Hasta la Vista, Hakuna Matata

When I got to Africa, I knew only one phrase—hakuna matata. Thank you, Lion King. By the time I made it out of the airport, I learned that hakuna matata is Old Swahili, hardly part of the vernacular and hardly said anywhere. Actually, it is said nowhere. Nuts. Wordless. It was a daunting journey to begin, stepping out of the airport knowing that the one thing I have had as long as I can remember—language—was no longer any good to me. But once the sun rose the next morning, I realized that words couldn’t describe the beauty and the majesty of the bright, vivacious culture that stands in stark contrast to the busy, calculated swirl of American life.

I know what you are thinking. For someone who has wanted to go to Africa so much for so long, you’d think she’d have prepared a little more. I did. I watched The Lion King, and then in league with the wisdom of Steve Carrell in the movie Dan in Real Life, I planned to be surprised. Before you start to think that I get all my ideas from movies, I also bought a hefty supply of deet, three boxes of peanut butter granola bars and a blank journal. So you can also say that I planned for the insects, Montezuma’s revenge a l’Africa, and being moved to a new level of the soul while passing my suns and moons in Africa. As soon as the Nyquil wore off.

It wore off somewhere between the sun’s last ribbon and the roosters’ first crows. That morning Charnelle drove me into Boma to show me what Hai-Kilimanjaro was. Boma is something in between a town and a village—not your typical series of straw/dung huts but it's hardly a thriving metropolis, either. It has two streets and one grocery store, but more life and color packed into those streets and that store than Times Square on St. Patrick's Day.

Since it was Friday, it was market day, and what would have otherwise been a rocky field next to the hotel was a montage of colors throbbing with music and movement. Those who weren’t singing their own songs had radios playing American and British music beneath the vibrant rumble of spoken Swahili. And all the color belongs to the women, who wear brightly colored traditional skirts and outfits called ‘kangas’ wrapped over their regular skirts or pants. With James Blunt playing in the background, Charnelle helped me barter for a red, gold and black kanga.

That night we played UNO with some of the African staff who are soon going to be leaving for outreach in Rwanda and Zanzibar. One of the students who arrived the night before me put a little cultural zest into the game by adding a slew of rules from Norway, his homeland. They do things with skips and reverses that were never intended for UNO, let me tell you. In between bloodbaths one of the natives, named Tzipporah, began asking me about my family and how I grew up. I told her my mother had six kids and she threw her head back and laughed richly, “Ahahhaha! Your mother is African!” (That’s a compliment, Mom).

It wasn’t only her laughter that was rich. After I told her some about my family, Tzipporah began telling me who she was in a way quite unlike a person has ever revealed herself to you before. Tzipporah showed me herself through describing God and an interminable wealth of trust that is not even daunted by the monotony of Leviticus. Leviticus. My least favorite book of the Bible. Or should I say, my driest book of the Bible. If you're human, it's probably also your least favorite, driest book of the Bible. Tzipporah, by contrast, was not intimidated or turned off by the repetitive Old Testament law and the precise directions for the building of the Tent of Meeting. I could hardly believe it when she said, “I was reading in the book of Leviticus, and it spoke to me…” What else can Africa do to people? Hearing out of Leviticus, that is rich, I thought.

Tzipporah kept going: “In Leviticus, God is very specific, Jory,” her accent drew out the last syllable of my name. “He tells his people exact rules for everything—how to eat, how to dress, how to clean themselves. When He gives them instructions for the Tent of Meeting, He is very specific. It is the way He leads them in this book, is by telling them specifically what is good and pleasing to Him. But God also leads us in ways that don’t seem so specific, yeah? Just because God hasn’t been specific, you cannot trust that He is not leading you. He is. He is just working another way.”

I have often times questioned God in my life, wondering why He leads the way He does and, at times, if He is even leading. What does it mean to be led by God? How do we know when He is leading? Clearly, not everyone gets writing on the wall or a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. In my mind this begs the question of why God would be so specific at particular times and nonspecific other times.

Ironically, after stepping back to confront this question when all the gloves are off, I believe that the answer is in Leviticus.

Don’t worry—I’m not going to go off on a 3000-word tangent about the appropriate procedures for cleansing after pregnancy. We don’t need to go that deep to get a clue about what God is after. In actuality it may be far simpler than that. Just looking at the headings above each section of the book tells us a lot. The Burnt Offering. The Grain Offering. The Fellowship Offering. The Sin Offering. Firstfruits. Offerings were an Old Testament way of bringing people into pure fellowship with God. With the coming of Jesus, they were given a new way to restored relationship with God through grace. But while offerings may be confined to Old Testament law, the point of relationship is not. When something stood in the way between pure fellowship with a perfect God and a sinful man, God ordained various offerings to restore the purity of the man and bring him back into fellowship with God. Leviticus is one of the books with the most detail regarding restoring this fellowship spoiled by running from what simply kept their noses clean and their sandals buckled.

Perhaps this is what Leviticus, the book that literally has regulations on mildew, is ultimately saying to us. Ever had bad blood with someone? A friend in middle school, a guy on your rival football team, a parent or brother or sister or the idiot driver in front of you who goes at a snail's pace in the fast lane and, God forbid, doesn't use their blinker to change lanes?

Perhaps these are starter analogies for Leviticus and its obnoxiously detailed pedestal of do's and don'ts. It's the difference between bad blood and Eden-esque freedom from what wasn't in Eden to begin with. And let's face it, regulations about mildew, contagious skin disease, incest and more are hardly a big kibosh. They're what a lot of people consider the a mark of first-world perks.

What then seems to be God's biggest wet blanket, the book of Leviticus, thus sounds more like an ancient infrastructure model for eschewing a lot of third-world problems and a code for leaving bad blood behind. In this book, God’s degree of specification in His directions for offerings, for cleanliness, for eating, for the place of worship, pertain to the state of the heart. God didn’t give the Israelites these instructions because He was a ritualistic God determined to flaunt His supremacy to a mortal people. He gave them specific instructions because He was concerned with the relationship His people had with Him. Were they close? Were they far? Did they have pure hearts for His heart? Did they desire to give love and choose life? (Deut 30:15-16)

If you continue to follow the first five books of the Bible and note what God tends to be specific about, a quasi-disturbing pattern regarding our role in knowing God’s plan reveals itself. The pattern is that all the things God is specific about have to do with purifying the desires in our hearts in order to have a full relationship with Him. How many people have I met along the way who gave up on God because their ‘religion’ wasn’t following their idea of God’s plan? And because they felt that knowing God’s plan was inseparable from their reason to believe, they reasoned God's existence out of the picture, too.

In the same breath, how many times do we judge God by questioning what He isn’t doing because we see no value in what He is doing? Leviticus is 27 long chapters of God giving specific instructions on how to be in an authentic, open state of heart before Him. And this is the key to the question. God can't be blamed for writing a bad operating manual. Depending on whether you believe in creation, however, you maybe can tease Him about the comprehension capacity of those reading the manual.

The Bus is Half Full

It’s only been ten days since I have been here, but I have already become what you might call and ‘old hand’ at the buses. Let me tell you that if you’re someone who uses a system to navigate your way on the road, you’d never make it in Africa. The system is that there is no system.

My first ride on the dala-dala was last Sunday, when one of the missionaries dropped two of us off at the bus station in Arusha. Arusha is a town about 50 km from the YWAM base. I know what you’re thinking. Why would you go all the way to Arusha on a Sunday, in the morning, when you’re missionaries. That is church time, silly. Well, that’s exactly why we went. All three of us (our driver included) are foreigners here, and the only church within 50 km that has services in English is in Arusha.

Before last week, Arusha was only known to me through an old John Wayne movie I used to watch with my dad—in the movie, however, the Arusha were a primitive tribe draped in red garments and adorned with heavy jewelry. Needless to say, Hollywood’s impression of the Arusha region was hardly akin to the pulsing sights and sounds of central Arusha. As our friend dropped us off with directions of which stop to get off and how much to pay the driver, we had no idea what was in store for us. We made our way to the back of the costas (bigger 'buses'), immediately assailed by a throng of vendors pushing candy, watches, pops (that’s right, pop, not soda), and even jewelry through the windows and into our laps as if heaven were sending a divine message “Buy me, buy me!” If you said ‘no’ they simply pushed something else through the window, wagging it before your eyes like a happy puppy begging to be your own. Before long, the bus was brim full of people and on the verge of leaving the front of the row. But there was a slight problem.

Ola and I were at the very back of the bus in what we thought were the two last seats on the costa, until the real Africans came on the bus and started pulling down seats into the aisles nonchalantly closing up the single artery that could carry us to the front of the bus and out the door when our stop came. The bus lurched and pulled out of the row of costas. Artery or no, we were on our way.

The next 50 km was what you could only call culture shock. The driver took us along at frightening speed, slowing down only when he came across speed islands or neared another stop, at which point the Conda (conductor) would slide open the door, hang out the side of the careening van shouting “Going to Moshi, going to Moshi” in Swahili. If no one responded the Conda would just roll the door back and the driver would speed right up again until the next speed bump or bus stop. Although we had told the Conda that we needed to get off at Federisi, which would drop us literally at our driveway, as we neared Boma I began to be afraid of the worst—what if he forgot our stop? I mentally began going through my mind how to get his attention from the back of the bus should this happen. When should I say something? Before we get to Federisi? After we’re past it? What should I say? It was my third day in Tanzania, and all I knew was ‘hi,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘you’re welcome.’

Problem-solving mode kicked into high gear and I mentally began going through all the languages Ola and I knew between the two of us—French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, English, maybe some pig-Latin...that was the end of the list. None of those would do us any good. We passed the Kilimanjaro Airport, our 5 km warning. Then the dry riverbed. 3 km. Then the hill before the base. The driver wasn’t slowing down. Oh dear God. We’re going to Moshi and we can’t even say “I have to go to the bathroom.” Before total panic set in, the bus drastically changed speeds seconds before we would have sailed past Federisi. I’d take a picture of the Federisi stop except it’s extremely easy to paint with words—imagine a white line on the side of a road going through the middle of nowhere. That is Federisi, the one slab of land on the whole planet that I'd have carved a kidney out of my own body if it meant getting dropped there instead of taking the road to Moshi.

As the bus came to a swift halt, I realized that perhaps I had been worrying about the wrong thing. Between leaving the station full up with people and picking up a few more along the way, Ola and I were trapped behind a mass of African heads in the back-most seats of the bus. For a few seconds no one moved but us. Do we climb over them? Is that how it works? Suddenly wearing a skirt for church that morning seemed like a very bad idea. A very, very bad idea. Luckily the Africans were much more used to this situation than we were. The people in the aisle slowly stood up and leaned over to one side or the other, indicating that the only way out the costa and off the road to Moshi was to weave our way through what now looked more like a clogged artery than the aisle of a bus. With a semi-permeable trail we eventually made it out the door.

I turned to watch our coach ride off. As it trailed into the distance, I decided I had a few things to remember for the next time.

The next time came sooner than I thought. This morning four of us foreigners—one German, one Norwegian and two Americans—had only one way to get to church. It consisted of waiting at the stop in the middle of nowhere until one of those grand dala-dalas came down the dusty road, dancing around the bikers and carts carrying water from nearby rivers. We left early because there is no knowing when the next bus will come. In Tanzania, buses don’t leave on a schedule. They leave when they are full. While we still had a hundred feet to go a costa came sailing along, the Conda leaning out of its moving frame and waving us to come in. What good luck, we thought. We were worried a bus might not come for awhile, leaving us to stand in the heat already bordering on sweltering at 8:30 in the morning. Before we made it to the open seats in the back of the bus the driver was already moving again. It seemed like it was going to be a flawless trip.

Then the bus pulled into the stop at Kilimanjaro Airport, and half the passengers got off. In any of our own countries, the driver would glance in his rearview mirror, put the bus in gear and pull back out onto the road. Not in Africa. We watched and waited as the conductor slid out the door and started to get more passengers for the bus. One, two, three more people boarded. A man with a bag of fish from the market stepped on, stirring a saltly, fishy smell into the diesel air. Good, I thought. The bus is half full, we should leave any minute. A digital clock settled into the front of the bus blinked back the minutes counting down until church started. If we left now, we’ll have time to find seats at the church before it started. Ten minutes and 600 blinks later, the driver was backing up and pulling forward in the costa, still trying to get more passengers. Two other buses pulled up, adding the element of competition to the mix. Suddenly the Condas began chasing people like it was a game to see whose bus they could get them on. But it was an honest game—our bus had been there too long.

Taunted by unwritten rules of the game, our driver pulled out in seconds flat—less out of desire to play fair and probably more intending to beat the other costas to the next stop down the road. So that was the newest wisdom I added to my art of African bus-riding: the bus is never half full—it’s only half empty until you have four passengers on your lap and a side of fresh fish in the aisle.

The first sights of Africa

Finally to Africa!

My dear family and friends, this is Part One of the story in Africa. How it begins is very soft, very simple—which is to say, it begins with sleep deprivation...

I arrived at the Minneapolis airport three hours before my flight on Wednesday morning, escorted by two lovely women who were my roommates during my senior year of college. After checking in and checking my suitcase, we went downstairs to the Starbucks at the baggage claim and got in one last weekly update. As the time neared to go through security, we found a quiet corner of the airport to sit down and...well, you know girls...cry. And I mean cry. Snot and tears everywhere. You know how you sometimes wonder if this will be the trip where you just happen to fall in love on your 10-hour flight? Well trust me, no man finds love at first sight of teary eyes and red, blotchy face.

No, today was definitely not the day. I cried all the way through security, all the way through the terminal, even in the bathroom. None of these were bad tears, mind you. After all, this was Africa. That thought was enough to help the waterworks subside by the time I boarded the plane but then I read some farewell letters from friends and the dam broke loose again, leaving absolutely no question about my romantic fate. Half an hour before we were supposed to land in Toronto, the pilot told us that we were going to divert to Detroit. I have to laugh when I think that, before I was even on foreign soil, my plans had already changed.

I would never make it to Toronto that day. A real shame, considering it was going to be my first time to Canada. I was rather hoping to have a ‘Cool Runnings’ moment where I stepped out of the ‘sortie’ and watched my breath freeze in the air and felt the freezing wind blow my knickers off. Instead, I found myself running through the Detroit airport trying to get my flights rerouted so I could make it to Amsterdam overnight. Thirty minutes after a sprint that could have gotten me into the Olympics I found myself boarding the Titanic for the Netherlands. Excitement mounted as I landed in Amsterdam and reboarded for Kilimanjaro.

The Kilimanjaro airport was just a long runway with one building outside. Instead of gates there were stair-ladders wheeled up to the jet's doors, where we disembarked. As soon as I stepped outside an enormous wind nearly lifted me off the plank. Had I not been wearing a 30 lb backpack I’m sure I would have blown right off. The masses hurled themselves into the two-room airport, where we all cuddled in line to get visas or get through the line. Talk about sweat. The room was a royal meltdown, balanced out only by three small fans attached to the ceiling at various places. About five minutes of standing in line I seriously considered going to ask the pilot to turn the plane a little to the south so we could aim one of the engine turbines right into the visa office. Instead, I counted my blessings and remembered to be patient, and forty minutes later I finally walked into Tanzania legal and lighter in the pocketbook. And miracle of miracles, my suitcase made it, too.

Just as that seemed to comfort me, I realized it was nearing midnight in a remote airport in Africa, and I was a lone White girl with nothing in the pipeline but a few emails from people I had never met assuring me I would be picked up at the airport an hour earlier. The hour I had spent getting my visa.

Hello, cardiac arrest. At this moment my parents worries seemed...uh...valid.

Thankfully, just past the baggage claim there was a woman was holding the YWAM Kili sign, and I found myself being welcomed and helped with my bags in no time. We loaded all the bags into a white, flat-nosed bus and headed back to the base, cruising up to 80 kilometers per hour until we came across white-striped speed bumps (more like speed islands they are so wide!). Once we passed all the islands we picked up speed again and were at the driveway to the base in no time. Along the way, they pointed out the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the dark. Then suddenly our driver turned off the main road into what liked like an overgrown field, where we began a roller-coaster ride of dodging rocks and potholes and staying on the vague tire tracks running through the field. Some kids had placed rocks in front of the base’s driveway, sending the staff into a wild laughter that they had made a gate while they were gone and that moving the rocks was how they ‘opened the gate.’

Thanks to about 36 hours of traveling and a slight overdose in Nyquil, my first blogging saga of arriving in Africa ends here. Within minutes of arriving at the base I lost consciousness underneath a big, white mosquito net and a tin roof. But everyone knows that the traveling part is really just the incubator, so stay posted for more stories and more developments as I spend the next several months of my life here in Africa…