Back to Africa Green

There was something surreal about supper tonight. I sat at a table with a linen table cloth and matching napkins, and with a full complement of cutlery. There was a rich buffet of recognizable food of wide variety from which to choose, and light by which to see it as one ate.


Then, there was the bathroom, with a working flush toilet, and a light, and no lizards or spiders or ants or other creepy-crawlies with which to contend, and both hot and cold running water! (In South Sudan, we had running hot water. It was cold anything that we generally lacked.)


I am back in Nairobi, at the Methodist Guest House, and I am engaging in a miniature version of culture shock. Perhaps one needs to go to someplace like South Sudan periodically so that one can properly appreciate the creature comforts we take so for granted.


Of course, there is the other side of this culture shock, too. I have actually enjoyed sleeping under the stars almost every night. (The stars are OK. The moon last night was like a spotlight in my eyes!) The sleeping out wouldn’t have lasted anyway, however, because the recent rains, though few and scattered, have been enough to begin the rejuvenation of the mosquito population.


Actually, I have enjoyed living in the simple conditions of Akot – almost “camping out” the entire time. And I really haven’t minded the diet of mostly-beans-and-rice, and I don’t think I have even lost much, if any, weight!


The time in South Sudan has been good. Very good. Very, very hot, but very good.


It has been good because of the fantastic people I was with, and it has been good because of the keen awareness that I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to get in on whatever God has been doing in the lives of an entire area of people.


No – I did not end up doing any HIV/AIDS training with the military. The groundwork for that simply was not yet in place before I arrived. But I believe I was able – because of that unlikely combination of white hairs, military background and Africa experience – to open some doors through which others will be able to take the excellent CAP/Sudan HIV/AIDS training program forward.


I think, also, that I was able to do more than merely open some doors (albeit important doors).


I am still “processing” all that has occurred in the last two-and-a-half weeks, but I already know that I was in the right place to minister to a number of people, of several ethnic backgrounds, in a variety of situations – all of which were custom tailored for me for this time. That is an exciting awareness.


It has been a joyful awareness.

When I flew out of Rumbek about 1:30pm today, everything was desperately hot and dusty. As we gained altitude and headed east, we began to encounter increasing cloudiness, as of clouds that want to rain but haven’t quite gotten themselves together enough to accomplish it. Then we began to see scattered thunderstorms. I was sitting at the front of the plane, and I could see into the cockpit and could watch the storms on the radar. We were flying at 21,000 feet – just over most of the clouds – but I watched as the pilots had to dodge around more and more thunderheads that towered several thousand feet above us.


As we neared the White Nile, and even more after we crossed it, I could see through breaks in the clouds as the ground far below began to turn from a consistent dusty brown, to scatterings of green patches, to increasing stretches of bright, rainy-season green.


When we began to drop down to land at the Kenyan border post of Lokichokio (or “Loki”), the dramatically sculpted hills were much more green than brown.


Our flight cleared Kenyan customs and immigration at Loki, then continued (after a break of a couple of hours) toward Nairobi. Through the late-afternoon haze, I could see that the land below – the old “Northwest Frontier District” – was desert. But as we flew on to the southeast, and the thunderheads really began to rally their resources, the land began to turn green. Africa green.


By the time we dropped into the rain below the clouds and flew past the Ngong Hills on our approach to Nairobi Wilson airport, the rolling land below was all green. Green almost like England is green, but darker. Africa green.


I will sleep well tonight, I am sure, but I already miss Akot. I miss the stars, and the night breeze that makes bearable the 90-degrees-plus temperature at bedtime, and the people. Especially the people. Peter and Abraham and Isaac and Shadrak and Jermaine and Andrew and Caroline and Jessie and Kaley and Clarke – the people who made the place so memorable.


More than memorable – meaningful.