First aid

10 pounds and 2 inches gone. The best two-week health plan one can buy for the cost of an international plane ticket. They thought it was rabies at first… then just a case of the squirrels, or who knows what else. I just laughed, because the whole time I knew what I had, and I was willing to let it take over me and tear me down. As much as I tried to tell them I'd be ok, they all put me in the place you put a person in your mind when you think he's totally nuts. I don't blame any of them.

Flew to Atlanta to meet the rest of the team and catch the long haul out of the country. Fella next to me on that short hop. He asked what was in the little black case I slid into the bag carrier. I said, it's my mandolin. "What's it for?" I don't know, I guess to make people happy. "My dad used to fly bombers in WWII. He used to play his ukulele for his friends out there." Yeah, it's nice to be able to lighten people up. "One time he couldn't find it before shipping out to the UK for his last mission. His friends bought him a violin, thinking he could just learn to play that. He couldn't, and he hated it… ended up strapping it to a bomb and dropping it on Germany…" You know, sometimes I feel that way about my mando… funny how angry a man can get when he feels impotent… just wanna throw that part of you out of a bomb bay… "My dad, he is still alive. He goes to this WWII airshow every year on the beach and talks to the kids about the war and the flying." Really? I was at that airshow last year. "Yeah, little old man, still wears his veteran's cap." Sir, I met your father! One year and one month ago. He told the most incredible stories, sitting inside the old bomber as we listened in awe. Then, at the end of the day, I got to fly on the bomber! "Really? What were you doing flying on that plane?" They let me get on with my parachute, and I jumped out … out of the bomb bay…

Munandi… one of my favorite words within my limited understanding of the Bemba language. It means friend. It also makes me think of world, since it sounds a lot like the Spanish word meaning that. But friends are the world. It takes some people a long time to figure that out. Nsansa, happiness, envelops when you share that world. For most people in Zambia… you are munandi to them the instant they know you are speaking from your heart. When you offer help, people accept. They assume you are doing it out of kindness, and that you won't expect anything back. Stark contrast to a culture back home where it can feel like no one wants what I see others trying to give. These Zambians, it's incredible to witness the absolute love in their hearts, given the state of living they endure every day. When time and progress move slowly out there, it's because people have prioritized their munandi, their families first, and I am not turned off by that one single bit.

When a man is warmed… surely [he does not want] more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires… when he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities, and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?

We land in Dakar… it's a dusty desert haze out there… and a dusty sliver of a moon shows itself, welcoming us to the dark star continent.

The man from Georgia, sitting next to me on the way to Dakar, was ready for something new. I could tell because as soon as he plopped down beside me he spilled half his beer on my lap. He had at least three in him already. He was definitely all set to leave his humbler toils from what I could tell/smell. Put his life behind for a year to go across the world and learn how to fix up a truck… or maybe a bike, and join a rally gang. The Dakar Rally… the single greatest organized expression of escape from the drudgeries of real life. It's actually going to be in South America next year. The threat of global terrorism forced the thirty year-old event to cancel for the first time this year, so Argentina and Chile have welcomed the adventurists with open arms. Nonetheless, my beer drinking companion doesn't need the Rally to be in Dakar. He will find his own journey in West Africa, and it will change his life, I am certain of it.

So at a certain point I found myself wishing I had a truck… or a bike. I've been walking for several hours, and as much as I enjoy the sun beating down on my back and the smell of being out here, the rest of the gang is probably starting to wonder where I am. I slowly find my way home, after several stops to check out a school or a village, double back off the wrong trail, or just chat with someone who's never seen a dumb American before. I run into Melik… one of hundreds walking, like me. Looking for work. I know he is going to ask for money. Before he can, I give him suggestions on places to make a buck… maybe that bible college back there… or how about Kamatipa school; I was just there, they need a landscaper! He asks for money anyway. He doesn't have shame about it, and I don't expect him to. However he does have the ability to help himself, and he is lucky to be in a part of the world where that is the case. It is the orphans, the young ones, who cannot manage very long alone here. And yet they have the biggest smiles I've ever seen… because they have each other. I hope we can show them that they have Him as well.

I miss the kids. What an oversimplification! I love those kids. I still see them when I close my eyes. Those big grins that pierce right to the soul. And lions, Nkalamo, all of them. I can truly say I saw lions in Africa.

Night:

A good place to spend a moment before lying to rest… the silent Friary yard. Dumb Dog One and Dumb Dog Two would occasionally grace me during their patrols, with the night watchman close behind. Out here has always been the place to be with Him, to be His wounded, lost, and longing child, and refresh in comfort for the new day to come.

The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment!… Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

Senda menipo, to all a good night. Send me on my way, moon and sky, no longer dusty, but shining high. I see your patterns guiding me, the cross, the hunter, make me free. And right beside, a Guava tree, its wood so tough, but worth carving.

Day:

All those villages, some with sections warded off for the very sick. A government willing to pay for treatment, but a lack of transportation to move drugs or people…

An orphanage, a church, maternity clinic, boys ranch… the city streets, most of them sniffing glue, sold to them openly by the exploiters. A cell phone in every hand. Yet a family is lucky to see two meals in a day. A Chinese compound being constructed so the expatriates can mine the resources and disappear… the land left barren. Who's to blame for a modern trend that started with Europeans a century and a half ago?

When I return home my appetite returns. I start gaining weight and walking straighter on the hurt leg. The dog bite closes up, the mosquito marks begin to fade, and I don't feel that dragging presence inside my spirit. In a sense, while I was over there every wound I had was visited and completely exposed to the elements. That place, it opens you up and forces you to deal with everything that's troubling you. So painful, and you must face it alone… it's the only way.

The man from Cape Town, on the flight back home through Dakar… he tried to explain the problem to me. Colonialism, tribal identity, resource mismanagement. Corrupt government. What government is perfect? We talked about Diamond's book, about climate and environment, uncontrolled abundances and dire lack of particular crops, animals, climates. The disgusting technology gaps.

So what do you fill your day with, when it's so hard to encapsulate the problem?

My belief is, you focus on an individual… you help a family… you teach a community to plant all the good seeds you know how to grow, and you hope they retain a willingness to pay it forward. And they find that willingness, that passion and heart, through God. That's all you can do. These beautiful individuals… they know love, and they know when it is genuine from you.

It's a big world. You will never see all of it… and sometimes you wish you could be everywhere. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof… If you can dismiss your preconceptions, you can show someone you care, by just being you. And who knows, you might save their entire world. In this one lifetime you have been awarded, use every day to shine outward. Morrie said you have to risk being hurt when you confront those you really love. But when you let it flow out, all those wounds will heal, yours from the inside, and theirs, the ones they wish to share with you. Basic first aid

I see friends shaking hands
Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying, I love you

Nalikutemwa

It's just one word in Bemba. Rolls right off the tongue. Too bad I can't pronounce it very well… Bemba is actually one of 500 dialects of the Bantu language group. Bantu originated in West Africa and spread rapidly into the sub-Saharan areas, nobody knows how long ago. As farmers spread south and east, they displaced some unique peoples, such as the Khoisan, whose surviving descendants speak in clicks! During a visit to the health ministry, I was pleased to hear a man utter the word asante. It means thank you in Swahili, which is an amalgamated language derived from Bantu, Arabic, and other Asian and European influences. All these beautiful tongues spread out over such a diverse cultural landscape, yet when someone says thank you… you just kinda know it.

So, to the team, I say Natotela, Asante, Thank You. Seeing each of you at work was one neat miracle strung after another. The pragmatic leader, the open-minded youth, the well-traveled sage, the social adventurer, and the tender healer. You all were … all those things

To the five strong Guava trees and ten saplings who shared this world, their world, with us, you will always be munandi. God speed

What kind of place is this? It's beautiful! Pigeons fly, women fall from the sky! I'm moving here…

Reprise: We land in Dakar… it's a dusty desert haze out there… and a dusty but proud gibbous moon hovers… letting us know just how temporary we really are

I just unfolded some papers I had stuffed deep in my bag… and between the sheets I could smell it… Zambia. I feel the sun beating down on my back, I taste those fresh bananas, I close my eyes and see bright shiny triangles, and I hear those lions laughing and roaring. Nsansa

I hope we left some good things behind