From another Perspective #2 -By Maria Forsythe

October 24^th 2014

It was perhaps the oddest experience I have ever had.  We had traveled into the city on piki piki (motorbikes) and then dahli dahli (vans crammed with people) to visit the kids at the drop in center.  It was good news that only one had left in the three days that had passed between our last visit.  The boys were excited that I had a camera and all tried to get the spotlight, pushing each other down and out of their way.  We left to go to lunch at the “white people complex” as Tom explained it.  The complex is on the opposite side of the city than the center and is was odd to find myself again immersed in a crowd of white faces.  To be honest I didn’t like it much.  The streets were lined with clean, unnecessarily ornate shops and restaurants.  We sat down to a nice lunch of fish and rice.  Despite the fact that it was in the white people complex where many tourists spend most of their time between safaris it was very inexpensive.  I believe mine was only 10,000 shillings so a little over $5.  Upon leaving to go to the board meeting we climbed into an old white Toyota SUV.  I had slightly forgotten I was still in Africa to be honest, with the cleanliness and order of the area because when I saw a bag of maze (100 kilo of corn) as a seat in the very back of the truck and a half dead chicken tied by the feet lying next to it I was taken back.  Katie climbed in first and pulled the chicken back out of the way of my spot on the maze bag, which I much appreciated.  I climbed in and saw that it had a horrible wound on the back of its head.  After a minute of driving I asked who’s chicken it was, I don’t know why I would at that point and not to my surprise no one really told us whose it was in the end.  Just a dying chicken tied by the feet with some hay twine and sitting in the back of a truck, nothing abnormal about that at all.  We drove for about ten minutes down the dirty streets of Arusha before turning down a nicely pruned road.  We entered a gated area guarded by multiple men and I was in awe.  Shrubs were cut immaculately into rectangles, which lined every façade.  The flowers were all blooming in brightly colored bunches.  The buildings were perfect.  The floors were shined, there was no trash lying anywhere, and the chairs were made of overstuffed leather.  I again felt as though I was back in the United States for the second time that day.  After the board meeting and a wonderful experience in my first fully western bathroom including soap, toilet paper and paper towels we took off in Kenia’s white Toyota pick up with a crack clear across the windshield.  We sped off out of the clean, pristine area and back into the dust and dinge of the city streets.  So twice in one day I had felt as though I was back home in Wayzata or Excelsior.  I had seen white faces again for the first time since I had arrived here and I had used a fully functioning, and clean might I add, bathroom.  The funniest thing happened though.  I found it all quite menial.  It was so much show and for what?  The trash on the streets doesn’t affect me.  The dust that blows up from every passing vehicle on the road doesn’t kill me.  The fact that I sit on a simple chair made only of wood is more than enough.  We put so much time and effort into making things seem something they are not.  In allowing reality to shine through, real true beauty seems to follow immediately.  The simplicity of a life made of the basics with no need for adornment seems to have stolen my heart.  What is the need for all of that?  Why do we spend so much of ourselves on the superficial?  I guess I don’t know the answer to that.  I just wish that even when I return back to my day-to-day life I do not forget this.