Finding "Memo"

Nemo...don't worry, I found him.

The Kenyan coast has always been one of my favourate places to visit – the one drawback being the beach bums who come around offering all sorts of deals. However, when an old fisherman walked up and offered to show me “Memo”, how could I help but be interested – I figured poor Nemo must be really, really lost this time to end up in the dying coral of East Africa.
A week and a half ago I left hot, dry Sudan for two weeks of relaxation and freedom from the work that, of late, has seemed to increase incrementally. There have been many projects at the hospital and we have amped up our various activities to ensure that we get as much done as possible before the rains begin again in May or June. My plan was to join several co-workers on an adventure to Egypt during our two weeks but in the end the war being waged in my gut won out and I decided that a trip to a doctor would be more prudent. The doctor confirmed that I was losing the battle to a very well-organized stomach mafia group called Giardia and put me on some meds to knock the little buggers out. All that to say, I am now feeling much better – I had been looking for my energy and it has finally decided to return from a long hiatus.
With my stomach figured out, I decided I should at least venture out of Nairobi and enjoy a few days on the coast. I have always enjoyed going to the Kenyan coast and it was always a special treat when we were able to go there as a family growing up. This time I went alone and discovered that a hotel full of old, overweight Europeans can be both very relaxing(everyone just lies around) and somewhat odd(old, fat, sunburned men should never wear a Speedo) at the same time. The Indian Ocean is beautiful and I had forgotten how warm it is. My friends in college enjoyed giving me a hard time for complaining about the cold Atlantic water and I have rediscovered my complaint….I doubt if they will ever get me back into the frigid North Atlantic now that I have returned to my senses.
Which brings me back to Simon and his offer to show me “Memo”. The little old man assured me he was no beach bum and told me I had been thoroughly ripped off on my two hour snorkeling trip the day before - if I wanted to see “Memo” and other amazing fishes I should follow him and he would make sure I was very happy with Simon.
I was very happy with Simon because, in the end, we did find poor little Memo and all his little buddies swimming on a tiny little green coral. We also found large, black Sea Urchins, Sea Slugs, Sea Cucumbers and a number of other small, obscure sea creatures. I followed the little man around sharp corrals, through tide pools, and gently stepped over protruding mussels and when it was all over I had decided that I will never wander out onto the reef on my own lest I wind up with a sliced foot or dead from some strange poisonous sea bite.
In a few days I’ll be headed back to work but for now I’m hanging out in Nairobi with my cousin and her family. It is a nice break from the stress that awaits me upon my return to the hot and dry of Sudan. More from there later.


Simon the "Memo" finder...


From my hotel room.



Part of the pool. And you thought I was slaving away...

The way my thoughts come out...

I thought I'd try something a little different and post some of my rambling writing that I normally just keep to myself because usually I'm the only one who understands it anyway. I hope you find it a pleasant change. ~AW




Sometimes, at night, the wind blows
Keeping me from sleep.
It rails against the darkness
Tearing at the thatch above my head;
Gusting from green Ethiopian highlands
Or billowing
In mighty clouds of sand,
Sweeping down from the sleeping Sahara
Like a giant army
Bent on leaving everything buried
Under layers of history
Blown south ever so slowly
Until Egypt and Cush
Lie inches deep on my doorstep.
And I’m left to wonder
What you would make of this place
On the farthest edge of nowhere?

In the morning the brutal sun
Rises red and then orange
To rule the day
Together with the thorn tree,
Which offers little shade
For anyone.
The bony cattle stumble along,
And the haggard donkey
Looks so sad.
And still the Arab man will beat it
In frustrated attempts to find
A thorn tree of his own.

The children might find him there
Selling cheep cigarettes
With no filters.
Those children blow smoke
Through their white teeth
And watch friends
Kicking old, dilapidated footballs
In the sand-
The grass died with the rain.
So did the cool mornings.
There is no water here,

But still the children smile
As they come from miles
Carrying plastic cartons
Dripping with muddy water.
The skinny cattle got their first;
But they would anyway.
The order of life is different,
As it always is,
On the edge of nowhere.

The sun sets,
Now crimson or purple,
To dye the day
And leave the thorn tree
Masked against the masterpiece
Like a monster
With a million angry talons
All reaching
For that lonely, haggard donkey
Left to keep watch
Lest the stars steal the thorns,
The shade,
And the rusty pale of muddy water
That never made it home -

It was too heavy
For the skeleton child
Whose big, smiling face
Keeps me awake
Long after the sand has settled
In molded waves
That rise and fall
From my doorstep to the tree
Where the donkey flicks its ears
And stamps its feet,
Alone,
On the farthest edge of nowhere.

The work of reconciliation

A few weeks ago I switched tukols. One of my coworkers returned home to Kenya and, having lived in the dumpiest tukol for six months, I took advantage of the situation and moved up to a higher standard of living. My first tukol was affectionately known as Ft. Jesus - perhaps because of its meek and humble state upon this earth – and my new tukol has been dubbed the White House because it was plastered with white paste by a previous resident. It is also quite posh – I now have a double bed, a small veranda and, most importantly, I have a small six inch fan which I have wired to one of rafter posts. It blows the hot, dry air around quite nicely and covers the sound of termites eating at my walls with its charming little whirring noise. I also have a mirror – which isn’t exactly a good thing because now I can actually see how awful I look when I decide that shaving is too much work.
My new living arrangements are really quite nice and as I’ve adjusted to the luxury of my new tukol I have even come to a pretty substantial agreement with the resident mouse. Every night he comes in to scope out the room and every night I shoo him out the door and tell him to come back after I’ve gone to sleep so that I don’t have to hear him nibbling on my belongings. If he wakes me up, I threaten him with death and he decides that it would be best to come back later. The other “unspoken” agreement between us is that under no circumstance should he allow a snake to follow him into my tukol – I think we’re on the same page there.

It seems there has been a lot going on around the world this past week – polls, tornadoes, fires, rebel attacks, ethnic fighting, futbol matches and the list goes on. Here, we have had our own share of excitement and challenges. The hospital we operate in town services people from hundreds of kilometers around – including neighboring Ethiopia – so when something goes wrong with the hospital people are understandably upset.
On Thursday I was fixing lunch and re-hydrating myself – it was very hot – when we received a call that our hospital was on fire. We grabbed some fire extinguishers and rushed there as fast as possible, given the state of the roads. When we got to the hospital a huge crowd had already formed outside the main gait and we had to ease our way through the crowd to get inside. The fire had already engulfed one of our main buildings and the only thing left to do was monitor the other buildings and keep the crowd from getting in the way. Thankfully no one was hurt but unfortunately a large supply of medicines and costly equipment were lost to the fire. It spread very fast due to the circumstances and hospital staff had to scramble to get as much as they could out of the building before it was engulfed. After the fire had died down considerably a UN truck arrived with water to finish putting it out but by then the damage was already done. The only work remaining is to clean up the mess and assess the stability of the remaining structure.
This type of situation brings out many of the underlying tensions that have existed in town for some time. There is a lot blame being tossed around and the leaders are trying hard to stay on top of rumors and theories. It is sad that in situations such as this very rational people choose to believe very irrational ideas. It has reminded me of the Church’s responsibility to aggressively pursue reconciliation and peace. Where the Church fails to stand up and declare that it will not be drawn into hatred and slander it has failed to act as the body of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ reconciled us to God when we were his bitter enemy and he has given us, the Church, the job of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5). When the Church does not preach reconciliation, it has relinquished its right to be called the body of Christ because in essence it has said that the Blood of Jesus Christ was good enough for only a few and not everyone. It has shamed the power of the cross and spit on the face of its King who died with his arms spread wide to embrace not one soul but every soul.
Unfortunately, today there are countless examples of the Church failing. If the Church will not stand up for reconciliation then we the Body of Christ have surrendered our number one message to the secular world – a world awash with greed, jealousy and selfishness. Here, or in Kenya, or in Eastern Congo, where is the Church when it is needed most? Where are those who will stand up and say that at all costs they will love their brother or sister who is a different race, or color, or political persuasion? If not the church then who will do it? We are commanded to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and we have been given the work of reconciliation – it must start with those who follow the King.



Pictures of the fire.

One Little Old Lady

She stands alone at the front of the sparsely filled church. Her weathered face and small, wrinkly hands that shake tell of years spent in the suns of Sudan. Wisdom is etched in her features and is accentuated by the glimmering deep blue wrap she wears; her Sunday finest, fitting for the daughter of a King.
Suddenly, with words much stronger than her small frame should allow, the old woman lifts her voice to sing in a language indistinguishable to me. The song fills the room in high, shrill tones whistled through her many missing teeth. She stands alone, her face wrinkled in joy, and slowly those who understand softly sing along, unwilling to join the old woman, or perhaps simply afraid to stand beside a princess praising her King.
The indistinguishable words continue, intermittently broken by her raspy cough, but nothing will hinder this display of adoration; her boldness knows no shame, nor should it for a child of the King is not afraid.
I watch the old woman, her voice painfully off key to my ears, and I wonder if all the guitars that are tuned and all the pianos played this day will match the praise that I have heard. There are no worship teams, no bands, no projectors, no maestros here to exhilarate the senses. There is only one little wrinkled old woman standing alone, singing through missing teeth, in a language I don’t understand, to a King who is surely in our midst, smiling his approval.

Mark 12:43 ...Truely I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-all she had to live on.

The softer side of Sudan

Sudan has a softer side. When its people are not toting AKs, firing rockets, placing landmines, burning down houses and bickering over resources a softer side emerges. It is taking some time, but slowly I am learning to embrace this softer side, throwing aside my harsher realities of the west, for the joys of endless black cotton mud or scorching, dry heat, malaria, typhoid, amoebas and (my favorite) giardia. I am still looking for the softer side of giardia – and the meds for it – but it is currently taking some serious mental conniving to convince my stomach that World War III has not started in my bowels…but hey, it really is the softer side when you consider the possibilities.
On a more serious note (not that I don’t take my stomach seriously) Sudan really does have a softer side. It is seen in the everyday man and woman’s desire for peace to last. S. Sudan recently celebrated the three year anniversary for the signing of the CPA(comprehensive peace agreement). Here, in town, there was a huge celebration to mark the occasion. The governor and many dignitaries came to town to give speeches, watch the parade, and ensure that some of the final stages of the peace agreement are carried out.
We were invited to the event and it was exciting to see the whole town out in mass to celebrate the peace that has come to mean so much to them. They were also there to watch the military march through town in all its pomp, but I prefer to look on the bright side, which is that peace has brought great changes to this part of the country and the everyday people have a lot at stake. The softer side of Sudan lies in children who want to go to school, mothers who want medicine for their sick children, and fathers who want to raise families on the soil of their fathers, not in refugee camps. It is also seen in celebration, which the Sudanese know how to do quite well. I hope you enjoy the snaps.

Family Adventuresomeness

When I was a little kid my family would almost always get together with my cousins for Christmas. The year my little sister Audrey was born, my uncle dressed up as Santa and my dad (Rudolph) pulled him behind his motorcycle in a little red wagon. The scene disintegrated into pandemonium when Santa started “whipping” Rudolph to get him to move – I guess he didn’t look enough like a reindeer and our family is full of animal lovers anyway. A few years later we all met up in eastern Zaire for a little Christmas safari. As I recall, on that trip, I managed to fill my britches with army ants, one vehicle lodged itself in the mud between two large male lions, the other vehicle was charged by an angry elephant and a snake decided to join us in playing with our new Christmas toys.
Since that time, our family has tried its level best to outdo all previous adventurous catastrophes. When I was twelve we went to the Kenyan coast and within five minutes Audrey broke her arm and the rest of us got sick from the pool water. After a long hiatus – maybe we were all still recovering from the past – this year we all got together again, this time in Uganda. We spent Christmas day in Jinja, which is where the Nile River begins its arduous journey north from Lake Victoria, and in order to spice up the event a little (remember we’re still trying to outdo the lions) we decided to go rafting at the source of the Nile and hope we didn’t drown on one of the class 5 rapids. It turned out to be one of the best experiences we’ve ever had as a family – and that includes being flipped out of the raft twice into the swirling water.
There were only two harrowing experiences while rafting – Heather losing her helmet on the first flip and Dad getting sucked down to the heart of Africa for about 30 seconds – so, as you must be able to figure out by now, our family was still looking for some sort of catastrophe to keep our hearts beating at an elevated level. We conveniently didn’t have to wait too long for our much needed “adventure”.
Following Christmas, we all went to our house in Entebbe and then on to the Ssese Islands for several days of relaxation. After celebrating the New Year in our uninterrupted dreams, we woke up, packed up camp and headed home. In fitting family adventursomeness one of the boats conveniently ran out of fuel part way home. Logic would suggest that you don’t overload a boat when the water is somewhat tumultuous but in a moment of family fanaticism – the sun was setting - logic sunk to the bottom of the lake and everyone but my dad and uncle clamored into the other boat.
Slowly, ever so slowly, we made our way toward land. And while the sun set in purples and reds reflected on the dark water, grandma clung to gramdpa, the cat clung to anyone who would hold her, and everyone else pretended that the situation wasn’t really as grave as it was. The poor little boat wondered what terrible fate had befallen it and Jimmy, the boat driver, wondered how he ever got mixed up with this crazy family. But we made it.
We made it and Jimmy and I had the appointed opportunity to head back out on the blackening water to save the day with a jerrycan of diesel. I enjoy being out on the water in a boat at anytime…except when its dark and I can’t see where I’m going. Thankfully, Mr. Sunshine was still glowing below the western horizon and we found the other boat, got it started and then just prayed we wouldn’t ground on any rocks the rest of the way home. We made it. The family was relieved. And, since no one had to swim to land, we’re probably still looking for some lions to get stuck between.

I am back in Sudan now, having spent a night in tense Kenya (please pray for that country), and I am ready for what awaits me here in the next few weeks. There is a lot of catching up to do after the Christmas break so I will be quite busy. I have also received more supplies to build shelves at the hospital so will likely spend a great deal of time there.
The weather is HOT and dry here. It is easily above 100F during the day and it takes most of the night to cool down. Around 3:30 in the morning a roaring wind starts. It feels as if my thatch roof will come off but thankfully that hasn’t happened yet, although I do have a few “skylights” in places already.