Lost in Translation

“Going to the mattresses” with ancient Hebrew was harder than you think. Or perhaps you shouldn’t expect to learn an entire ancient language and answer the debate of gender roles in the church within an hour of internet research. In the end, I spent hours poring over resource after resource to try and understand the meaning of something long obscured by translation. The word ‘ezer surprisingly came from two root words that individually meant “power” and “strength.” In fact, most of the times ‘ezer occurs in the Old Testament have nothing to do with submissive women baking bread for hungry rabbis. ‘Ezer most often describes God, and in a way that hardly highlights His feminine side. R. David Freedman points out in the IX Biblical Archaelogy Review that the word ‘ezer comes from two roots in the ancient language. One meaning to rescue or save; the other, to be strong. The roots differed only by a small nuance in the pronunciation, a guttural prefix that over time merged together to give us the word that we find in the Hebrew text.

Around 1500 B.C. these two roots began to be represented as one sign, although the original meanings were retained, similar to how the English word “bank” can mean several different things though its spelling does not change in context. Of the eighty-some times different forms of ‘ezer (help, helper, helping) are found in the Old Testament, only 21 of those are nouns. For anyone less dorky than me in high school, this is the difference between saying “I’m going to the bank” (n.) and basketball advice of banking the ball off the backboard on a lay-up (v). i.e., nouns hang together.

Two of the 21 nouns are the debut of women in the creation story. The other 19 noun-sightings refer either to God or to military allies. I didn’t believe it at first, so I used an online generator to search three versions of the Bible for the word help. I’m not kidding, in the King James Version (the first English translation of the Hebrew Bible), about 99.9% of the usages of ‘ezer refer to God, someone using a sword to fight for someone, or providing serious military aid to the Israelites. The other .1% were in the Deuteronomic laws where people are talking about helping pick up each other’s asses (donkeys, not the other kind) when they fell down. There was so much talk about ‘ezers succoring cities, that I have never been more grateful for that .1% in Deuteronomy (or asses) in my life.

Some instances where ‘ezer refers to military allies are the other side of the street, too. It’s both offensive and defensive. Besides noting God’s definitive ‘ezership in Isaiah 41, another passage in I Chronicles really struck me as a little ‘ezer-happy, and not because it’s about women. It is about David’s mighty men. If you have never read about these imposing men of glory, turn your Bible there now and do some preliminary jaw exercises to get ready for all the times it is going to hit the floor. These were the men who, beginning in I Chronicles 11, are described as the greatest warriors in a time with some pretty snazzy ancient civilizations.

The greatest of these were David’s elite chiefs, who supervised not entry-level soldiers, but a whole sub-sect of elite soliders who themselves supervised warriors that made the high cut. Check this. David had eleven chiefs overseeing his army commanders, a total of 30 elite warriors, who in turn oversaw the hundreds of high-end soldiers. These 11 chiefs were from the tribe of Gad, who were lions among men. The loser of the chiefs scored a piddly 100 kills in one battle; the greatest, 1000 (I Cor 12:8b). The Gadites stood mostly in leadership position among David’s mighty men. Take a wild guess at the name of the first-in-command. Shocking…his name was Ezer.

Considering the significance of names in Biblical times and the matchless role Ezer played, the lion of lions, is a pretty lucid cultural clue. Israelite children given birth names based on their meaning, but often Biblical names also represent the place or role of a person in the context of the story they are found in, much the same as people accrue nicknames through their characteristics and adopted roles and then carry those names with them. Ezer’s place in Scripture is not only among David’s men in a time of war and conquering, it is first among the leaders of David’s greatest men. It is also striking to me that, with six other occurrences of the word ‘help’ in Chapter 12 alone, Ezer’s name is the only occurrence not translated from the Hebrew.

I have a theory that this name was not translated because Gutenberg hired a real deadbeat to play copy editor before the original KJ went to press. They didn’t go out for lattes when they got to this chapter, say to heck with it when they got back and just hit ‘print.’ Chief Ezer was a man of unparalleled power and strength in his nation, and relegating his name to “Imahelper” didn’t quite fit the bill.

Based on this theory, I believe it tells us something about the original meaning of the word ‘ezer. I believe it tells us that it really does mean power and strength. So why do we often place a subservial role around women based on the Genesis ‘ezer’s when so many other instances this word is used in the Old Testament it talks about freakin William Wallace? I wondered.

Perhaps a more important question you have at this moment is, What does this have to do with the original question? I mean, nice useless vocabulary lesson, Nagel, but how does this really illumine God’s original intention for women?

Firstly, it puts the beat back into the lyrics “I got the power.” Secondly, however, it distills the acquired connotation of “helpmeet” from the original subtext that is surrounded by implications of power, strength and serious aid being dealt. From a linguistic perspective, we can’t just dismiss the blurb that follows ‘ezer, but we also can’t dismiss the original character simply because it modifies another word. That’s perhaps the source of a lot of confusion. If k’neged modifies ’ezer, then all bets are off for linking it back to the common theme of this noun in its OT career. If ‘ezer modifies k’neged, then its root meaning uniquely signifies something.

What it may signify will be continued in another post....

The Godfather

There are about a bazillion ways to strike up profound conversations, and they all begin with one random question. One such question began one such conversation about a month ago. A light breeze ruffled the branches of the tree overhead as Aaron, an American running The World Race, sat down and asked Monica and me for our opinion on the role of women in the church.I looked down at my mkande (maize and beans) and tried to hide the mischievous gleam that lit across my face. Behind every great man there is a great woman, I thought with an irresistible twinkle escaping through my eyes. I didn’t know Aaron well enough to know if he’d be able to tell I was joking. Well, half-joking. Okay, not joking. It's true. You can argue until you're blue in the face about what women's role is, but in the time it took you to start and finish your theory, incredible women did hundreds of great things.

Monica and I looked at each other. The intensity of our conversation was about to go from 0 to 60 in 0.3 seconds. A memory flashed across my mind of a story I'd heard from a Tanzanian man not that long ago. While giving a sermon one day, he began talking about how his wife left him with his young child to go to a meeting once and he nearly had a stroke, burned down the hut, and ended up eating twigs and grass for dinner. His story prompted uproarious laughter from the congregation as every married woman in the crowd--both foreign and native--nodded her head in understanding. Apparently he wasn't the only man to be lost without his wife in his own hut. And here Aaron's question referred to a long-debated topic of the degree to which women lead, contribute, or forge ahead with or without men.

Monica was the first to jump in. As she spoke, the smirk on my face gave way to a well-known Scripture passage in Isaiah 41 called The Helper of Israel. Many a troubled believer has flipped to this chapter in search of encouragement for the wearying road. In times of great desperation we are greatly desperate for help and strength. In all of Isaiah, this is the only chapter that calls God the helper of Israel. If this Scripture seems at all disconnected to the original question, it’s not. It’s just, you have to go back to the original language of the Old Testament to make the connection. You have to go to the Hebrew. But you also have to go further back than Isaiah.

Let me bring you, my friend, to God’s first words about women.

‘elohym‘amar lo’ towb ‘adam hayah bad ‘asah ‘ezer k’neged’

‘ezer k’neged is the Genesis 2:18 translation for the creature that we have come to know as “woman” in the account of creation. Now, actually, these aren’t God’s very first words about the hott topic. His first words are in Genesis 1:26, a sort of Sparknotes version of the creation history, where God declares that He is going to make “man” in His image and give them authority over all animals, birds and fish. We know “man” does not refer to only the male species because Genesis 1:27 declares that God created male and female of “man” in His image. To all those who thought Eve was merely a creative afterthought, this tells you she was intended from the beginning. Genesis 2 retells the creation history with the focus on the creation of life, specifically the creation of man and woman. Man was formed first out of the dust of the ground and the breath of God, and somewhere in between creating Adam and presenting the animals before their lord, God tells us that creation has one last need. Enter ‘ezer k’neged, the three little words that make up the all-too-popular King James Version term “helpmeet.”

For many people who were exposed to or grew up in more traditional churches, it is no secret that the widely-known misnomer “helpmeet” is one of the reasons that the church structured gender roles the way it did during and post-reformation. Also to the credit of “helpmeet,” few people connect the dots from God to Eve when we read the English translation of Eve as the helper of man and God as the helper of Israel. And yet here we find the first use of ‘ezer busting out early in Genesis; the word that was originally translated into ‘help’ in both cases. I’m not going to pretend to be a Hebrew scholar or anything, but something tells me that I should notice that this is the first time in the Old Testament that we see the word ‘ezer, the word most English Bibles translate into ‘helper’ and the first half of King James’ equation for ‘helpmeet’.

Interestingly, scholars speculate that ‘helpmeet’ arose from Old English, not from the original language of the Old Testament. Many early translators coupled the words ‘ezer k’neged as a single term that indicated God-ordained subservience of women in ideal creation. Translating k’neged or kenegdo as meet, we arrived at the amazingly well-adopted term ‘helpmeet’ so popular for church sermons on Mother’s Day. Fond as I am of Old English, I've got to say that the word clearly carries zero connotation of "the helper of Israel," and is virtually oozing the connotation that women are little more than a Piglet doppleganger from Winnie the Pooh.

In the time it took me to research this and write this blog, women everywhere have done amazing things. I have merely come up with a few resources and tidbits in an attempt to "define" a role that, let's face it, is far bigger than definition. And even if it is define-able, which I am sure smarter, more educated people than I can support, there are certain women who will not be defined. They swing for the fence whether it's in accord with their designated role or not.

Why is this? Hard to say. Depending on the women you know, you may call it stubbornness, or arrogance, or one too many hits from the school of hard knocks. Or is it more than that?

If it's true that a good answers come from good questions, then Aaron may have been asking the wrong question. Perhaps a better question is, "What do women bring to church naturally?" And, "What do we know about what is in female nature to bring?" Given the whole creative design thing, I'm pretty sure God wouldn't take offense to taking a closer look at what He made in answer to what He intended. And that's the point we're digging out, isn't it? What was God's intention?

At this point I have to tell you, I can't answer this in entirety. I have no quips, no smirks dancing across my face, no little glimmer in my eye. So I am going to do what most people do when they are looking for good answers. I'm going to pull a Godfather (to be continued...)

The Last Chipate

I stood up in the front of the church with a small red book in my hands. Although every inch of the pews were packed and there were masses of children standing in the back, I was not nervous. I was smiling. Every eye in the church was looking at us. And it wasn’t because we’re stunning creatures of mankind. It was because we were white.

Two buses, six feet and a car carried us to the Masai church on top of the mountain in the dying land. Samsoni had asked us to come live with his tribe for the day, beginning with the five-hour church service on top of the Masai lands. Thanks to the unfailingly unpredictable African bus system, we were two and a half hours late. We made it to church just before halftime. And about five minutes before halftime, they asked Monica and me if we had anything we wanted to speak in the service. We looked at each other in surprise. Or we would have if we could have been surprised at anything else that we encountered that morning. Sure, we said. We’d get up there and speak, fully knowing that in Masai land, there is no bullet-point message. It is a blood-letting of emotion purging the soul of disbelief, of doubt, of a fever of humanness.

I waited until walking up to the front of the church before deciding what I’d say. The thirty minutes of worship before then would have been ample time to prepare seeing as I knew none of the Masai language, but truth be told, I was too deep into thought to think about much besides the world around me. A world called Masai.

Samsoni’s tribe was one of the more modern Masai tribes, having inducted itself into the evolving African culture by way of Western clothes and Coca Cola. Even following Christ is a sign of change among the Masai. But if you were in the church, you’d hardly feel like you were elsewhere besides the inner atrium of the heart of the Masai. They may have looked like they walked in the 20^th century but they sat, moved, and stood like they were Masai. A row of elderly women with earlobes down to their chins and hunched backs sat in the very front of the church. At any given moment someone or several someones would get up and dance with an enchanting, repetitive rhythm in the movement of their heads and necks. Six different people led worship and at any time they would starting dancing up and down the single aisle like a party doing the train at a wedding dance. Three steps forward, two steps back. Three steps forward, two steps back.

I almost didn’t go to the village that day. The night before Monica poked her head into our room where I was sitting in the dark at 9:30. The electricity had gone out, so I was doing what most people do when the lights are gone. Nothing. Actually, that’s a lie. I was deep in thought. English cut through the silence like glass shattering in an abandoned house. “Samson is going to his village for church tomorrow and wants to know if we want to come with,” she asked. I turned over. The chance to go to Masai land was impossible to say no to, but at the same time, it came at the cost of not going to the church in Arusha. I decided to sleep on it and, until about ten minutes before Monica and Samson were supposed to leave, I was still undecided. And laying in my pajamas in bed. As the drowsiness of sweet slumber faded into increasing consciousness, suddenly my heart completely changed. To serve these people you have to know them. And how can you know them if you can’t live among them? I was instantly awake and in three minutes I sat on the blue bench outside my door, ready for Samson and Monica. I sat on that blue bench longer than seven minutes, cursed African time. An hour later, Samson finally came out. God bless Africa.

The bus ride took longer than usual that day, but I hardly seemed to notice since it was my first time riding in the very front seat of the bus. And when I say front, I mean front and center. The driver hit my knees every time he shifted gears. I was the peanut butter sandwiched between Amani, one of the Masai students at the base, and the crazy driver who kept trying to put six people in five-seat rows, seven if there were kids. The bus journey gave way to a small, white Toyota Corolla that carried us from the paved road off into the ageless village.

I wish I could show you what it was like but there is no way to put it in a picture. The land was caught in one last breath before waiting for long-desired rain. Enormous crevices, like dried up rivers, cut a maze through the dusty plains. Samsoni sat in the front talking to his father’s brother in the driver’s seat but took time to look back and tell us that he played in the ravines and crevices when he was a kid. The church was at least a twenty minute drive from the main drag of the village. It sat high on a mountain hill, kilima in Swahili, along with two other buildings for a school and a small playground by the cement toilets.

The view was incredible. Samsoni pointed to a small dot of a building far off in the distance. It had to be at least three miles from where we stood, not counting the winding path you’d have to make around deep ravines and thorny patches. It turned out to be his schoolhouse as a kid. I stared at the schoolhouse in the distance. We had passed Samsoni’s house coming in from the village, in the exact opposite direction of the schoolhouse. For seven years of primary school, Samson walked over an hour each way to school. Suddenly Bill Cosby’s standup comedy line about walking uphill both ways to school seems like toddler’s play. Samson walked more in a week than I did in my first eighteen years of school.

As I stared out in the distance, envisioning a young, stick-like boy scampering across the plains, a white-haired man picked up his feet and began the long journey down the mountain, not even thinking of another way to go. I wondered how many times he had walked that mountain to church, leaving in the heat of day, wearing full length sleeves and dress pants. He was the man who we’d laid hands on and prayed for as a congregation, asking for the healing of his shoulder. When we finished praying he said the burning pain had left immediately. Slowly other Masai women began to trickle down the mountain after him. I realized only then that we were the only people in a hundred to be driven to church.

When we left we had eight people in the Toyota, three of which were village boys who sat on our laps in the backseat. Samson knew we needed to be back to Kilimanjaro that afternoon, but rather than taking us to the village, the pastor took the steep mountain road going straight down side of the mountain and, passing the church people who had left twenty or thirty minutes before us, wound the car around a high curve until we pulled into the series of buildings where they lived. The led us into a long living room with a small table in the middle. Two women brought glasses and plates and, after a short while, a plate of chipate--thick, heavy flatbread that feel like somebody poured cement in your tortillas--and chipsi--sliced potatoes fried in sunflower oil. Chipate is rolled and eaten with the hands, as are the chipsi unless you’re staunchly Western. After we finished eating the pastor came back and the women brought more food for him. There was one last chipate on the plate.

The pastor rinsed his hands and leaned back. “I am glad both of you came,” he said. Monica and I had both preached on different Scriptures in the New Testament and shared what we came here to do, adding at least thirty minutes to the church service that day. This is a people that loves to go to church. He thanked us for giving testimonies and then settled with hot coffee in his hands. “What you two said was good, but especially what you talked about,” he nodded towards me. In describing my heart for coming to Africa I had mentioned taking care of little kids and working in an orphanage. A horde of kids from Compassion International stood in the back of the church, so I knew that they were familiar with the mark of AIDS, with losing parents to early death, with abandonment. “I have a heart for the kids, too. More than anything. I like being a pastor, but I have always loved teaching the kids. You don’t realize that here, they all have nothing. But they could be everything if they had anything to start with.”

I sat smiling on the couch, thinking about all the kids I saw in the back of the church and every African baby I’ve met since I’ve been here. You can’t imagine everything it takes to be Masai and to minister to that people with flawless love. To serve these people you have to know them. And how can you know them if you can’t live among them? I could spend an entire year learning about the ways of the Masai and never feel like I was a part of the bush. There is something that would always be white/American about me. But the man on the couch, he had the voice, the hands, the feet that served. Although Masai himself, he had been schooled in Dar es Salaam and had good tutors his whole life. He seemed privileged, but he could still understand his people. He was the first Christian in his village, and 23 years ago gave up teaching to become their pastor, too. In that one choice, this man had changed his entire village. He served.

When his father finished speaking, Samson pushed the last chipate our way. It seemed like sin. We were full beyond belief and drinking coffee to boot, and there was no way there wasn't someone keeling over from the pain stomach acid causes when you are long past hunger. What is this? Overeat, now? However, these men and particularly the elder, who had been a pastor in the village longer than I had been alive, did not seem to define the measure of a servant by the last chipate. They take their people seriously and yet they do not take themselves as saviors, just harbingers of African hospitality. The difference between serving people and saving people, between honest service and acting like a surrogate savior, crystallized. He shoved the plate towards us and tore it apart, setting a half on each of our plates. The last chipate was for us that day.

Kilimanjaro, part II

I opened my eyes again when I began to feel the tips of my shoulders starting to burn. This was a bad day to forget sunblock, I thought. As if on telepathic cue, Andrew hopped up and grabbed some sunblock from his backpack. The only trouble is, you could pour SPF 1200 on your shoulders and you would still fry. Makes you wonder how reptiles do it, sitting on the rocks all day long. Despite the burning heat we continued to sun ourselves on the rocks, releasing our inner-lizard and talking about God. Andrew and I had arrived within a day of each other, and Monica had come from the States only a month before. Monica was the last to share.

“You know how there are always clouds over Kilimanjaro?” she asked as a question. I nodded. Although we live right at the foot of the mountain, so many clouds crowd the snowy rooftop throughout the day that it is hardly visible except for the occasional evening. “Well, I was thinking about how you can never see the top and was talking to God about why there are so many clouds over it all the time,” she went on. “I mean, there’s this great, majestic mountain always there but, because of the clouds, you could live here for days and never see the mountain or even know it’s there!” I immediately agreed. In fact, it seemed odd to me right then that the one midday we were sitting somewhere on the eastern slopes of Kilimanjaro, we weren’t being sheltered by clouds or covered in rain.

Monica continued, “...As I was thinking this, I began to wonder why God puts those clouds there and how come we can’t just move them out of the way. We want to see the mountain behind them, not just know that it is there.” Monica’s words started sounding a lot like a very basic definition of faith. Living with clouds concealing the glory of something we know is there, but believing by belief and not proof. I could take a thousand pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro but if there was a cloud in the sky, you’d see nothing but some green hills that are really the toenails of the mountain. You may be geographically, ecologically and environmentally sure that Kilimanjaro stands before you and yet because of the clouds, you’d never see a fraction of its glory. This is the shadow of the mystery that I live in, the footbend of a great enigma that, for all its immovable glory, is all too easily concealed by mere droplets of condensed H20 called clouds. And sitting beneath this mountain of secrets, you begin to wonder if it is the mountain or the secret that God made for our benefit.

Monica shared more about how this revelation really touched her heart in an area where she had expectations that were being adjusted by God’s hand, but I was caught back at the clouds and the mountain’s shroud. There is a lesson in the veil.

If you’ve been taught much Christian theology, it would tell you that God could move the clouds and God could move the mountain. Monica’s lesson was that cloud cover or not, the mountain is there. It's fixed. Ain't no mountain wimpy enough that an army of water droplets is going to move it even a fraction of an inch. And yet with enough time, with enough pressure, anyone would start to doubt that.

It’s a timeless truth that in any enduring ache, or waiting, or uncertainty--any taste of suffering--it always seems like the clouds are more real than the mountain behind them. In fact, because of the clouds you would never know there is a mountain in their midst, waiting only for the sun’s first rays or the twilight’s last kiss to reveal its imposing glory. But I am interested in a little more than a ‘how.’ I am interested in the ‘why.’ In my own moment beneath mountain after we had come down from its slopes, I poked God’s big side wanting to know 'why.' Why all of it?

He answered a question with a question. What are you really asking? Okay…truthfully? What is with the clouds in the first place?

It's a fair question, one often at the core of hundreds upon hundreds of books that have been written about agnosticism, atheism, religion. It's a question that goes with living. What is with the clouds?

--Because sometimes when you move the clouds, people still don’t see you. Most people aren't really looking for the mountain. They're looking for their Eden. You could do everything to change their circumstances and situation and take every cloud away, but if they felt out of Eden, they still wouldn't see the mountain.

Monica's observation was basic, concise, and penetrating. Freakishly simple, in a way. The idea and question of faith is just the opposite--complex, long-winded, and over-my-head in so many ways that I can't help but admit that I'm never going to "get" faith, never going to master the enigmatic underbelly of the mountain. But the constant cloud cover dissolving Africa's largest mountain in a pool of vaporized droplets, I get that. And having made my bed beneath its slopes for several weeks now, I get that the mountain doesn't fade in and out of the world when draped in white bundles of cotton or stripped to its bare naked face.

That I get. Perhaps there is more to every mountain than its face.

Kilimanjaro, part I

At first glance you would have thought we were hitchhikers—two girls just standing by the side of the road, bags in our hands. We were on our way to Moshi, where we thought we would find ourselves at the doorstep of Mt. Kilimanjaro for the day. The side of the road was our bus stop. Had we known how the day was to end up, we would have packed more than a bag and our typical day’s supply of Germ-X, bug spray and toilet paper. But today we underestimated Africa.

It began while bouncing around on the bus to Moshi. Monica and I caught the third bus to pass by the side of the road, and although it was only half full they made us sit six people in a four-seat row. Couple this with the occasional chicken someone is carrying on their lap and the fact that deodorant hasn’t hit the eastern front, and six people begins to feel very full. Roadside markets and brightly flowered trees buzzed by through the window, but all I could think about was the fact that they weren’t buzzing by fast enough. No, this was not lingering, American, instant-gratification syndrome. This was sheer angst. Despite the dramatic allure of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the mountain was not actually the main attraction that day. The hiking trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro was actually to meet up with a friend from the States, Andrew, who was also volunteering at an orphanage in a town about 50 km from where I lived. Andrew had organized a hiking trip up to Kilimanjaro National Park and sent me an email telling us to meet him and his peeps at the gate at 9:00. I glanced at my watch. It was 8:15 and we were only pulling out of Boma. This is going to take a miracle, I thought.

Half an hour and 613 stops later, I had completely given up on meeting Andrew. We had just disembarked the absolute slowest bus in the universe at the central bus station in Moshi and quickly found out that the park gates were another 50 km outside of Moshi. Actually, one of the gates was 50 km. Apparently there were multiple gates and all were mucho shillingi (many shillings) away. We bartered with a taxi driver for a reasonable price to take us to the Marangu gate, a wild guess that that could be the gate Andrew meant, and finally hopped in a taxi at 8:40. I couldn’t help but smile at the incredible landscape passing through the window, but by then I had completely given up on meeting Andrew at all. Looks like we’re flying solo today. After the promised 50 km our taxi driver turned up a paved road and suddenly began ascending the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro with alarming speed.

“Are you going to take us all the way to the top?” Monica joked. Our cab driver was quite proud of his good English and laughed at the question, then pressed down harder on the accelerator.

Five minutes later Monica looked back, asking a silent question with raised eyebrows. “Are you ready to die, Jory?” I returned a smile and shrugged my shoulders. The cab driver was whipping around the mountain road like a rabid dog chasing its tail. I don’t know who was more scared—the women gracefully balancing baskets on their head as they carried fruit and vegetables up the side of the road, or the girls trapped in the mercy of a crazy cab driver. I think I held my breath for ten minutes altogether before we finally pulled up to the towering gates of Kilimanjaro National Park. Hired men jumped out from the offices on the side and pulled the doors of the gate wide open to let the taxi through. No sign of Andrew. I looked at my watch. 9:41. We had long missed him by now.

Before we could even escape the mad cab we were swarmed with native people selling merchandise, offering water and asking if we needed a guide up the mountain. A red-haired woman poked her head through the front passenger window and asked Monica if either of us was named Joy. Her accent was Australian. I smiled as I stepped out of the car. “My name is Jory,” I said. “That’s close.” Her face fell. “No, I’m looking for a Joy. We are supposed to meet her here for the volunteer tour.”

Volunteer caught me by surprise. How many volunteer tour groups would come on a random day? I wondered. Then she stopped. “Wait, you’re not with the volunteer group from Arusha, are you? They’ve been phoning all morning telling me to look out for a girl but her name was hard to hear. They stopped for breakfast so they’re running late.” That could only mean one thing. We hadn’t missed Andrew after all. Booyah African time! I screamed in my mind. Thirty minutes later, I was less enthused about African time as daylight wasted away into strenuous heat. The day was rapidly beginning to feel like living in a toaster oven. We struck up a conversation with another Australian who had the deep, throaty accent of a Mebourner. He was also currently a victim of African time. Having arrived only minutes after we did, Steve was planning to summit Kilimanjaro in just five days. However, after signing the release forms so his guide wasn’t liable for possible death along the climb, his Tanzanian sherpa had somehow disappeared. Steve was in the middle of telling me about traveling to Peru to climb Machu Picchu when someone came up behind me and enveloped me in a hug. I was so caught off guard that I screamed, then I screamed again when I turned around and realized it was Andrew. What on earth was I worried about? We were all on African time.

Within moments we were heading back down the mountain, erasing all the work that accelorator-happy cabbie had done just an hour before when he careened up the slopes with two wide-eyed girls in tow. The safari car slid through the streets of Marangu with startling ease and pulled up in a little alley between two buildings. The hike started there, apparently. So did paradise. The jungle before us was a majestic haven of electric green, bright emeralds and rich azures. The dusty plains of Africa were instantly transformed into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, without leaving us caught in the rain. Within half an hour of climbing, however, a tropical rain shower would have been warmly (no pun intended) welcomed. Our guides stopped frequently to show us this or that—coffee beans, avocado trees, lemon bushes—even mint leaves, which Monica and I pocketed in hopes of later extracting minty flavor from the delicious-smelling leaves and engineering Tanzania’s first Starbucks’ Mint Mocha with our electric water pot. Laugh all you want at our burgeoning hopes for our primitive tools, but I’d like to remind you that that didn’t hold the pilgrims back way back in the day. Our holidays could have been dramatically different if they’d thought a spit and an open flame were too primitive to produce the very first Martha Stewart’s Thanksgiving menu.

By the time we stopped for lunch, I had lost about 63% of my body weight in sweat. Feeling rather like a prune shriveling up under beating rays, I couldn’t resist the luscious waterfall before me. The only problem was, I didn’t wear a swimsuit under my clothes. This could be tricksy, I thought. I had only one thing going for me, and that was the fact that I wore dark underwear that day. Thank God for black panties, I thought. My shirt I could stand to get wet—that would dry off quickly enough. But the thought of getting my army-green cargo pants wet was like a chafing deathwish in light of the rest of the hike. We still had two hours to go. With lizard-like litheness I climbed over some rocks by the side of the waterpool and slid down below view to strip off my pants. Before anyone could come over I dropped into the water and dove beneath the surface. Fifteen minutes of swimming under the falls and mischievously splashing Andrew like a kid sister was sufficient enough to bring my body temperature back down to normal. As I climbed out of the pool in my secret alcove, one of the older women on the team asked me if I wanted to use her towel while I dried off. Manna sent from heaven. I wrapped the towel around my waist and headed over to some giant rocks planted in the middle of the stream winding down from the waterpool. Andrew had also jumped in the waterpool and was sprawled out on a large rock to dry. “Finding your inner-iguana?” I joked before I sat down and copied him on spreading out to dry. The sun’s powerful rays were a welcome heat force for the first time since I arrived in Africa. I closed my eyes and soaked in a profound realization: I am breathing in Africa. A smile crossed my face.

Baby Herding

For all my regaling you of culture and colors in Africa, I have yet to reveal to you what my daily life is like. It begins with seven of the world’s most beautiful children.

Around the hour of 9:00 my day starts to look very much like shepherd-training with children. Sometimes the mothers walk their babies to class, sometimes they bring their kids later and hand them through the window, and sometimes the mothers send them with us. So depending on the day, I find myself guiding anywhere between three and six toddlers without the shepherds usual rod and staff (This is what you’d call ‘advanced shepherding’). The road to the preschool is short, but wild. Overgrown with thistles, sharp grass and small, thorny bushes, the dusty tire tracks are more akin to a minefield of your foot’s worst nightmare. I once walked through the grass to the resident volleyball ‘court’ and before I was halfway there the bottom of my flip flops had become a solid patch of thorns digging into the plastic soles. Thank God for plastic.

For some reason this grassy path is terribly interesting to the little ones. Every half step they stop to point to some rock or lone blade of grass and ramble something off in Swahili. Not understanding half of the baby talk, I usually just smile and ask why, which makes them laugh and then move on to the next incredible piece of dirt. Oh, to be young again, and possess that perpetual gift through which you unreservedly “see heaven in a wildflower.” (William Blake)

The next three hours is the incarnation of Babes in Toyland as they attack the room with balls, blocks and toy cars sitting in the corner. Our toy selection is small but, as always, it's the kind of thing where the box the gift comes in is as great as the gift itself. The day we tied strings to the front wheels of the toy cars and gave them to the boys, four of them ran around in circles for a full hour, just dragging the little, broken cars behind them. Each time they passed by I’d cheer and shout their name, and you’d have thought you were pouring Wake Up Juice from Back to the Future III into their little bionic tanks. Their faces lit up and they’d shoot off from the mattress, building momentum until the next time they ran past me and got another shot of Wake Up Juice.

Another favorite is the animal book, which consists of the weirdest array of animals you’d imagine. Everything from reindeer to pandas to mongooses are in there (I don’t even know what sound a mongoose makes). My ignorance of mongoose noises is usually my greatest lack as a teacher here. The moment you open the book the kids swarm to your lap, pile on, push each other off and then cry and get up and do it again. The average adult lap can hold three kids at a time but let me tell you—these Africans make sure you can fit six. They even sit on your ankles, if need be. As you read the name of each animal (in English…we’re going for bilingual here), they repeat it like little tape recorders on replay and then they giggle as you make the sounds. The sound effects are their favorite part by far. One picture of a monkey can keep them going “oo oo aa aa” for a full 15 minutes. And if you turn the page before they’ve satisfied their inner monkey for the day, they jerk the book over by them and turn the page back to the picture of the monkey.

As I look back, it’s hard to believe it’s been four weeks. We have come a long way since that first week in February when they were all kind of scared of the white-skinned girl trying to pick them up and play with them. Wile (pronounced Wee-lay) would scream and burst into tears if I even tried to come near him those first few days. Then he met a nerfball that I brought to class and we became friends after that. That week it was terrible whenever the mothers would drop a kid off or stop by to bring a snack. The kids would cry forever when their moms left. Now, they are too busy playing to say goodbye and we have more trouble getting them to leave at the end of the day than getting them to stay. We used to have to make sure the door was closed at all times or we’d invariably have some make a run for the base. Now, if someone comes and leaves the door open the kids get all huffy and go close it for us. Go back home? Not a chance. Today was no different.

It was all because of a blow-up baseball. Wile wouldn’t let it go and for the life of him, he wouldn’t leave without it, either. The trouble was that it belonged to the preschool, left out by some careless six-year-olds who’d gone back to class without taking it. Wile spied it and latched on. You almost need the Jaws of Life to get it out of his hands, and after that you needed industrial strength earplugs to drown out the sound of his wails. Wile was not happy. I looked back at Jackie to see her status for consoling the screaming toddler. She had one kid in her arms and two trailing behind. She’d lost her fourth charge to one of the windows by the classroom. Joel stood with his face pressed up against the glass, listening to the song the teacher was singing. Moses was wandering off to another classroom door. I sighed and put Deborah down and let go of Agape’s hand. We needed three more arms or a teleporter. I saw her put her kids down and immediately moved in to trade places, picking Joel up along the way but losing Zawadi to the next window down the line.

Wile continued to scream all the way down the verandah of the school and onto the road, when the next obstacle presented itself. The big red and white van sat parked next to the side of the school. As soon as we set foot on the dust, the bus drew the boys to it like a magnet with suction cups. Now four were stuck instead of just one. The only solution was to pick them all up and carry them til they were far enough from the bus that they wouldn’t go back. We got all but Wile, who still stood crying in the middle of the road by the school. Realizing that inviting him home was not the way to go, I waved goodbye and told him that he’d better build a house to sleep in so the animals wouldn’t get him. If only reverse psychology worked between language barriers.

Jackie looked up at me and then caught on to my plan, then rattled off something in Swahili. I didn’t catch all of it but in the middle I heard the word for ‘lion.’ I grinned as it came together. She told him that he’d better hurry up or the lion in the field was going to come and eat him. “I hear Simba coming now, Wile. It is lunchtime so you know he is very hungry.” Wile stood there, skeptical. Arms folded. Clearly, Wile did not believe that there was a lion coming. However, the rest of the kids did. Agape and Joel screeched and started running towards the base. Zawadi looked up with fearful eyes then picked up his feet and started running with spiraling legs towards the courtyard of the base, followed by four other toddlers now absolutely certain that a simba was on his way. Wile stayed planted but shouted something as we half walked, half-carried the rest of the kids back to the base. As soon as we were out of sight, Wile freaked out and started running towards the base with us. Five minutes later he saw the door to his room and all memories of baseballs and lions were forgotten. At least for now.

Suave

Suave. The very word probably conjures up images of Rhett Butler pulling out a chair to seat a woman wearing a long evening gown. Maybe it brings back the smile you couldn't help after the last good pickup line you heard. I used to be among those of you who feel a grin tug at the corners of your mouth when you watch a guy stretch his arm up overhead and bring it down to rest on unsuspecting shoulders. Now, I associate it with the world’s worst shower-mate.

It was a fleeting deliberation, really. I was standing in Target three days before I left, debating which brand of shampoo to stock up on for the trip. Our base administrator recommended bringing a heavy supply if we were going to be here awhile. TreSemme, Pantene Pro-V, Herbal Essences…the shelves were well stocked. Do I want to get a more expensive shampoo? This is Africa, not Runway, I thought. I knew the base here in Kili wasn’t going to be the Hilton. I was told to expect cement floors, wildlife in the bathrooms and cold showers. My gaze settled on a fruity scent of Suave. Suave. My usual caretaker for mission trips abroad. Cheap, thick, easy to find. Suave it is.

Three weeks into volunteering I began to cringe every time I picked up my bottles of Suave in the shower. By that time my hair had begun to adjust to the shampoo and I almost didn’t feel like myself anymore. Why did I have to pick Suave? I thought, remembering back to aisle full of shampoos, a veritable garden of hair-lover’s delight, and that fatal moment when my eyes noticed the Suave sitting on the second shelf up. Oh, I remember. I picked it because I didn’t want to bring anything so expensive or important that I would be upset if it got lost or dumped or stolen. In fact, that was my basis for everything I packed, everything I left behind. If it was something so valuable that I’d be peeved to lose it, then it stayed behind. As I continued to rinse the despised soap out of my hair, a passage from a book popped into my head.

“A few years a go a friend visiting a native village in the South Pacific spent some time watching the children play. Theses children, he told me later, seldom heard the words, “Don’t touch that! Leave it alone! Be careful!” Their homes were simple, consisting of earth floors, thatched roofs, and mats rolled down to serve as walls at night.

In contrast, our modern homes are stuffed with expensive and fragile furnishings and appliances that represent a minefield of potential rejection for inquisitive toddlers. How many mothers have exploded in anger at a child over a shattered vase or antique! Children constantly hear about the importance and value of things. Very few times, however, do they hear the simple words “I love you.”

This excerpt from “The Father Heart of God,” had brought my reading to an unexpected halt as I tried to take in what the author was saying about God and what he was saying about man. I paused for a few minutes before going on, thinking I understood it better than the initial skim. But it wasn’t until that moment in the shower, squeezing sudsy peach-mandarin bubbles out of my hair that I saw the Father Heart of God in a different way. Back in the store, it was much easier to give up a better brand of shampoo (oh, my beloved TreSemme) in order to act on a principle of not wanting to value a thing above a person. And that was what I wanted to avoid. If using expensive American shampoo made me any more high maintenance or substance-dependent than the native people I lived with, then it was something to absolutely leave behind. But in real life, after three weeks of washing my hair with a less-than-revitalizing shampoo—ugh, how I craved a different brand. Anything but Suave.

The passage continued to echo in my mind. How ironic, I thought, that our concept of value is so malleable, so transferable, and because of that, so value-less. I might not live in a shroud of comfort or collect priceless antique buttonhooks, but the author’s excerpt is only minimally talking about things and materialism. It’s really talking about value, and turning our minds to think deeply about what our actions show we value.

You know what I’ve valued all my life? Laughter. Making people laugh so hard they pee their pants, or knowing so many things they are spellbound with intrigue. I act this way in big crowds, am often attracted to people who fit this description, and even look for this in friends. I play this role in my family and with individual friends. I look for ways to incorporate this into my teaching and any lesson I give. If I had only just met you on a bus, my first goal would be to make you laugh. I am addicted to being live entertainment, and for the life of me, I let it replace my picture of what God values most because entertaining people, not valuing them, became my utmost goal. I’ve even noticed that this is the recurring theme in my blog thusfar—most of them center around making light of life and portraying Africa as an interesting, sparkling gem, when really, I have seen a lot that breaks my heart. And I wonder if somehow I have hid the truth from you, by being this person that values humor so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think that humor is a worthwhile effort and a good thing. It’s something I’m going to keep with me all my life. However, in those little areas of the soul where humor was threaded into the theology that makes up my knowledge of God, it took over the part of my mind that was made to define and understand value. I’m ready to take that back, now. I hope you are, too.