Identity Crisis: Robins Final Blog from Kenya

In a previous blog I mentioned Tracy, the 23 year-old Kenyan who took in 21 street children. I related her story about the two little boys who were sleeping in a ditch and saw some men across the way breaking into someone’s stall [crude structures for selling vegetables and wares] and called out to them by name. In response, the men came across the road and murdered the boys.

Who cared? They had no identity.

Unlike me! I carry all of my identity information around my neck everywhere I go here. I came to Kenya knowing who I was. I am returning home after 6 weeks wondering who I really am.  Here I am “Mama Jeska” and nothing more or less; that suffices and that is all people need/want to know. My personal and professional lives are not calling cards as are my physical features: “Ohhh, yes, Mama Jeska,” they all say as they look from one to the other of us with a dawning recognition of some genetic similarities. My wrinkles are also interesting features [not apparent on Kenyan faces because of the beautiful skin tones and protective melanin] and I have been deemed to be probably 100 years old or at least 75.  I have found it actually freeing to be devoid of a past with all its trappings. It is enough to be me, in front of another, relating genuinely and openly.

So, what has happened to me during the last 6 weeks?

Fearful – The first week I was here, I wept quietly every night when I went to bed. I was overwhelmed by what I experienced. I was full of concern for my child who is here alone and lives not in a secure compound with other muzungus [foreigners], but with the Kenyan people. I was fearful every time I stepped into a crowded matatu. I refused to go anywhere alone and worried when Jess was apart from me. I worried about how people at home could understand this experience without being here. I worried about being hungry. I worried when I saw Jess’ sleeping quarters in the Maasai manyatta in the Rift Valley.

Jess with Rebecca and family in the manyatta where they all sleep together in one room.

Now as I prepare to depart, I am not without some basic level of concern  [inherent in parenting], but I am no longer obsessed with a fear for Jessica’s wellbeing. I have met her friends and they surround her with a blanket of protection and caring; and she responds in kind.

Jess and Nancy in her slum dwelling with son, Kimani

The teachers: Jessica and Janet in Ikiloret

Jessica and the Ikiloret children

Faithful – I thought I was someone who lived by faith. I found that what that looks like in the verdant pastures and warm kitchens of Minnesota is very different from what it calls for across the Rift Valley or within the slums of Kenya.

A view across the Rift valley

Street kids having devotions after playing ball in an open field

Fulfilled -

I have learned

• That one eats to live/not lives to eat. I can survive on less variety eaten less often and life becomes less complicated – I need to keep this in mind.
• That one can live with very few material things [although cell phones which are cheap in Kenya, are almost necessities] – I can learn to live with less and give away more.
• That children here are God’s blessing and they are bountiful and unbelievably beautiful and I am more certain than ever that my lifetime of devotion to children was right and good. And I asked the director of the Baby House in Tigoni if I could come back and work there for several months. Who knows what God has in store…..

With children in Ikiloret

With children at Mahali Pa Watoto School

With abandoned babies at Baby Home in Tigoni

•  Most importantly I have learned that my daughter has strength and courage, endurance and energy, toughness and tenderness. And that I could never begin to do this work in this place for this long. While I dread leaving her, I know that she is where she belongs for now and I have no doubt that she is allowing God to use her in powerful ways.

I believe that a picture is worth 1,000 words and so will leave you with these [very meaningful to me] lasting visual impressions;

Some of Jessica’s students in Ikiloret

Our baby Tamara in the tub

Tamara at the beginning of another day

Robin on a piki-piki

Giraffes seem majestic against the dawning sky

Mr. and Mrs. Lion quietly own the countryside

Baboons and  can be seen often

Memories of these 6 weeks will remain with me as will my gratitude to Jessica for her patience and love. I cannot imagine that I will not be back…..and will hope to bring some of you reading this along with me.