A Foreigner In Kenya, Chapter 15

 Maisha - life

I go to the river, alone, that feels good. It's a nice walk, a lot of people greet me, the farmers wave in the fields, the children cling to me, I have to play with them.

For my special friends, I pocketed sweets that only the little ones get.

There's a little boy in front of the river, he's waiting for me. When he sees me he starts running. We greet each other, he's waiting for the candy, with big eyes. I give it to him, he shakes my hand and walks on.

I am at the river, sit down, look at the water, hear the rustling and Hermann Hesse comes to mind again. Life is like a river! What do I expect from life? A Kenyan would say, money. I am old, have experienced, participated and also been through a lot. Money does mean something, but only in the sense that I can buy my food. I think what do I really want? Love is surely the most important thing. I wish that I can love someone and that I will be loved too. Everything else comes by itself. But love also has its pitfalls.

Verily, we are to remain united even in silence from God's thoughts. But we leave space between our get-togethers. We let the wind and the sky dance between us. We love one another, but we don't make love a fetter. The lovers rather create a weaving sea between the shores of our souls. We fill each other's goblet, but we don't drink from one goblet. We give each other our bread, but we do not eat the same loaf. We sing and dance together and we are happy, but we also let each of us be alone. Just as the strings of a lute are alone, they also tremble with the same music. Give your hearts to one another, but not in the other's custody. Because only the hand of life can hold your heart. And we stand together, but not too close

These are the thoughts that go through my head. Are they bad, are they good, normal, or weird? I dont know! It is my feelings that I write down here. No more and no less! Did I find this in Kenya? Sometimes I think: yes, as soon as I have thought that, I begin to have doubts. Doubt eats me up. So, me, in the middle of it all, who seems to despair of everything, who buys madness, who goes nuts because of love, freedom and general constraints. It's maddening. I'm in a foreign country, the situation is even more difficult.

I doubt. On the one hand, I believe with sufficient clarity where home ceases to be home as soon as it is not at the same time fatherland. Kenya is not my home because it is not my homeland. It could become my home if the love I have perhaps found is big enough to give me a home.

There is something else that bothers me. The monster goes shopping sometimes, which is not a bad thing. It is a bit annoying that she says: "I'll get tomatoes!" The market is not far. About twenty minutes there and back. If she were to buy tomatoes, there would be a shop around the corner. She goes away, doesn't come back for a long time. I'm sitting on the porch, basking in the sun, wondering what to make of it. The neighbour's little girl comes to me and sits down next to me. She cannot speak English, I cannot speak Swahili. But what is it. She's telling me something, seriously, then I tell her something. We have a great chat. She comes back after four hours.

"That took a long time!" I state soberly. 

"I met someone, we talked." 

I don't ask any more, I'm sure I won't get any real answer, not even one that I can believe.

She has to go to meetings more often. "It doesn't take long, maybe two hours," she says. She leaves at 8 am, comes back at 4 or 5 pm. The excuse always stays the same, it took longer.

Women are certainly the greatest thing that has been created. They are the first ones who plowed the earth when God made it. They are the ones who made the food. They are the ones who look after the men when they are little boys, when they are young men, and when they are old and about to die. They are always there. But they are just women, and nobody sees them. Goethe put it a little differently: "They (the women) spin and weave, heavenly gifts into earthly life." I have that in mind. This is how it is and how it should be! We have to honor women more!

In the morning, at breakfast, the skydiver comes, takes my teabag, holds it in the hot water. Jigsaw cannot tolerate that. She tears the teabag out of her hand and holds it in my cup herself. Skydiver is crying. I can't see that. I take Skydiver in my hands, comfort her. Jigsaw looks angry, Skydiver stops crying. I give her another task and tell her that this task is much more difficult. Skydiver is happy.

Here I would like to add that I am willing and able to win from life what can be won from it, without fear or remorse. 

As I said, I've been through a lot. Not long ago a friend wrote to me. He said: "I admire you! Everything has happened to you in your life! And you don't give up. I'm already shedding my pants when I'm supposed to get on a plane." Fear is a bad companion.

The only defense the weak have is to allow the bird of prey to be a bird of prey. The human lambs - the weak - weave a web of social relationships and moral judgments around the strong body, tightening it with doubts and remorse.

Despise the weak not because they are weak, but because they are righteous. Instead of admitting: "I'm scared", the lamb bleats: "I have a soul."

And so the soul has perhaps been the best substitute for faith on earth up to now because it made it possible for the majority of mortals, the weak and depressed of every kind, that sublime self-deception to interpret weakness itself as freedom.