the dry season

where is the rain? i need it in a big way. its so hot and dry and dusty.  i feel puckered and suffocated and thirsty. i am missing things.  things like people.  things like places. things like lifetimes ago.  things that aren't here. sometimes being here feels like i'm shrinking- or that the world has shrunk. it's the sameness.  the constancy.  the endlessness. it's the lack of change or movement. it's the stillness.  the ticking of the clock.  the repetivity.  the always.  and it's the lack.  the lack of options. of stimulus. of exposure.

i know i didn't come here for those things.  i came here to maybe bring those things, or some of them.  i don't know...did i?

there is this cloud right now. this big bright cloud standing alone - holding on to the sun.  the rest of they sky looks tired, bland and dusty.  this one cloud speaks hope and promise and maybe and bigger and expanse.  it speaks remember.  it says hang on. it's emerging.  rising. pulling out of the rest. 

across the street some women are sitting with their babies, surrounded by yellow jerry cans.  the same thing they always do, day in, day out. sit on the stoop, talking, bathing babies, cooking, waiting, resting, washing.  the neighbor pulls clothes off a line in front of his cassava plants.  the guy on the boda is peeing into the bushes. a  family of 4 rides by on one bicycle, all of them.  do they even see the cloud? is anyone looking?

when we don't look, we miss things.  when we don't listen, we don't hear. when there is no rain, things shrivel.  when we are not fed, not watered - we thirst and we long and we go hungry and we miss.

the other day a friend came over and i made him some eggs and toast.  he explained to me that while it was good, it was not food (emere). food is matoke, or posho, or rice and something with sauce. food is something that takes long to prepare, that is made for many and shared. food is eaten in large quantities, food fills you up.  food is enough.

sometimes i feel like my life here is like eggs and toast, or what eggs and toast is to a ugandan.  that what is lacking is the real thing- what i'm used to,  what fills me, what sustains me, what is shared and enjoyed by many. 

we are entering lent this week.  the 40 days before easter.  the time of preparation. the time when we remember what Jesus was even doing here.  what we're even doing here, where ever here maybe. 
today it was my turn to stay home with zoe and do 'home church'.  she's really struggling in sunday school socially and emotionally, and we decided that given a week of facing school and social challenges, sundays for her, right now, could be more one on one time to talk about God with a parent or grown up friend.  today we were talking about how the deep love of God is evident in Jesus.  in His desire to know us, our situation, our challenges, our moments, our fears, our sticky thoughts, our desires and temptations and our pain and our sorrow and our laughter and joy.  that these 40 days of lent, are an example of that knowing- his temptation in the desert- his taking on of all the deep wounds we have- his reaching us, even in our messiness.  and as i spoke i began to cry.  i just cried and told her how loved she is.  how never alone she is.  how cared for she is.  how she can never go to far away from God's love- because no one can.  the love is that big. so big, it's hard to understand.

and when i remember this- it's like that cloud.  it's even bigger. it's all that promise and hope and possibility, it is the food. it's what stands out in the blandness of life, in the dusty and the gray. it's full and real and enough.

that cloud is gone.  it must have merged with the rest of the dusty gray sky, the sun obscured no longer hitting it. the moment gone- like all moments must.  but a family just walked by, down this busy street.  the dad had one kid on his shoulders, the mom with the baby tied on her back.  they walked and looked up at me.  the only white person around, i am noted, i am different, i am given the double take.  but then, they both just smiled. big generous smiles, and walked on.  and like that cloud, it speaks.  it brings the same hope- but more.  it is another example of possibility, another little reminder, a gift.  saying, here is fine.  here is different, but not worse.  here I am.  here I have asked you to be. yes there is lack and sameness and you get tired and miss things.  but look around.  and listen.  and know.....you are loved.  that family walking is loved.  and those on the bike and the stoop and peeing in the bushes and taking down clothes- all loved- the same.  and that is enough.

and it is.