocks and plastic scraps, but they lose their muse and smile at me shyly. At night the park is overcome by a market, where stalls display fresh catches: crab claws, octopus tentacles, skewers of chicken and steak and king fish and red snapper. Liver and mussels. French fries and cabbage. Suddenly everyone is your friend and chants, Jambo! Karibu to my best restaurant. Special local price for you. Poa, cool, murmured as a mantra.

The trades of Zanzibar were once dark and solemn: processions of people in chains brought to Arabs by dealers who overpowered village leaders or seduced them with mirrors and food. My young guide sits upon the ancient basement stones and in a low voice tells me, It was very dark here. The condition was no water no food no light. Seventy-five women and many children with only this thin window forget air. About half of them die before auction. When they go to the market straight wear this chain. One neck here, one neck here. He puts it on, and I wonder how that makes him feel, if he still thinks about it every time. Like this they go. There were many children trapped here as well, taken away with their parents. They would be a gift for you. One person would be worth about 10 rupees; with inflation, the equivalent of 50 cents.

After abolition, the people don’t know where to go or where they’re from. A good man built a church and taught them how. It was erected on the site where the platform for auction once stood. In the center of the platform was a jojoba tree. It was a whipping post. If you cry you are not strong, and your price goes down. If you do not cry you are strong your price goes up. If you are lazy and not strong they will not buy you. If they do not buy you, you will be worthless, and they will slaughter you. So all the slaves, they try to be strong. The large porcelain tub once used by the Arabs to catch the blood of useless slaves is now for baptisms. This has become a place of cleansing, of healing where once there was only great pain.

USUSAFURUE NYOTA YA MWENZIO. DON’T SET SAIL USING SOMEONE ELSE’S STAR. These are the words on one woman’s kangha.

I find a mollusk in the street in the middle of Stonetown. His shell is cracked at the opening, but I can tell his is still alive, because of the bubbles that mean he is trying to move or to speak or to breathe. He is far away from his home, and I wonder how he got here. We should name him, my friend suggests. Starfish. I cradle him in my palm and carry him through the crowds, but no one seems to notice. We come back to the shore, and the ocean is up to the boardwalk because the tide is so high. Boys are doing flips off the side in torn t-shirts plastered to thin bodies, one after another like the flight shows grandpa used to love. I walk a little distance away from them and throw Starfish far as I can, saying, “Not today, my Rafiki.”

twende safari!

Monkeys are racist, apparently. They have no fear of white people. If you walk alone, they will attack and try to steal your things. Only black men can chase them away.

Baby elephants are awkward. One is about three months old and stubbles along beside his mother. He lifts his trunk to nurse and seems to rest his chin against her leg. Their ears flap back and forth to flick away the tsetse flies, and I can see thick veins cover the undersides. When they are sick or sad or in pain their ears bend over, like the dolphins’ fins do in captivity. They have long lashes and make intense eye contact and it’s intimidating. They seem judge us all.

Giraffes are polite, I’m told, like me. I have always traveled to learn different perspectives, new ways of seeing the world. I want to try to expand my understanding and education to include the animals also. Perhaps I behave like the giraffes, not they like me. The street children have much in common with the baboons I spot wrestling and spying on us from treetops.

Bright yellow butterflies—Jackos—leap from ruts in the road like fallen leaves in gentle wind. Vast plains spread out in all directions, covered with high grass and exotic trees. Legend says the baobab once angered god. It was thrown to the earth and planted upside down, made to stand on its head for hundreds, even thousands of years, while elephants slowly scratch away into its soft bark. The sun fades over endless sky, smearing pastel streaks into the horizon. A waxing moon glows silver white between nearby branches, soon so bright that it drowns out the stars. Insect and bird calls join the whispers and thrushes of trembling reeds. When it rains it smells of the earth’s sacred birth in deep caves and tall grass and old furniture.

Morning brings its freshness and soft light. Two Masai men guide us into the hillside. One speaks no English. He is wrapped in the traditional bright red blankets--four—which means he is a rich man and well respected. I have heard the color is the same as the sun at its strongest points just after it rises and before it sets, when it has the most energy, which the Masai draw upon. The man, Papa, has very dark skin and a bright beautiful smile. He is tall and shy and handsome. His feet are covered with sandals made of recycled tires, curved at the bottom like boats, that makes him glide rather than walk. He carries a sharp steel spear, which traded for goats. He has used for hunting lions and for snakes. Both the black mamba and the green mamba live in these grasslands.

His companion Emna is a modern Masai, “more than Masai,” he says. As we walk, he tells me stories of his people, his village.

The dress is different for every age. For the young boys who are not circumcised, they are called Lions. They wear white. The fabric is thin because the blood is warm. The older ones who are circumcised and have become men are called Moranis. They wear red. The fabric is thick because of the cold. The number of the blankets depends on the cattle. A man with few cattle wears only two. A man with many cattle may wear four, even in heat.

For us it doesn’t matter to choose the beautiful, you can choose any girl. Sometimes the parents can chose for you. If the girl is beautiful the men will pay many cattle. If a man has many cattle he can take many wives—perhaps three. For example, the grandfather of my papi had eight.

Emna does not know who to marry or how he will marry. He later tells me if I come back with a Muzungu woman he will bring me a Masai man.

The Masai does not like to go to school. They believe they are only for cattle and the cattle are only for them. When a girl is married she is taken from school to start the family.

Papa is engaged. The girl gave him a bracelet so that everyone knows, but he has left it home, in the village. They are waiting to wed until she finishes primary school. I ask Emna if he goes to school. He says he visits when he can, that he likes learning. I ask what he wants to do with his life, what he wants to be.

I want to be maybe a leader; to go to school and study a lot and then to change people. To live all right all the ladies and gentlemen, not the gentlemen first, like now. The ladies build the house, work hard.

They build the boma from grass and sticks, mud and animal dung. When a man dies he is left in the boma and the women will move away and build a new house. Each family lives separately. If a friend comes to visit, he will stay in one home and be given one or two of the wives.

We pass a marulla tree, which is loved by the birds. Nests cover its branches, little patches of sticks that don’t seem to have an opening at all. Its trunk is straight and used by the Masai people to make traditional chairs. The terminallia has purple seed pods and bitter fruit. Acacias, flat like umbrellas, seem the best for hiding from the sun. Sodum apples have bright yellow fruits shaped like tomatoes and hairy leaves. The fruits are cut in half and rubbed on gums to relieve tooth pain. The roots are ground up to relieve nausea. The leaves are used by Masai for toilet paper.

Masai people are peaceful warriors. They do not fight other tribes. They do not eat the wild animals, only cows, sheep, and goats. When the lions threaten or attack the cattle the men will hunt them. The man from the boma that throws the first spear, without pausing, is the warrior. He cuts off the tail so that the entire village knows his spear first hit the lion. Other bomas will give him cows, because he has protected the herds. Cows are sacred. They are everyone’s favorite African animal.

When women are pregnant they eat no fat. No milk. No meat. Only porridge. This way, the baby growing inside them will stay small, and when they deliver it will be easier. They all have home births. Older women come to help them. The men go away for a while. Masai people are slender and tall.

The young boys—lions— watch the goats all day. They do not eat from dawn until dusk. In the mornings they will have porridge before they leave the house. If their mami likes them, she will put food, a little porridge, in a jar for them to take to the field. The papi does not like this if he finds out. They want the boys to fast and be strong. If the children are very hungry they will suckle the goats.

Masai medicine is dark liquid made from the roots of some plants and the bark of others. Medicine from the hospital is poison. Everything is mixed together to cure anything. There is no need for diagnosis. The medicine is at once familiar and foreign; it tastes of liquorish and honey, stone stoves and warm water.

The witch doctor speaks to God. We believe he can see far. He can also see inside your body. What makes you sick.

We believe there are two gods. One with good face and one with bad face. The good one makes rain. Grass grows and feeds the cattle. The bad one brings calamity, disease. The gods are in the ground and also in the sky. The people dance and pray for the good god to send rain. They give sacrifice a sheep, high up on the mountain. Always with skin of one color only. May be black or white or red but only one color.

Papa thrusts his spear into the earth. He points at tracks. Impala, Emna tells us. Nearby, there are hyena droppings, white with the calcium of bones. Warthogs swish their tails back and forth as they trot through the tall grass. The people—not the Masai, the modern Africans—say they are like American flags. Their butts swag back and forth with purpose. Like the local women, whose rumps hold children up while they tie them on with printed khangas. Columbus monkeys, which look like flying skunks, make the strangest noises I’ve ever heard. Rubbery laughs echo through the forests. I think “Mr. Cook” just bellowed back to them, but I can’t tell man from animal or mud from blood anymore.

finding faith

When Lydia, the headmaster of a nursery school, first came to Kiandutu, “the children were naked, very naked, but I did not lose the hope.” She knew she must “just teach them, give them the knowledge.” She knew that “God is going to do something.”

Both she and her pastor agreed that God had not forgotten them; He had not abandoned Kiandutu. One the contrary, she believed they had only accomplished what they had because of Him, that “this far is God, otherwise we would have given up. God is near with us. He protects and I can see it.” When I asked if they would like to say anything to people in the US who might be able to help, I expected a heartfelt plea. But she assumes people understand what life is like here, and she does not believe she has suffered more than most. Instead, she responded with a promise: “We appreciate their partnership and we will be very faithful, and very transparent.” In a country with so much she wanted donors to understand their accountability and integrity. Still, she asked nothing of them, but believed God would deliver everything they needed. “If God can do anything to help our school, we would be very grateful.” As we walked away the children were sweeping a clear space in the red dirt with their hands—perhaps to draw, perhaps to sit, perhaps to play.

In our last meeting with the village elders, the chief voiced his appreciation for our methods. He thought that our ideas of having the women record the hours they worked each week and signing contracts for childcare would motivate them. They were happy with all we had done in the few days we were here, and all we hoped to do. Charity told us, “they will pray for you, that you succeed. Pray for a long life.”

They are happy that I am involved, “a young person who has many years, and she learn.” I feel a great responsibility upon my shoulders as the circle of elders look at me. Some smile. Others are pensive. But I am ready, revived. My commitment has been strengthened by all that I’ve seen.

“We will do our best,” Debbie tells them, and I have faith. We are doing this the right way. Charity translates, “when we are involving them we are partnering. They will help where they can.” We have found the path, we must only travel it, together.

Before we leave Amina pulls me aside and says, “You are Wamboi. It is a good Kokuyu name.” I am part of something now, and with the support of the elders, we cannot fail.

A wise man tells me, “In Africa, when you want to get a point across, you wrap it up in a story.” I am Waimboi. This is the beginning of my story.

home alone

You can see the soul of the world in the eyes of these children. When they look out through slits in the walls of empty homes their faces fade back into the shadows, but pools of sunshine gleam from their obsidian pupils. They are sick and scared, but still they wonder about the world. A little boy brushes my hair back from my face and giggles at its softness. A girl holds my hand as we walk along the muddy streets. I don’t know whether she steadies me or I her.

Single mothers support all the families we meet and struggle to keep their children alive. They cannot possibly care for them and look for work. As Debbie tells a focus group, “Women are expected to do so much, but there is only so much that any one woman can do.” Many times, they lock the little ones in dark rooms with no windows. One explains the precautions she takes, “You put out the fire. You hide the matchbooks.” The houses are padlocked from the outside. There are no locks on the inside.

Most of the mothers cannot afford the 35 to 45 cents a day for child care. These women are all alone. There is no one to help them. They don’t discuss their problems; they don’t support each other. “They just do what they’re going to do”-- what they have to do to survive, and hopefully it is enough.

There are several nursery schools , pre-primary programs and day care centers in women’s homes that are run by compassionate and educated people. Handmade signs cover cracks and rusty nails on the walls. These are the only educational tools: one lists numbers using rows of bottle caps, many show pictures stitched in red string, and another, hanging crooked, has letters carefully traced on cardboard scraps. There are no books, no toys, no art supplies—few colors at all in the dark, cobweb covered classrooms.

We find children playing with modeling clay at one school. Each has a piece no larger than a nickel and is forming it into shapes. I thought they were making letters, “E” perhaps. But no, one tells me, “a dog.” There simply isn’t enough clay for the head and tail.

There are no swings and no slides, only dirt, brush and a goat eating garbage nearby. The headmaster explains, “during break they go to the field. It is not very accident free. The children are confined only here.”

Many students go to school not to learn but to eat. The government sponsors a feeding program for primary schools, and the children will at least get a bit of porridge each day. Many get nothing else. But the ECD programs get nothing. Schools rely on parents to pay the 200ksh fees. The tuition-just under $3 per month is used to feed the children and pay the teachers. Many parents cannot afford this. After months without paying and many false promises, the school is forced to send their children home. No one escorts them. The schools have no records of where they live, and it is not safe for teachers to venture into the slum. The children are just sent away. If they return—when they return—having found no one at home to let them in, their older siblings are pulled from classes to join them in the streets.

only so much

The air feels different immediately; it smells of dry grass and red earth and sinks in thick and stale on my white skin. The sun is brilliant and blinding, even this early, and a pale green butterfly passes over the tarmac. My body knows I’m finally here, in Africa.

As we crawl along towards Nairobi, towards work, so does the rest of this new world. Birds flock overhead and roost in trees by the hundreds-- beautiful, pure white egrets and strange scraggled vultures. Men and women walk in mud beside the road and dart through the traffic, moving with purpose. Some stop to wash in the shallow gully that winds along beside us. Others have already begun to tear at the tall bushes with long hoes.

It is only when we pull off the main highway and onto an unmarked road that leads to Kiandutu, the people’s settlement we’ve come to help, that I fully feel I have arrived. Every shack is different, pieced together from any and all available scraps: sheets of rusted tin with crooked nails protruding from bottle cap washers, rotten boards, cut brush, broken glass, shipping crates, cardboard, and mud, scribbled with advertisements or sketches , and crowned with knots of barbed wire. A sign along one wall reads ALTHOUGH DESPERATE WE ARE KIND BUT NOT WEAK.

Children are everywhere, more than I’ve seen in any village. They too appear to be pieced together with scraps of outgrown or handed down clothing, torn blankets, plastic bags, broken shoes, dirty lace petticoats. Some creep out into doorways or peer out through holes in walls and mother’s legs to watch us pass. Others chase the car and scream and smile and wave, skirting through garbage piles and cess pools with joy. Some are crying. Some are sick. Most are hungry. They are why we’ve come.

First we must confer with the village elders, to find out what has happened since we last spoke. One escorts us to the meeting place, Gerald, and tells us they “keep pushing on.” I enter the church with uncertainty, my eyes adjusting to dim light. A circle of men and women watch solemnly, waiting in patience for someone to begin. Our fearless leader Debbie gives them an update, states our purpose and what we hope will be theirs. Asks for questions. “They have not many questions. What they would like to see is that the children are taken care of.”

The first one we visit is dying and can no longer walk; he barely moves at all. Dennis has HIV. He is 3 and a half years old, but weighs just over 15lbs. He will not eat. I give him a lollipop, and after a few moments his hand opens, and it drops out onto his mother’s sandal, sticking straight up into the air. Later, she tries to give him water and he pours it onto the ground. He whines and scratches at his shirt until she opens it, exposing his rib cage and a chain necklace that dangles around his frail body. She holds him close, but his head falls back like a newborn. He cannot support its weight. We spend a long time convincing her to let us take him to emergency care. We tell her he can stay as little or as long as she likes. That he is not going there to die. We send him away with a social worker, and we pray that we have told her the truth.

The other families we visit are poor and hungry and weak but surviving. One blind grandmother cares for 5 children, who have been abandoned by both mother and father. One has an infection that appears to be eating her ear. She also has a disease in her eye, and it makes her seem to be always crying. Her brother has jiggers, and he balances awkwardly on one foot to scratch at the other, his loose and holey shirt sliding off his shoulder like his crooked smile. They have not eaten today. The best meal they’ve ever had is rice. They depend on the help of Muslim friends. When they get no help, they do not eat. We give them two bags of food, and though she cannot see into our eyes, the old woman holds each of our hands in hers for a long time before we can leave.

All are single mothers, struggling to keep their children alive. They cannot possibly care for their children and look for work. As Debbie tells them all in a focus group, “Women are expected to do so much, but there is only so much that any one woman can do.” Many times, they lock the little ones in dark rooms with no windows. One explains the precautions she takes, “You put out the fire. You hide the matchbooks.” The houses are padlocked from the outside. There are no locks on the inside.

They cannot pay the 35 to 45 cents a day for child care. There are a few decent nursery schools and women who provide care in their homes, run by compassionate people with some education. But most single mothers cannot afford this. There is no one to help them. A few leave the young ones with their older siblings, forcing the others to miss school and watch them. They too may be locked in the house.

Food is a dire need for all of them. They don’t discuss their problems. They don’t support each other. “They just do what they’re going to do.” What they have to do to survive, and hopefully it is enough.