What a Difference Ten Days Make...

Ten days ago, journaling on my first day here in Africa, I was asking myself what I was doing here...and was really uncertain of the answer. Now those days have passed, and I have achieved, if not clarity, a certain acceptance of what has happened and continues to happen in these countries so far from home.

 Africa in my heart...
What a difference ten days make...
Ten days and countless encounters with
      so many wonderful people...
Rwanda and Mount Kenya and fresh air and good food
      and welcome and joy and kindness...
Breathing...just breathing...
heart filled to overflowing with a myriad of emotions,
      their varied palette as multicolored as the Kenyan evening sky...
            the rich red of joy, the serene blue of hope, 
            the vibrant green of courage and determination,
            the quiet lavender of peace
I have seen colobus monkeys and warthogs,
paintings and lushly-blooming trees,
exotically-shaded birds and every shade of human skin...
      the world around me alive with color...
I sit here on our tent's front porch,
gazing at the lily pond, 
listening to the frog chorus,
      voices high and low and in between,
filling the dusk with their own peculiar music of the spheres.
My heart is at peace...
this world and I are ONE...
I will carry East Africa in my heart once again.

Home away from home in Kenya

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