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Hello Friends,
This posting has been a long time coming; parts of it have been written in Cairo, Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, Eilat, Israel, Jerusalem, Israel, Newark, NJ, Detroit, MI, and Baltimore, MD. My recent travels might surprise many of you, as last you heard I had successfully fled Kenya and made it home to [...]

Dear Mother Africa,
You break my heart like a beauty queen gone bad. You torture me like a sunset’s mosquitoes. You excite me like a Dotson overtaking a Porsche. You scream for my love, yet rebuke it all the same. How can I ever love you when you fight my love with [...]

Kenya held parliamentary and presidential elections on Thursday, December 27, 2007. They followed a short but intense month or two of campaigning. Every forecast was for free, fair, and quiet elections in Kenya, Africa’s shining jewel of democracy, and with that in mind I returned to Kenya from holiday in Europe the day [...]

I deplaned in Mombasa, happy to be back in my adopted African homeland.  The morning sun was welcoming, and the air fragrant and fresh as I remembered.  My holiday in Europe was just the refresher I had needed, and I looked forward to getting back to Kenya, back to work.
My good friend, Issa, picked me [...]

Dear Friends and Family,
Happy holidays from Rome!  I arrived here yesterday after an overnight journey from Mombasa.  I left the grueling African sun and 100+ degree weather to arrive here in Italy to the cold cold weather of December in Europe… without a jacket.  Luckily, today my jacket will be arriving care of my ladies!  [...]

Dear Friends and Family,
Happy holidays from Rome!  I arrived here yesterday after an overnight journey from Mombasa.  I left the grueling African sun and 100+ degree weather to arrive here in Italy to the cold cold weather of December in Europe… without a jacket.  Luckily, today my jacket will be arriving care of my ladies!  [...]

Motioning with his small hand, his fingers are pressed together making the hand look closed, but it is very much open and ready to receive.  With that small hand of his, he moves it from your direction to his mouth.  Again and again.  His doleful eyes are at once pleading and calculating.  The spare change [...]

 

This is not a story about cigarettes, cigars, or any other consumable form of tobacco.  Nor is this a story about cancer, emphysema, or any of the other frankly scary and untimely ends your lungs can meet.  Instead, this is a story about a puppy; puppy love to be more specific. 
 
Less than two weeks ago [...]

The crowd surged up Kenyatta Avenue, stopping the traffic behind them as their white kanzus blew in the wind and their gold embroidered kafiahs glistened in the noonday sun.  It was Friday.  Mid-day prayers had just ended at the mosque.  Now Salaama Baridhwan was making her final procession through Mombasa’s streets; this procession was for [...]

Friends, I Miss You the Most

I have come to Africa, to Kenya, to Mombasa.  I have left the U.S., the East Coast and the Mid-West, D.C . and Michigan.  In coming here, I left much behind.  Friendships are that which I am most aware of missing.  I think I am subconsciously mourning the familiarity and [...]