We performed this dance while on vacation with the family. This dance was dedicated to our parents 29th wedding anniversary which coincided with our vacation. Thanks mom and dad for inspiring us with your love. 🤗❤️
As Nyadak lifts her head, trying to muster energy to continue her crawl to the feeding site, a vulture descends from the sky and lands a few feet behind her. The bird watches her every move waiting for her emaciated limbs to drop. This year of 1993 has had one of the best feeding seasons for the vultures in South Sudan as the civil war brought famine and famine brought death. Nyadak’s head now hangs low as she remembers the skeletons that remained of her family cattle when vultures swarmed from the sky to devour the last remains of their rotting flesh. She realizes this could be her fate as well considering that she has not eaten for five days, unless she counts the termites she managed to catch after the rain two days ago. Her only hope today was making it to the feeding site as she had heard a plane dropping food from the sky during the night before. A tear falls from her face as her hands are now starting to buckle from weakness. She has been crawling for the past two hours now since her bone-thin legs could no longer withstand her weight after four hours of non-stop walking. Both her hands and knees burn in pain from the heat and soil digging into her skin. Nyadak musters a scream hoping to scare the vulture away but the bird still looks on with stoic eyes.
She manages to lift her head and her wet eyes are now filled with hope as she identifies a white figure walking towards her with a bag in his hand. She thinks that the white man, now opening his bag, is about to save her from the vulture and from the suffering in South Sudan. However, the man opens his bag to retrieve not food but a camera as he envisions this scene on the cover of National Geographic.
Nyadak is 7 years old but her starved frame leads the photographer to think that she is half her age. With her head now back on the hardened grey soil and the vulture still looking on from a few feet away, he manages to get a good shot. However, he is not satisfied with the lighting and goes on to adjust the settings on his camera. After twenty minutes of tweaking his camera and snapping more shots, he is now confident that he has the perfect photo. He approaches the girl and she thinks that he is now going to save her. Instead, he walks past her, scares the vulture away, and continues walking further and further away. In his mind, he’s done the best he can as his photo of the vulture and the little girl can do more for procuring relief for the millions of hungry souls in Sudan than offering the girl a helping hand to the feeding site. For further consolation, he remembers that he was advised not to touch the people as diseases such as leprosy and meningitis were rampant in the area.
Nyadak looks back at the vanishing figure with sadness in her eyes. However, worse things have happened to her. A month ago, rebel soldiers invaded her home during the night and terrorized her family. The soldiers stole the little food the family had left before kidnapping her two sisters and then shooting her parents to death. Nyadak survived only because she had ventured against her mother’s wishes to use the outhouse in the dark. While crouching in the outhouse, she heard the last screams of her parents and the continuous cries of her sisters. Their cries faded more and more as the rebel’s truck sped off in the night. She stayed still in shock and never cried back. She continued crouching until day break as if she was frozen in time. She had fallen asleep while crouched and was awakened only by the sound of her belly roaring for food.
Her belly now roars again as she looks up to see the vulture shrinking into a small fluttering figure in the sky. Unlike her, the vulture has several prospects for a meal.
With the thought of her sisters and parents still fresh on her mind and heart, Nyadak continues on her crawl.
NB: This story is based on a real event that happened in 1993 during another famine in Sudan. The photographer, Kevin Carter, merely took the photo and left the girl to struggle. In 1994, he won a Pulitzer prize for the photo and was subjected to a lot of criticism for not helping the girl. Later that year, he committed suicide which mentions being haunted by memories of starving children. The full story on the photo and his suicide letter can be found on the following website: http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/
Within the past year starting in Spring 2016 up to now, I have accepted almost every opportunity that I could get to explore my spirituality. Since my freshman year of college, I challenged myself to learn more about the bible and Christianity as I did a weekly bible study with my spiritual advisor at the time. As we continued with bible studies, propositions of getting me baptized were presented but I never felt ready to make that big leap into being saved and the strict lifestyle associated with it. The other reason was that I realized that I am more of a spiritual person rather than a religious one. I don’t believe Christianity is the one and only way to getting into heaven, paradise, nirvana, or whatever you want to call it. I think that all religions have validity and so I started to Identify myself more with a new faith called Bahaism which is centered around multiethnic inclusivity and belief in the commonality of all religions (i.e peace, love, and community).
When I told people that I was Bahai, they thought I was in a cult or some made up religion but to be honest, any of the religions we have in existence could be made up. Even though I considered myself Bahai since freshman year, I didn’t know any other Bahais to orient me to the culture and faith. Unlike other faiths, Bahais usually meet once a month to worship together either in their temple or someone’s house so I felt shy to go to their meetings.  It wasn’t until fall 2015 that I contacted the Boston Bahai group through their website requesting to be connected with the Bahai youth. I have to say Bahais are very resourceful and can match you other Bahais anywhere in the world. They responded to me within 24 hours and I was invited to a devotional by one of their youth leaders. One of my good friends and roommate at the time was nice enough to tag along despite being a devout Christian as she was scared that this “crazy cult” would abduct or brainwash me. However, the people turned out to be very nice and the devotional was mainly reading some of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh (the founder of Bahaism) and singing from a hymn book (written by other Bahais from around the world). I also got to learn a bit more about how Bahai leadership works and was impressed by the fact that the nine leaders of Bahai are actually elected by the Bahais themselves. I attended two more devotionals and someone even gifted me a prayer book for women. However, after 5 months of being a somewhat devout Bahai, I decided that I wasn’t connecting to the faith. Understanding Bahá’u’lláh’s writings was kind of difficult considering that he wrote them in the 1800s. The writings also kind of seemed cult like to me as he sometimes writes as if he is a manifestation of God. To put that simply, he seems to think that God is speaking through him.
 I shouldn’t have been surprised that Bahá’u’lláh’ thinks himself as a manifestation of God considering that Bahaism is based on the belief that all the religions are based on different interpretations of the same God. Simply put, the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, etc all saw the same God but perceived him/her differently. If you understand anything about perspective, it does make sense. There’s no way we could all be visited by God and all view him the same way. However, I think what separates Bahaism from Christianity, which I grew up with, is that Bahá’u’lláh’  wrote the books for Bahaism whereas the Bible was written by multiple people so it can be interpreted as more reliable than a guy claiming to be getting direction from God and writing books praising himself.
Due to the less credible history of Bahaism and my inability to connect with the readings, I decided to go back to Christianity. My parents, especially my mom, was delighted that I was now sticking to the family religion. I started to read the bible again and even decided to get baptized in the protestant way (in total submission of water rather than my infant baptism in the catholic church where the priest sprinkles water on your face). Even though I now affiliate with Christianity, I still don’t believe that Christianity is the supreme of all religions. I still believe other religions have validity. My decision to be Christian is based on what makes most sense to me and what best facilitates my connection with God. I am not the most devout and I am still a sinner but I feel at peace now being confident in what I believe in. This journey of self-exploration with regard to spirituality was worth it and I would recommend it to everyone.
So I am challenging myself to get inspiration for blog titles from Bob Marley songs, hence the “no woman no cry”.  I think this song is very relatable as winter is so-called cuffing season where we all seek to find a mate to cuddle with “by the fire light drinking corn meal porridge.” I had the pleasure (sarcasm) of experiencing my first American winter when my family landed in windy and cold Carbondale, IL from the paradise that is Kenya. Carbondalae  was a barren ice land. No jobs, nothing to do. And to top it all off, school didn’t go so well for me because I failed to make friends due to the fact that I was a foreigner and people didn’t like that. For example, One time I remember crying because we were supposed to be writing in “cursive” in class and since I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. The kid told the teacher “she doesn’t know cursive, she’s from Africa!” My 10 year old self had never experienced such embarrassment in her life.
I only had one true friend, Kylie, who wasn’t very friendly as she was a loner and instead of playing with me, she would go play by herself. But then some teachers, I guess out of pity, introduced me to these girls who I guess were forced to talk and play with me. So obviously I didn’t like it there, after being dethroned from the queen bee status that I held in Kenya among my clique and being turned into an outcast. However, there was one good thing about Carbondale: Charlie.
Charlie was in 5tth grade and I was in 4th grade. I know Charlie isn’t a cool sounding name but he was the most popular guy in school. Gorgeous. charismatic. charming. and all the girls were in love with him. He lived like 1 house away from mine and so we got off the same bus stop. I guess he was just a friendly guy or he was attracted to the gold threads and cowrie shells in my hair like most people. Anyway, he would try to talk to me about the cars passing by: Hummers, Mustangs which I knew nothing about coming from Kenya where every foreign car is a Toyota. So i just never said anything or nodded my head and ran home to write on my hand: Mercy Loves Chuck. He would play American football with his friends and I would climb the tree in my backwards to watch while pretending to look at the street. He would play with my brother and watch the cars on the streets go by together( maybe the reason why my brother is so fascinated with cars) until he was almost like a second brother to my little brother, Juma. So it went on like this for a year until the last week before we moved to Alabama where I was jumping rope with his little sister(btw i am a mean jump roper) when he jumped in the rope and started jumping behind me. I could feel him breathing on my neck and I just got so nervous and tripped on the rope- i didn’t fall btw. So I ran back in the house out of shame. Anyway, so during the last day of Carbondale, his sister kept hinting that Chuck liked me but obviously I was a shy girl and couldn’t act on it #1 because my parents would kill me and #2 b/c of the whole Kenyan accent thing.
Anyway, so i left Carbondale without ever saying goodbye to him and when during the first year in Alabama, I would kiss his picture from the yearbook at our elementary school. I don’t know what happened to the picture but I still remember him clearly from his dimples to his irresistible smile. Last summer after finding the yearbook, I looked up my friend Kyle and found her on facebook. I sent a brief message trying to remind her who I was but no reply. Anyway, i didn’t expect one considering the fact that she has totally changed, has a lip and nose piercing, has straightened and colored her hair but even through all that, she still can’t hide her striking unforgettable face. I also tried to find Chuck but no luck-he went by several aliases back in elementary school so I wont be surprised if he doesn’t go by chuck or charlie anymore. But the funny thing is, even though I know that there is like 0.001% chance of me ever seeing him again, I still wonder WHAT IF: what if I saw him again, what if I hadn’t moved, what if I confronted him about our feelings for each other. Realistically, I know that he probably doesn’t even remember who I am but the sentimentalist in me will always cherish his memory as my first childhood crush in America.
-originally written on June 2, 2011
So on MAY 17, 2011 I graduated from HIGH SCHOOL which means I am officially college bound. Ironically it was also my father’s 50th birthday but that was unfortunately overshadowed by my milestone. On the upside, he never remembers his birthday anyway and he still looks like he’s 40 which means I am destined to age slowly (crossing my fingers for no wrinkles since gray hairs do not run in my family). That’s right forget the crap about embracing age and the nature that comes with it (poor eyesight, aching bones, foggy memory etc), i want to be youthful or semi-youthful forever!
Anyway, let’s get back on topic and away from my fear of aging, So in 3 months since school here opens in September, I will be an American campus girl ( allusion to savvy’s Kenyan campus girl which inspired me to start this blog). I am excited to move from Alabama which is not a very vibrant place to Boston which is one of the most lively places in the U.S. I’ll be attending Northeastern University to study Pharmacy and they have an awesome program that will enable me to become a Doctor of Pharmacy in six years. So can you imagine that, me as a 24 yr old girl ehem woman/lady that will be referred to as Dr.Mercy! I am beyond excited, not so much because of the title “DOCTOR”, but because of the lifestyle and the flexibility that a pharmacy career offers. I want to first assure you that I am not a GOLD DIGGER but alluding to this phrase that i have recently coined “there’s nothing wrong with being a gold digger if you are digging your OWN gold”.
Either way, like everyone else in this world, I have a dream (MLK voice) where I live without the worry of money. I am not saying I want to be Oprah or Donald Trump rich…I just want to be comfortable. In the U.S. as a single person it is possible to live comfortably on 30K considering you have a normal apartment etc. The starting salary of a pharmacist is between 75-79K and the median salary is 100K which means that this dream will essentially be reality if all goes well. Bring a husband and kids in the picture and a picturesque house and Voila!, that’s the so-called American Dream that you have possibly heard of. Of course kids will come later since by my standard 24 is too young to start a family i am leaning on earliest at 26 and latest at 28. That gives me 2-4 years to settle down, “figure myself out”, and most importantly enjoy my dwindling YOUTH. Also, just so you don’t think I am a self-centered selfish person which isn’t 100% wrong, I plan to come to work with the WHO (World Health Organization) or Doctors Without Borders to facilitate medicine in developing nations. Haven’t worked out how i will do it but I do know that in order to do so, I think I should work in some pharmaceutical development company and somehow guilt them into giving out some of their samples to people in need in developing nations whether it be TYLENOL or some Anti-biotics. Anyway don’t be frightened into thinking that, Ă la “The Gardener ” (google movie for reference), experimental medicine will be distributed to these poor people as a ploy to use them as guinea pigs. I think the transparency will be the key in making a sustainable impact to the disenfranchised communities that I want to help. I’m all about sustainability in terms of outreach as exemplified by philanthropists such as Bill Gates (who I really look up to, like the rest of the world).
Anyway, this is the most challenging part of my dream because it doesn’t rest solely on my abilities.
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| the American Dream |
After starting a family and raising my kids to the best of my abilities, I plan to retire at the age of 50 or 55 despite the fact that the retirement age in the U.S. is 65. Following my retirement, I plan to return to Kenya and live somewhere nice, maybe Westlands or Nyahururu and maybe try to get a position in the Ministry of Health that actively aims to help people or just start a chain of Pharmacy clinics in Kenya.
Either way something inside me tells me I am destined for greatness and to produce great change…so if Kenya’s government has not gotten its crap together by say 2040 then I with the help of the disillusioned Kenyan masses want to start a revolution where we demand honesty and accountability from the government instead of sitting in front of our TVs and taking whatever they throw at us with our 4 o’clock tea. In essence, I just want to be a part of something that gives back to the country that I owe my entire existence to. I love KENYA and I want nothing but the BEST for it.
So my fellow readers and Kenyans, I apologize for indulging you in 5 paragraphs all about ME although i am guessing that’s what I usually do so in that case Thank You for indulging in 5 paragraphs about my hopes and dreams. I wish you all the best in your dreams and future. And in 50 years I hope to come back and tell you all that everything worked out perfectly despite life’s unending surprises. In the meantime, what are your dreams, and have you achieved them? If not, how do you plan to do so?
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