Home Sweet Home

I am frequently astonished by the overwhelming number of people we encounter. As they had during my excursion through the corn sea during the early part of my trip, they continue to emerge seemingly from nowhere. Western Kenya is an endless field of small farms, and we've never been more than a few miles away from the main road. While I wouldn't be surprised to find that a higher percentage of people accumulate near the primary travel corridors, I wouldn't be surprised to find that families still manage farms and form communities hundreds of miles from civilization. Home, it seems, can be anywhere. Yet somehow, what does surprise me is how in the world people can survive in the world without microwaves and washing machines. I've never been diametrically opposed to roughing it in rural environments, what with extensive experience camping in Baja, but I've always known the luxuries of the American life. (I'd be happy - for a while - to live as simply as many people do here; what I find offensive is the illusion of luxury slapping me in the face when I'm presented with a perfectly normal shower and then expected to pour cold water over my head with a cup.) At one point, even the American life didn't include the luxuries of the American life. The world is much smaller than it once was, but not to the people of Western Kenya. These people have never known luxury of any sort, but they are comfortable with what they have. I think we've corrupted the sentiment "home is where the heart is". What we really mean is "home is where the comfort is". While in many cases, the heart resides where comfort is found, comfort is certainly not all that entices a heart. If it was, I wouldn't feel as I do - regardless of comfort, I do feel at home here.

When you haven't seen home in 15 years, it must be eerie to return. Stranger still when the home you haven't seen is thousands of miles away and part of a culture entirely different from the one you have been living in ever since. I have no personal frame of reference for such an experience, but such was the case for Dan today. Dan was born and raised just a few miles from our home base for these three days in Webuye. He lived here in the neighboring town of Lugulu until he was four years old, when his immediate family moved to Nairobi, where they lived until he was nine. While growing up in Nairobi, he would visit extended family in Lugulu on a relatively frequent basis, until they moved again, this time to the US. Following that move, Dan had not returned to his home town until today. It was an honor to be a bystander at his homecoming.

We were met by Dan's cousin Alan after our sports camp at the school. From there, we chartered a matatu and embarked on a very bumpy ride over the dirt roads in the hills above Webuye. We got out and walked for a few minutes over what would have been an even bumpier dirt road. We arrived at a beautiful clearing overlooking the entire valley where Webuye sits. Sitting opposite one another on a very green lawn were a very large tree and a very quaint house. Dan snapped several pictures (perhaps the only moment during the trip when someone else took as many pictures as I did) before greeting his aunt with a big hug. We were invited inside and ushered out the back the back door soon thereafter for a tour. In Kenya, being given a tour of someone's home usually entails being shown around the grounds rather than being introduced to the rooms within the house. So we were taken outside and Dan pointed out the outhouse where he used to do his business, and the cooking room where the business he was to do was prepared. Beyond the satellite buildings, the corn fields began. Dan remarked that he didn't remember the view being so amazing, to which I replied "at the time, you may have had trouble seeing over the corn." I was amused to see Dan (who is notorious for his general lack of any sort of facial expression) obviously experiencing wonder and nostalgia and humor all in rapid and expressive succession.

After our tour, we were treated to dinner. We had planned on visiting briefly and returning to a local restaurant for dinner, but we had been visiting for a while, and little did we know, dinner was on the way. Recessed into the countryside even farther than we had been, in a rural Lugulu home, I hadn't been expecting anything beyond what I had grown accustomed to. But we were provided with the most delicious meal we had eaten for days. It did consist of the staple menu items, but everything was just a little better than usual. The meat was tender, the rice was flavorful, the potatoes were perfectly cooked, and the chapati was even better than I had tasted before, which I hadn't thought possible. Even the tea was a perfect balance between milk, water, and flavor. I can understand why Dan has such fond memories of this place. Even complete strangers eat like kings. We left for our hotel perfectly satisfied, and feeling that there really is no place like home. And for an evening, I didn't miss American food at all.