Where Chelsea Stands

One of the things I can never get over in my travels in East Africa is how loved the children are.  I grew up on images of kids covered in flies in need of missionaries and salvation, only to arrive on the continent a lifetime later and find that the only person in need of redemption was myself.

This week on a last minute quiet trip to East Africa, I spent hours and hours in a very congested city, talking to my very savvy driver Rogers.  No one will develop you, he told me, without wanting something in return.  And I knew it was true for me most especially.  For every good thing I have done in Africa, there is a deep and dark demand, a desperate longing to be folded into the togetherness for which I have no birthright. 

I did not survive the genocide, Innocent once told me, to be confused about money and love. 

But still I don't understand.  I'm still buying my way into the place where Chelsea stands, secure in the knowing she can never be alone.  I'm still hoping something will make that place inside a strong embrace the place I deserve to land, simply because I am, simply because it was always meant to be.

Unfolding

There's a certain amount of openness that's required. To let yourself feel the fullness of love. It's easy to hold back. To sit properly – upright – on the sofa with your legs crossed and your hands folded neatly in the comfort of your lap. To just look. To connect on an intellectual level, avoiding the intensity and vulnerability of human touch. I do this. But to see Jen unfold herself, opening her heart in this way not just with these children, but with nearly every person we touched, moved me.