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the skill to mules. It wasn’t the dangers of Africa that appealed to me—I’ve never had a death wish and I’m not an adrenaline junkie. But in the plight of those innocent ones, I saw a place where I could make a badly needed contribution as a teacher, doing this wonderful thing that is essentially the same all over the world, but doing it in a part of the world foreign to me. There was more to learn than to teach, and I loved that.
Susan went on to other pursuits, so I returned to the United States to complete my last semester of college, secure my teaching degree, and then come back down and try it again. A semester later, with my teaching certificate secured, I applied for a job at the Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is a metropoliswith modern infrastructure, and Rosslyn Academy is a Christian school, meaning my troublesome status as a single working woman wasn’t considered a cultural threat. I was glad to take the job in a place where I could begin to get a close-up look at the realities of daily life, but from a position of relative safety, protected from random gunfire and the feuding of clan hotheads.
I would be living in a city, after all. If the new job turned out to be unfulfilling, why, a person could always move out to someplace less developed. For the time being, Nairobi sounded just right. I wasn’t hired to act as a missionary. All the academy asked me to do was handle the core classroom duties with several subjects and teach their fourth-graders in the hope of eventually helping them qualify for productive and legal means of attaining self-sufficiency. I was moved by their humble goal, a variation on the same thing most parents want for their children.
So I happily packed for the return to Africa and pushed the sound of gunfire and the memory of my own screams in South Sudan to the back of my mind. That brief preamble to my Africa journey turned out to be an experience of self-discovery. The first revelation highlighted my vulnerability in remote places. The second was that I only felt more determined because of it.
It was my great fortune in life to come from parents who understood the notion that people can find themselves called to all sorts of things. Mom and Dad understood my return to that continent, with Dad even lamenting that he couldn’t come along. For all those reasons, I felt ready for anything when the day arrived for me to step off the plane in Kenya for Africa redux.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Erik met Jessica for the first time in late September 2007. He was two days away from his thirty-first birthday and by that point he had spent nearly two years in Somalia, with frequent travels around Kenya and Zimbabwe for work and recreation. In spite of the difficulties and frustrations of local political work—three steps forward and two steps back—he could look back on his time in Africa and actually see a measure of progress on the ground.
In spite of his satisfaction at work, things were definitely dry in the romance department. He’d gotten a stern lesson in all the ways job satisfaction can be limited. While the years rolled on, it began to dawn on him that career advancement can’t stand in for a trustworthy and loving partner.
Workaholic habits and the occasional date with female expats did nothing to relieve the creeping sense of aloneness that had begun to haunt him. It seemed clear this was a time in his life when there was no real choice other than to go it alone—at least until he got back to Sweden someday. It left him with a torn feeling of living an incomplete life, dancing to the music but singing off key.
He had just returned to Nairobi from a week in Zambia. That evening, he went to a small party at a friend’s house. Nothing reallyclicked there, so he and another single guy went to Gypsy’s, a local nightclub that was popular with the expats in the area. The place was a bit of a dive, but in a comfortable way: cheap eats and drinks, plus a casual atmosphere
Susan went on to other pursuits, so I returned to the United States to complete my last semester of college, secure my teaching degree, and then come back down and try it again. A semester later, with my teaching certificate secured, I applied for a job at the Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is a metropoliswith modern infrastructure, and Rosslyn Academy is a Christian school, meaning my troublesome status as a single working woman wasn’t considered a cultural threat. I was glad to take the job in a place where I could begin to get a close-up look at the realities of daily life, but from a position of relative safety, protected from random gunfire and the feuding of clan hotheads.
I would be living in a city, after all. If the new job turned out to be unfulfilling, why, a person could always move out to someplace less developed. For the time being, Nairobi sounded just right. I wasn’t hired to act as a missionary. All the academy asked me to do was handle the core classroom duties with several subjects and teach their fourth-graders in the hope of eventually helping them qualify for productive and legal means of attaining self-sufficiency. I was moved by their humble goal, a variation on the same thing most parents want for their children.
So I happily packed for the return to Africa and pushed the sound of gunfire and the memory of my own screams in South Sudan to the back of my mind. That brief preamble to my Africa journey turned out to be an experience of self-discovery. The first revelation highlighted my vulnerability in remote places. The second was that I only felt more determined because of it.
It was my great fortune in life to come from parents who understood the notion that people can find themselves called to all sorts of things. Mom and Dad understood my return to that continent, with Dad even lamenting that he couldn’t come along. For all those reasons, I felt ready for anything when the day arrived for me to step off the plane in Kenya for Africa redux.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Erik met Jessica for the first time in late September 2007. He was two days away from his thirty-first birthday and by that point he had spent nearly two years in Somalia, with frequent travels around Kenya and Zimbabwe for work and recreation. In spite of the difficulties and frustrations of local political work—three steps forward and two steps back—he could look back on his time in Africa and actually see a measure of progress on the ground.
In spite of his satisfaction at work, things were definitely dry in the romance department. He’d gotten a stern lesson in all the ways job satisfaction can be limited. While the years rolled on, it began to dawn on him that career advancement can’t stand in for a trustworthy and loving partner.
Workaholic habits and the occasional date with female expats did nothing to relieve the creeping sense of aloneness that had begun to haunt him. It seemed clear this was a time in his life when there was no real choice other than to go it alone—at least until he got back to Sweden someday. It left him with a torn feeling of living an incomplete life, dancing to the music but singing off key.
He had just returned to Nairobi from a week in Zambia. That evening, he went to a small party at a friend’s house. Nothing reallyclicked there, so he and another single guy went to Gypsy’s, a local nightclub that was popular with the expats in the area. The place was a bit of a dive, but in a comfortable way: cheap eats and drinks, plus a casual atmosphere
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