Rocks

We drove from Nakuru to Kisumu on a large bus.  The seat covers were variegated with white plastic coverings over the top.  I talked to my brother as I peered out the dingy windows at the passing small markets and green trees.  People washed bright orange carrots in dirty water, and lounged in the shade behind their pile of potatoes.  I wondered how long they had been there, and who had stopped to buy what they were selling.

We passed the tea plantations of Kericho, and they reminded me of well-groomed English gardens. They are planted in rows upon endless rows of bushy, circular hedges. It is the deepest and freshest green I have ever seen.  Ladies picked the tea leaves and placed them in wicker baskets that hung around their necks and rested on their backs.  We spoke of change, materialism, life, as we bounced in our seats from the pot hole filled road.

I thought about where I had been for the past four months, as sun streamed through the upper window and I crunched on macademia nuts. I chased the reason I came here like you chase the tail end of dreams when you wake from a mid-afternoon nap, never fully able to remember the dialogue you had spoken, but remembering the feelings that linger like the after taste of chocolate on your tongue.

I feel like I am in the process of shedding multiple layers of clothing; disguises.  When I first arrived here, I allowed myself to fill other peoples’ expectations – that I had come to volunteer, start projects, help. I have recently realized and more fully understood and articulated that those are actually the last reasons I have come. I leave these articles of clothing in the dust that is stirred up behind a piki piki, for some other lost and naked girl to pick up and wear. 

It has taken me four months and a sprinkling of days to understand I have come here for people. I used to collect rocks when I was little from any place that I could.  My parents would take me to beaches, playgrounds, lakes, and I would leave with rocks and shells falling from every pocket I had, overflowing into the larger pockets of my parents.  I would come home, place them in various containers around my room and wait for the next collection point.  I have come here to collect peoples’ experiences like I used to collect rocks. I jam them in my pocket after every conversation, arriving home heavy with details and phrases falling from my clothing. I was never sure what I would do with all those rocks, or why it was so important for me to take them from their homes, but I find myself having replaced my obsession of rocks with peoples’ stories, although they sit and collect in me as opposed to the various containers around my room.