Sounds

I am sure I will never be able to describe the sounds of this place.There is a small hill above the house where I am living, a little clearing where I have spent hours of my time, not because it is special in any particular way, but because it is where I can get a decent phone signal, and it is as good a spot as any to listen to the sounds of the bush.

The trees on that hill are alive with noise. Tiny colorful creatures tooting, tweating, twerping. Call the sounds what you will, but Bird calls do not make for good words. You can try: "chew chew...chew chew", "weet, weet, weet", "pwoy pwoy...pwoy pwoy", "beeng beengbeeng", "kook kook...kooook", or "wawawawawa". However, birds do not whistle in vowels and consonants; rather they sing in natural melodies and surprising harmonies, and the lyrics are less important than the notes themselves. And, of course, the music of calls can not be recorded in prose anymore than the taste of wine can be represented in mathematics. Some calls are exotic, like noises from a Star Wars movie or sounds from a computer gone crazy. Others are familiar like the"caw caw" of crows and the "cock a doodle doo" of the rooster. (The cock on the farm here unfortunately has a hard time reading his watch though. The crazy thing sounds at 1 am most nights.) These birds of the bush make a constant chorus, and the beauty of it is hard to miss.

Other noises accompany the days as well. Flies, wasps, bees, and mosquitoes whiz in annoying tones. The buzz of their wings is as aggravating to the ear as the flapping of a bird wing in flight is pleasant.Sometimes I sit to read or write and am driven to flinch so often I feel epileptic. I had hoped that somehow I would grow accustomed, or at least less sensitive, to the bug noises and the tickles of their legs on my skin, and I guess I have a bit, but even today I went on a wasp killing spree using my notebook as a weapon to wipe out five in one sitting.

Then there are the farm sounds. Cows make that bellowing belly noise we call "moo". And goats make my ears laugh. One young female sounds so much like a woman crying and moaning I have mistaken it twice. The older male is aggressively horny, shaking his head, wagging his tongue grotesquely, and begging to mate. It seems like some joke of nature.There are the tin sounds of constantly dinging bells, the ones worn around the necks of animals as they go out to pasture. The farm also is home to a pack of scroungy mutts who constantly howl and fight for food, or maybe just for fun. They often slam each other against the walls and doors of the house so violently there is nothing to do but laugh in disbelief. I sometimes suspect the dirty dogs are mauling one another to death and the wood is so thin it seems like they are in the room with me.

Village Life

Traveling to Nairobi has made me think about returning to New York. Leaving the village a week ago for Kampala and now to come here has been odd. I have lavished in the companionship of close friends, the treats of electricity and running water, and the tastiness of good food. But at the same time I have felt the pangs of leaving Kimana and Oloile Secondary.

The school feels like a baby, who is hard to leave with a sitter, not so much because I don't trust the principal and faculty when I am away, but because I have begun to love the thing and feel responsible for its well being. It is young, easily influenced and easily taken advantage of. The new programs I have pushed are just starting to take toddler steps, so I am afraid they will falter in my absence. Maybe I am just trying to hard to control the place and for that reason my short trips out of town are a good prep for my leaving in a month. After all I couldn't leave for five days without writing a list of 15 to do's for the faculty to complete during the week. And I have fretted like a mother wondering: Is the new fence complete? Are the students who performed poorly on their midterms being attended to? Is registration proceeding? I will have to relinquish those day to day concerns soon enough. The school will need to fly on its own. But I am afraid that I will leave before the chick has full fledged wings.

I guess, my fear is that left to its own devices, the community will be satisfied with "good enough". And I have such high hopes, expectations really, that this small secondary school will be something special, set apart as unique in the country, an institute of excellence. I have practical ideas for specifically how it can become what I dream it could be. But seeing those hopes through requires a commitment beyond what I have promised, an agreement to stay past ten weeks and maybe even past ten years.

I suspect that even if I return in say six months the place will not have continued all that I have started. Or perhaps I am egotistically over estimating my own influence, and the school will roll along without worry. Something I will pray for. But in the meantime, in this next month while I am here, I don't want to miss anything, any chance to help navigate the course, any meeting where decisions are made, any class where students are captivated by curiosity for a new idea. I know that in the end my leaving will be too soon. I know I will be distracted in the time I have left. I know that all that can be accomplished, will not be accomplished. I know I will go back to New York feeling I have abandoned the child in its infancy.

These trips out of the village have reminded me too that I will soon be returning to a more modernized world, where conveniences are normal again. Surprisingly though, when I am away from Kimana, I miss village life. Yes it is tedious, predictable, provincial even, but the simplicity of it has captured me in a way I had not expected. It is not nights out on town that I am longing for, but early evenings with Tyson, Miriam, Eunice, Siente, Nasieku, and baby Rachel, the family, sitting around lanterns and eating ordinary food and laughing over the most everyday stories. It is this little home and the life inside its walls that is Kenya to me, and stepping away to visit cities like Nairobi and Kampala reminds me that I will soon have to give up the day to day coming and going, sleeping and waking, eating and laughing that I have grown attached to. I will miss these simple things dearly.