One of the reasons I love Kenya, January 2020

If you missed the first part of this blog, simply scroll down and read it.

…..Obviously, since you are reading this, I survived the flight, even catching a few hours of sleep.  I landed in Doha around 5:30 PM the next day (eleven hours ahead of California time). I had been promised a free hotel room by Qatar Airlines since my layover was over eight hours long, one of their perks! I hoped this was true– I had my doubts given my experience on this flight. I found an information counter, handed the young man on duty my reservation confirmation from Qatar airlines.   “Yes, madam, you are entitled to a hotel”, he assured me. He made a phone call to confirm my reservation and arrange for a shuttle. “Oh,” I replied, “I thought I was staying at the airport hotel.” “No, madam, your hotel is in the city center,” he said.  He directed me to immigration and customs, a necessary step since I was exiting the airport. Thankfully, the Doha airport, built to be a hub for worldwide international travel, is extremely efficient and organized. (They guarantee that you will make your flight even if the connecting time is only 45 minutes. What they don’t tell you is that this may require running!)

Following the signs to immigration, I stepped into the que of hundreds of people waiting to be processed.  I watched as one young man got detained and three agents were called over to check his documents—or lack of them. The hours of my layover were dwindling and wondered if it was worth all of this trouble to go to a hotel for a few hours. Fortunately, things moved rather quickly and soon it was my turn.  The immigration agent stamped my passport and directed to a waiting room where he assured me that someone would appear to take me to the hotel via a shuttle. At least the airport was efficient, sparkling clean and cool.

Twenty minutes later, I saw a man holding up a sign with the name of my hotel and I left with him to board the shuttle.  Turned out my “shuttle” was a car driven by the hotel manager and I was the only passenger. We made the thirty-minute trip to the designated hotel. City lights reflected off buildings and the nearby Persian Gulf. It was dark out, but there were people walking at 8:30 P.M. “It is safe for a woman to walk alone at night?” I asked. “Yes, the crime rate is very low here.” He assured me. Still, I was a little skittish to venture out for a nighttime walk alone, and by the time I’d gotten through immigration, waited for the shuttle and took the thirty- minute drive to the city where the hotel was, I had only had 2 ½ hours before I had to return to the airport for my middle of the night flight. I checked into my hotel room and opted for a little yoga, a quick email to Dennis, a hot shower, a change of clothes and lying down flat on cool clean sheets—a nice change from the cramped seat of the airplane.  In no time at all, the concierge called informing me that my shuttle back to the airport would leave in forty-five minutes and to be downstairs before 11 P.M.

On the drive back to the airport I chatted with my driver, the same hotel manager. He was from Egypt, working in Qatar for the past nine years. I wondered why I had to return to the airport so early since my flight to Kenya wasn’t until 1:45 A.M.  “How many flights could there be in the middle of the night?” I wondered. Turns out, a lot of flights!  I entered the airport doors and braced myself. Inside, it was teeming with people.  Burgundy ropes cordoned hundreds of people into snake-like lines, trying to create a false sense of being royalty instead of cattle being led to slaughter. I felt my anxiety and my irritation begin to rise like bile. Had I been traveling with someone I would have voiced my complaints. “Can you believe this line?” “Was it really worth it to go to the hotel?” “What if I miss my flight?” “blah, blah, blah”. But I was alone. There was no one to hear me, so I simply took a deep breath, prayed for patience and dealt with the inconveniences of traveling.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I was up for this trip to Africa.  Only five months earlier, my dear mama had died, and my confidence was sorely shaken.  I felt unmoored, as if I’d lost my place in the world and the sense of who I was. The day-to-day responsibilities that came with life itself and with the vocation of deaconess were wearing me down.  I loved the people I serve. I loved my church, Holy Cross. But everything took on a pallor.  I wanted to care, but I found that most of the time, I simply couldn’t care about much. I simply didn’t have the energy.  In this flattened state of being, I hemmed and hawed about keeping the commitment to travel to Kenya that I’d made eight months earlier. However, I sensed that a change of scenery might be helpful. Kenya was my second home after all. There were people there who loved me, and while I would have responsibilities there, they weren’t the same as the ones I had at home. This is how I found myself at the Doha airport standing in a seemingly endless stream of people from all over the world in the middle of the night.  I took a deep breath, prayed the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy,” repositioned my backpack, relaxed and smiled.

Within forty-five minutes, I was through security. I checked the departure board for my next flight, found the gate, then walked around the airport looking for a place to sit down. Qatar, being a Muslim country is also a dry country. Dry as in a sandy desert landscape, but also dry as in very little alcohol. My driver had told me that the only things taxed in Qatar are alcohol and tobacco– a “Sin Tax” reflecting the Muslim rule of the country. I settled on a little café, sat at a counter next to a guy who I noticed was drinking a beer. I ordered a $12 Heineken—big sinner that I am. The guy was from Sweden. He told me he worked with adults with Down Syndrome and Asperger’s. He was currently taking a six- month sabbatical to travel alone. He was on his way to Vietnam. To end his trip, he was going to Spain to walk the Camino Frances. Having walked the Camino Frances in 2014 and the Camino Del Mar in 2015, we had lots to talk about.  I got so engrossed in my conversation that by the time I got to my gate for my flight to Kenya they were already boarding!

Six hours later around 8 A.M. I looked out the window as the plane taxied down the runway at the Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi. The sun was shining through the clouds on the Acacia trees, the grass was thin but mostly green. This was a landscape I knew. I realized I’d been homesick for Kenya all along, and now I was home.

Good friends, Linder and me 2020

Friends since 2006. Mary, Pamela and Agnes

Dancing/jumping in Pokot–Northern Kenya. The Kenyans think I’m hilarious.

Adornment by my Pokot Deaconess Sisters 2020

Always Mercy,

Pamela