Written On: May 21, 2018
“Watcha doin’?”
“Looking for frogs.”
“How come?”
“I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.”
– Calvin and Hobbes
On May 21st, 1927, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, a virtually obscure, U.S. Air Mail pilot became the first man to successfully fly from New York to Paris. Completed in a single-seat, single-engine, Ryan monoplane named the Spirit of St. Louis; his flight took a record 33 hours and 30 minutes. For this historic exploit, Lindbergh was awarded my nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor. Unlike Lindbergh’s flight, mine was no record-breaking, awe-inspiring feat of the unimaginable. What’s crazy is that with time the unimaginable slowly became something of a common routine. You see, we move so quickly now, often we miss the incredible things that are right in front of us. Without any work on my part, I made it from Houston to Qatar in 14 hours. If I am being completely honest, I got on and off the flight unfazed, and unchanged. We both followed the inscrutable exhortations of our souls. However, for me, the end result was completely useless, but, every time I travel, I learn something new and hopefully I get to be a better person.
Growing up in the American education system, I had an unbalanced diet made up of inspirational “you can do anything you put your mind to” talks and an emphasis on individualism. We as Americans have this societal desire to “leave our mark,” or, at least, be the most interesting person in the room. Sometime in the in-between of birth and life, many of us begin to believe that our lives are stories, and we the heroes of our own epic. It’s not that we are all-around optimists; we describe ourselves in much more positive terms than other people, even our friends. We are protagonists, and everyone else is a bit player in our personal drama. Often, our life-stories become carefully shaped narratives replete with strategic forgetting and skillfully spun meaning. You see, it took me the large part of a long while to realize that we learned to believe, for us, ill luck is unbecoming, and somehow cheats us out of what we deserve. Many of us are shipwrecked on this idea that at some unforeseen point in our lives, we will finally find a place abundant in ‘Recognition’ and ‘Appreciation.’ Truth be told, C.S. Lewis got it right when he said, “One must be content with one’s reputation among posterity.”
I now live in an Arcadia, hidden within the confines of Harbu Chulule, Ethiopia. A city so small, seldom would you find it on a map. I haven’t been here very long, but I have learned to love this place a great deal.
Before coming to Africa, I didn’t know what to expect. Of course, I watched the romanticized, missionary, YouTube videos, featuring songs from the Lion King and cute children, but those should always be accredited some form of artistic license. It’s hard to comprehend, but the less we know about the world, the more our imaginations fill with possibilities. When Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the wilderness, he confidently expected them to find wooly mammoths and mastodons. Had dinosaurs been known, he would almost certainly have asked them to bring home a triceratops. For me, Africa became this Lewis and Clark like frontier, unknown and full of possibility. Confidently, I expected to find witch doctors riding zebras hidden in the unexplored corners of the earth.
Much to my surprise, I now live and work in a children’s village in the plains of East Africa. Hopethiopia houses twenty-four children, who, before arrival, had next to nothing. None of them were worried about reputation, they never got the “you are special” talk; they couldn’t afford it. You see, these are the kids that had nothing, and because of it no one expected anything of them. It’s sad because people rarely realize that the unknown is full of possibility. I thought of this the first time I went to Addis Ababa. The streets are lined with shops, and seemingly endless lines of apartment complexes. All of it is wonderfully overwhelming, and unsurprisingly, chaotic. The sheer magnitude made me realize how little people I really know. A wise man once told me, “Each person’s biggest untapped resource is the people who they don’t know anything about.” You see each person I passed could be the next Einstein or Charles Lindbergh. Sadly, it is possible that they could be the next Pol Pot or Genghis Khan, Napoleon or Jerry Springer. It could be someone who in the grand scheme of things wouldn’t be all that important, or they could be a first, someone who has the answers. Often, we will never know, because, we don’t take the time to get to know them. If I have learned anything here, it’s that we have to stop calculating the differences between people.
In my two months here I have learned to love this kids more than I thought I ever could. Having said the above, these are some of the children I live and work with every day.
These are two of the little nuggets, Turuna (Left) and Tariku (Right). Their favorite things include licking various, inanimate objects, slip-n-slides, and wrestling on a daily (if not hourly) basis. If you ever get the chance to meet them, Turuna now responds to the name Chris Rock.
I don’t really know these kids, but this is a solid picture…
Here we have the local, baby gap model, Keeso, rocking his fraternal shorts, Crocs and a plaid button-down.
This is me, getting beaten up by small, African children on our makeshift Slip-N-Slide.
