And I am home

I'm sitting in the departures terminal of the BWI airport, waiting for my family to pick me up. I'm alone, and fully enjoying these few minutes of quiet reprieve to process and just... be. The next several days will be nothing short of non-stop storytelling, so I'll enjoy the quiet while I have it.

I can't believe it's over already. It's so surreal. I feel like my time was cut short, and that my heart began to hold on just as it was time to say goodbye.

I wish I could share it all with you.

I want you to experience the aromas of Kenya. The smell that says "Kenya" to me is a difficult scent to describe. It's in the earth itself, I think— it is faint, but with a very distinct trace of spices, though I couldn't tell you which ones. The air is heavy and dry, and full of various smells, both pleasant and unpleasant. But that spicy, ruddy, earthy smell is always present, even amidst smog and pollution, and it intensifies with the rain. Right now, I still smell like Kenya, which makes me glad.

I wish you could hear Kenya. I wish you could wake to the sounds of horns blaring, and water pouring from transport containers to storage containers, people herding their cows and goats through the inner city streets, the Muslim call to prayer, and the beautiful sound of 364 children singing their hearts out to their Savior.

I wish you could see Kenya's beauty— the resilient spirit of her people, the fine, red-brown dirt that seems to stick to everything, the breathtaking mountain ranges that the locals insist on calling hills, the mitatus (taxi vans) driving four cars wide on two-lane roads, the beautiful dark eyes full of so many different emotions, and the faces that are so very distinct from one another.

I wish you could hear the stories, especially of Kenya's children. I wish I could tell you all of the stories that I know, and I wish that I had the time to gather more of them. That, at least, is something that I can share with you. And I will.