Unexpected adventures and the lessons they bring

My lion-king Swahili couldn’t understand what she was screaming, but her words, heavy with hatred, and the wildly swinging machete she wielded needed no translation.

This had started with metal – the tossing of a coin – and I hoped it wasn’t going to end with it. We´d been warned before accepting the lift, on a truck laden with cabbages, that we could get slain for food. The drought had led to famine; the separation of Sudan had sent refugees fleeing towards Kenya; and the addition of increasing people minus sufficient food created a mathematical equation that spelt desperation and disaster.

My travel companion and close friend, Becca, laughed at the threat directed solely at me. She was joining in with the rest of the townsfolk, who were out to buy food from the mobile supermarket we were using as a ride. It seemed as though the entire existence of this woman was to be ridiculed or ignored, like so many women in Kenya. Here, where a woman can control a household, but is refused the right to rule her life.

This barren land. A sea of contradictions.

Minutes ago I was enclosed in the oasis of Umoji centre, created to be a refuge for women escaping violence and abuse. A place seemingly as isolated in practice as it was in location. Now, I sit atop vegetables for sale, presented with violence and simulataneously, although unwillingly, representing a threat. For I am an uninvited guest curiously exploring their world. An Alice whos rabbit-hole is a chariot of cabbages. A warm hand, a whispered reassurance, and the guidance of familiar footsteps leads the woman away from the fear she feels from me; a stranger skinned in a shade so different from her own.

Our unexpected journey ploughs on.

The flick of a coin, heads dancing over tails in a series of somersaults, somehow brought me here. Speeding through a dry land saturated in beauty. To my left, a flock of men armed with machine guns. To my right, a herd of elephants roaming for food. Ahead, my laughter ringing out, adding notes to a song of joy sung by the people who combat daily adversity. Light rising up to meet dark. Laughing, I embrace both sides of Kenya´s coin; take the beautiful with the damaged. Whilst the seeds of change towards a brighter future are being sown by the likes of Umoji´s women, a history of struggle lingers in the practices of others. No one knows when the tides of change are coming, but every flood begins with a rain drop.

Until then, laugh and continue to enjoy the ride