Why i love it here.

In the past two years i have had:

1.  malaria twice
2. gotten worms from eating strange things
3. gotten flea bites from my puppy who occasionally sleeps in my bed
4. too many cuts and scrapes to count
5. been bitten by two dogs
6. seen my first dead body on the road
7. felt unbelievably awkward 
8. learned to really cook
9. learned to drive stick shift on the other side of the road
10. and many other wonderful, scary, and awkward things

But despite, or maybe because of all these things, i love it here. The circle of life is so much more closely knit. Everyone knows where their food comes from, what it takes to grow corn or how to kill a chicken. Everyone is involved in everyone else's life. So when it is time to have a baby, you know how to take care of it. and when someone dies it isn't a new experience. Most things here are a community experience. When something bad happens everyone comes together to offer support, and when something good happens everyone comes together to celebrate. There are so many examples of this it is hard to narrow down. i once attended a university graduation with 30 graduates. For each of those graduates, about 20-50 people turned up to celebrate with them. Weddings are huge affairs because the entire community is invited. there are often 500+ people.

And on the flip side when disaster strikes people are there to help. A friend once told me a story of a girl he watched get hit by a car in Nairobi. Everyone that saw, rushed to help. Some went to her, to help get her to the hospital, and some chased down the truck to make them pay for what they did. Sometimes if the driver of the vehicle drives off and the mob catches up with him, they will really beat him up. If this happened in the states, i know for a fact that very few people would help out. People just stand by and watch when bad things happen, thinking "oh the next person will help." That is never a thought here.

People often die here. This is not a good thing for the person who dies, or for the loved ones who lose that person, but it has really opened my eyes to how precious life is. When a child can get run over while walking home from school, or a person gets misdiagnosed and ends up dying from a simple disease, it makes life so much more fragile, and precious. Coming from the states i have to say that i have never lost someone close to me. Yes, i have lost my grandparents, and a few older family friends, but some how that isn't the same. It isn't less sad to lose an older person, but you don' t feel the loss of what they didn't get to experience in their lives. When children die you not only weep for them, but also for all that they missed out on.

To me, life here seems so much simpler. What matters in life, love, loss, God, community, family, relationships, seem so much more at the for front of peoples minds. or at least at the for front of my mind. I don't mean to say that this community is any better then any other, they all have their gives and takes. I guess in the end it is more about me and how i am experiencing this, and what i am learning about myself, God, and life. Being out of ones own culture can open a person's eyes to what is lacking or great about their own culture.

love to you all
suz