what makes the food so good

Albert's goat and potato stew

At a party last night, I told an acquaintance about my travels to Kenya. Knowing some Kenyans here in California, this new friend related to me what he knows about Kenya culture: the generosity and friendship, and the differences in spirituality. And then he says to me, "And Kenyan food is really good."

I didn't respond right away because it surprised me what thoughts came to mind. They were mostly disagreements, something like, "well, it's not spicy enough for me," or, "we ate a lot of rice" or "what I really wanted was to find some good Indian food when we were in the country" (there is a lot of good Indian food there). I asked him to elaborate on what kinds of Kenyan food he's had and we talked a little more about it, then moved on to some other topic.

Now, it's not that I don't like Kenyan food. I eat when I'm there - a lot. There is this dish called mukimo that is a mash of potatoes and spinach and corn in one dish, which for me is a combination I would imagine might be in heaven. For vegetables, there is lots of sauteed cabbage and carrots, and also some really tasty sauteed greens. My favorite are chips (french fries), which are so much better than here in America, I'm guessing because their potatoes are different and the oil they use is probably tastier, though possibly not that great for me. Still, I indulge freely. And then of course there's nyama choma, or roasted meat, most often goat in the places where we stay. It's especially good with ugali, which is a bland corn dish (similar to polenta, but less rich) because it's the perfect simple, starchy food to eat along with the fatty goat.

And this brings me to my point, because I've eaten nyama choma in a restaurant in Nairobi, and then I've eaten it around a fire pit where it was roasted by generous friends hosting us and hands down it is tastier around the fire pit. That's the whole point for me - it's about the food but it's also about the people preparing it for us and enjoying it with us. Albert is our cook (among many other roles he plays) when we stay out in the bush. There, the accommodations are a lot like camping. We pitch a tent, and bring bottled water from the city (there is no running water), and meals are cooked over a fire. The sun sets each evening around 7pm, leaving us to eat in the dark with the fire and headlights from our van as our light. Dinner in the cool, dark evening around a fire is our time to shrug off our long, full, hot days. We tell stories and laugh. Or, sometimes I find a quite space to myself and watch the fire as Albert cooks. The fire crackles and Albert moves quickly between pots and a bucket of water, and every once in a while we catch the smell of our food cooking.

We know dinner is close when someone comes around with a pitcher of water and a shallow bucket holding a bar of soap. One by one, we rub the soap between our hands as our host pours water and the dirt from the day washes away. Then come the bowls and spoons and the invitation to scoop rice and whatever it is that we're eating: lentils, cabbage, meat stew.

Albert is hesitant to give us his recipes, and maybe it's because he knows. He is clued into the fact that, though his food is very good, what makes it special is less about the ingredients he puts into it and more about the way that sharing a meal with people you love, in a place you love, is, when you get down to it, what makes that food so darn good.

traveling home through ten time zones

I am back from my second trip to Kenya. In the past twenty-four hours, I have done mostly basic things: sleep, laundry, mail sorting, unpacking, a to-do list, a few groceries to eat. I have also texted my teammates, sat and stared out a window, cried, and made lots of coffee.

As I walk around in a haze of jet lag and memories, I keep thinking about all of the ways that the physical adjustment of returning from a big trip mirrors what happens internally. The travel required to get home from being half way around the world - moving through ten time zones with two long flights, a layover, drives to and from the airport, not to mention checking bags and going through security and customs and... - all of this can feel cumbersome and disorienting, but I'm glad for it. With the long travel and accompanying jet lag, I remember that I have just lived in a space a world away from my every day life, and that to incorporate everything I saw and felt and desired will take time and intention. It is unpacking and putting all my things back in their places, it is telling my body to stay awake when I'd rather be sleeping, it is allowing myself a day off before returning to work. It is sharing photos of my trip and digging up words to accompany them. It is letting the stories start to take shape so that they can be shared. And it is knowing that what has just taken place these last two weeks isn't only in the past, it is also something I now carry with me, a precious souvenir that beckons the people I laughed and cried and prayed and walked with to be with me always.

a steady gaze

Sometimes I settle in a pew in the back of the sanctuary. The musicians start playing on the stage up front, and families and couples and friends walk down the aisles and file into rows. I watch them from my spot in the back, friends greeting each other with hugs and parents settling their children next to them. The littlest of the children stay in their parents' arms or stand up on the seats and face the back. I know these children from those times I talk to their parents, the children shyly hugging their moms' legs or demanding their dads pick them up. I also know them from helping in the toddlers' class once a month. I give the kids wipes before serving them snacks in tiny paper cups and make revving engine sounds when we play cars together.

Ethan is one of these young children. He just turned three. He has many words, though most of them are slurred together. I have heard him say guacamole and tortilla, but the rest has been a guessing game. Except for when his mother leaves him in the toddlers' class to join the rest of the adults in the sanctuary - then I hear him clearly and loudly call for his mommy, whose neck he was tightly hugging just a few minutes ago when she brought him into the classroom. Most of us know that Ethan is one of the children who will be consoled by our picking him up and distracting him with a toy, so when I am in the class with him, this is what I do. Soon enough he's wriggling free of my arms and making pretend breakfast in the play kitchen in the corner.

Yesterday, from my spot in the back of sanctuary, I saw Ethan and his mom and dad and sister make their way down the aisle to the front where most of the kids and their families sit. Ethan was in his mothers arms, and when they turned into the pew, she deposited him in the seat next to her so that she could unload her bag and reach up to fix her hair. Ethan scooted himself around and put his hands on the back of the pew to pull himself up and look back. His eyes met my gaze and I smiled at him to signal I remembered him from our times in the toddlers class together. His mouth turned up in only the slightest smile. Then he ducked his head behind the back of the pew. One hand still gripped the top. And then, a few seconds later, Ethan slowly lifted his head again so that one sparkling eye met mine again. Though his mouth was hidden from me, I detected a smile. He was having a little bit of fun with me.

This makeshift game of hide and seek went on for a few more short rounds. Soon, Ethan moved on. He turned to his dad at his side and allowed himself to be lifted up so that he could rub his tiny hands against his father's bald head.

The music still played on stage as the rest of the church-goers faced the front, read lyrics from a screen, sang and clapped or swayed along. I listened, but was still thinking of Ethan and how he met my eyes with his over and over, his delight slowly growing at knowing that he'd see me there each time. This is worship, these childlike attempts to see God, as delightful as a laugh that grows in our bellies and spreads a smile across our faces. I wondered how often I peer over the edge of what's in front of me and expect to see Him holding a steady gaze, looking right back at me. I wondered at His joy in being the constant one, in waiting for us to lift our eyes to him again, and again, and again.

coffee, rest, reading: my fuel

Life has felt especially full these days. This is because of really good things happening - promotion at work! some lofty, exciting goals on the writing front! good friends, fun travel, fulfilling ministry! And yet, on more days than I can count, I end the day wondering where the time went, when my laundry will get done, and who I forgot to call or text. My oil change reminder sticker shows a date and mileage that have both passed, and deadlines for some important things are coming fast. It feels counterintuitive to take time for things like rest, reflection, and doing nothing. And yet that storehouse needs to be filled. Time will start to feel thin if I don't take time to refuel.

So today is my day for coffee, for reading, for walking slowly. How are you resting this weekend?

get gripped

“I could either shut up, that’s the end, get on with dying. Or, get gripped, which is what happened.” 

-Jenny Diski, on the decision to keep writing after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

This quote really spoke to me this morning. Though Diski is speaking of death quite immediately, I'm thinking of it in more generally - like, isn't that one of two choices we face? The other, I think, is living with desire - or getting gripped, as Diski says it. Facing obstacles or impossibilities - that vast roiling sea on the shores of which we either die or find a way to the other side - forces the choice of allowing the end to come or finding the way forward. The problem with desire is that, often, it feels like it is bringing us to the end, too. Do you jump in the sea and swim? And even if the waters are parted for you to walk across on dry ground, the columns of water at your sides could crash in on you at any moment. But then there is what's on the other side that keeps calling to your heart, gripping you, and you keep walking.

the echo that did not die away

Loving this:

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. ... All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeads, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all. 

...Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you... Your place in heaven will seem made for you and you alone, because you were made for it - made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.

-C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

i would miss this all so much

A few months ago, I traveled to Minneapolis for a writing conference. This wasn't so much a destination as a stop on my way to somewhere else, namely, becoming a better writer. The day I landed, April was acting more like February, keeping the sun hidden with a think layer of clouds and blowing cold wind to stir up the leaves and trash along the sidewalks. From the airport I took the light rail downtown, and dug my winter coat out of my suitcase to put over top my denim jacket while I waited for it to come. After the light rail, I crossed the street and took the bus a few miles to my hostel. Bare tree branches hadn't yet sprouted their new leaves, and the hostel had an old, creepy feeling (made even more so by the quirky characters who worked there). I looked at my room and one of my first thoughts was, I hope there are no mice in here.

The first day, it rained so hard that my boots and pants were soaked through by the time I walked the mile to the convention center from my hostel, and my coffee had turned cold and stale along the way. Later that day, it snowed. There wasn't much good food to eat or anything interesting to see, and though I liked my conference, I was eager to leave Minneapolis behind.

The next morning, I went for a run. Running a city forges a special relationship between you and it - you feel its roads, see more of it up close, get some of its wind in your hair. I stood by the Mississippi and took photos of the sky and bridge. Later that day, the sun came out. After the conference was over for the day, I walked in the sun's warming glow with some new books in my hand and full of new words and ideas. After dinner, I went to a coffee shop. And I think that's when it happened that I fell in love with Minneapolis.

It was familiar, in its brick and gritty city and white and black and trees and sky. And it was decidedly not Los Angeles, the city which has been my home for nearly 11 years but against which I still like to rail, an adopted daughter who still stands on the edges of her new home. The coffee shops were open late, people weren't trying to make statements, there were old brick churches and skyways and so many things inside instead of out. I liked that it was new and that I didn't have to learn to love it in the long-term kind of way one has to settle into home.

I suppose I have a bit of a wandering heart. On the flight home, I considered what it would be like to move to Minneapolis and have coffee not just one Sunday but every Sunday at that coffee shop I visited and to run along the Mississippi and buy a heavier winter coat. This was still on my mind when I arrived at Union Station from the bus that drove me there from LAX, ready to catch the light rail to Pasadena. I rolled my suitcase behind me and looked up to the cloudless sky that seems so big here. The sun painted the sky pink as it left for the day, and jasmine flirted with the early evening air that was cool, not cold. And I remembered, this is why it's good to call LA my home. I would miss this all so much.