Fireflies and Afterthoughts

I sit on the train, riding backwards, my forehead pressed to the window. The city is passing me by as I head home after a long day at work, the buildings stretching higher than you'd ever think possible and I can't help but think about Kenya, can't help but think of all the things I wish I could show my family there about my life here...

Flash forward a few hours. It is dark, and I have stepped outside my front door to get some fresh air. I sit on the step in front of the door, and breathe in the thick, heavy, summer air. A tiny fluorescent yellow light flashes in front of my face, blinking only for a moment before fading quickly away. I look around, and the sky is ablaze with the tiny yellow dots of fireflies, the whole thing flickering like Christmas lights. It is overwhelmingly beautiful; I sit incredulous, wondering how and why fireflies light up, and then realizing I don't even care - the beauty is just in that they do, not in the how, or the why. It is the most awesomely natural moment I have had since leaving Kenya.

Flash forward two days. I walk out of the sliding doors of the train into the tunnels of grand central. The air is thick again, but this time dirty - the chalky smoky metallic hotness catches in your throat and sticks all the way down, until you emerge into the main terminal and can finally almost breathe again. The air was never like this there. The stark contrast between Kakamega and Manhattan is unfathomable; I am searching for parallels to assure me that we are not all so impossibly different, but if you are measuring difference in the height of the buildings, the number of people, the cars, the technology - well, you will not find the similarities there. I do not shake the hands of my coworkers when I walk into Senator Schumer's office each morning - I do not know everyone's name, and they most certainly do not know mine. It is a more separate way of life; even
with all of the ways in which we are connected - facebook and twitter and ichat all chip away at distance ad privacy - it is still a far more individualized life. In Kakamega, you know your neighbor's business closely...though the country is far further backwards in terms of means of communication, there is a sense of community on a local level that is incomparable. Each man is, in some way, your brother, your cousin; each woman is a sister, or an aunt. Because of this, you care about his family, her home, or their news, their habari. We here may be more capable of connecting, but this is no indication that we are more capable of being connected.

You will, however, find the parallels if you search in the right places. What is different is obvious, the concrete and iron bridges, the suburbian mansions, the smokestacks, the Internet. What is the same is far less apparent, but it is undeniably there. What is the same is humanity, sitting and eating a meal with friends, laughing about the day, sharing stories. What is the same is family - is coming home to see your parents, your sister, the whole lot of you finding time to take time to spend together. What is the same is sitting outside on a summer night and watching the stars, the feeling of contentment that swallows you when you ride a bodaboda through town as the sun rises, the same feeling of being completely and perfectly
content that drowns you as you sit and watch the sun set on the same rock jetty on Atlantic beach that you've been sitting on for nineteen years.

Beneath the constrains of technology, behind the movie sets of skyscrapers or huts made out of mud, despite black, white, or any shade in between, there are things that pertain to us all. There is much that separates, that devastates, and that divides us, but there is far more that connects, rebuilds, and unites us. Unfortunately, it is often easier to see the former than the latter, but this does not mean the latter cannot overwhelm us if we make the conscious decision to let it. For this reason, it has been an easy readjustment - I have not been consumed with the differences because I know they are superficial in comparison to the parallels, and this is why the experience is life-changing. For knowing this, for feeling more aware of the way in which time always slips too quickly, and for feeling more comfortable with this unbearable phenomenon and learning how to take better advantage of the time I've been given; for taking risks, for failing in order to ultimately succeed; for enduring discomfort in order to appreciate the things that make me comfortable; for the humbling experience of scaling down lofty aspirations; for learning how better to listen rather than hear, to observe rather than simply see...For all of these things, it is life-changing, and for all of these things, I am changed for the better.