Taking a Look Back

I don’t know how other authors do it, those who have ten, twenty published books. I’ve been so busy promoting my most recently published book, my first novel, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”, that I forget about the first three. (And sometimes I even forget about that book, as I am busy editing the second novel and beginning to write the third one!)

This week, however, my first publisher, Aneko Press, is offering those three nonfiction books for free as e-books. I thought, then, that it would be fitting to share an excerpt from my very first book, my first baby, the memoir, “A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven.”

By late morning, it was finally time to do something, so our team boarded the bus for the first of many drives. The ride to Brydges Orphanage in the village of Ngong, west of Nairobi, was tenuous at best. The streets were busy and filled with potholes large enough to swallow compact cars, yet the drivers wove in and out of traffic at harrowing speeds. The road into the orphanage was unbelievably narrow, and no one had any idea how our twenty-passenger vehicle reached its destination, much less turned around. If we put our hands out of the windows, we could have touched some of the buildings we passed. Not that we wanted to.

Most of the buildings were dreary, decayed, and appeared deserted. Then we would see children playing in front of one of these sheds or clothes hanging on a line. People actually live like this? It would be a question in my mind many more times throughout the trip.

When we arrived, some of the boys and girls came out into the yard and waved shyly at us, their dark faces filled with toothy smiles, their hair shorn close to their scalps. Their clothes were dirty and worn, hanging from their thin frames.

Most of the orphans were in school that afternoon, but the handful of children who remained behind showed us around. Each small bedroom had at least three bunk beds and not enough space for anything else. But each child still showed off their space, some explaining that they shared their bed with one or two others.

Besides the bedrooms, the main building held a large room used as a dining room and all-purpose room, a small kitchen area, and a small room that was set up as a store. In the store, the children sold the various crafts which they had made by hand. There were beautiful necklaces and beaded bracelets, carved figures of elephants, hippos and birds, braided potholders, and crocheted baskets.

There were several outer buildings, one housing a small library. A few of the children grabbed books and insisted they would read to us.

All of the other rooms were bare, with only the most basic of necessities. How did they live in those kinds of conditions and remain so joyful? We would find out before our journey back to America.

This peek into my first trip to Kenya in 2006 also explains why I continue to go back. I don’t know yet when that will be, but I am anxious to start planning.