What’s In a Name

Since a young age I have been fascinated with names. The names of places around the world. Over the past few years I have been blessed to have traveled and witness amazing and unique places around the globe of which I had previously known through name only. Through these travels I have come to meet people with many different names from a variety of cultures and nationalities. Our name often reveals our identity and provides a stake upon which to ground our lives. I’m in Africa and trying to learn the Kiswahili names of the workers at the compound I am staying at has been a revealing exercise in our shared humanity.

Since arriving here in Africa in Mid-January I have been struck at the vastness of this continent and the tremendous diversity among its people and stories. It’s like I have been transplanted into an indescribable ocean of warmth and dust. Here in Africa it’s alive and throbbing under the relentless sun. Earlier in Mid-January, I spent two weeks in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. I was staying with one of my friends I had met earlier in Thailand last year and helping out at a Sports Complex he is trying to help revitalize. This was a very lively engaging time as I was able to be fully immersed into a very calm suburb of Dar called Kibaha. Here my Tanzanian friend and his wife were most gracious in their hosting. The sights and scents of Africa were a refreshing change of pace to the seasonal cold calm of North America. In the crazy level of hectic, there is calm nonetheless. That was Dar Es Salaam.

Now I am staying at a US-funded, family based orphanage compound on the Southern Shores of Lake Victoria and have been helping here with some other projects. The house has a western toilet and my room is arguably the nicest room I’ve slept in for the last 2 years. It is very interesting to see the change in pace from Urbanizing Africa to the Village Africa commonly portrayed in Western media. Life on the compound is also a little different. Here we are “donors” versus “friends”, a very interesting dynamic. As there are two weeks left to my departure there has been a bit of time to think and reflect on the different lenses with which I have been living under. Being out here at a “project funded by the US” in contrast to living with a local Tanzanian has definitely made more aware of my own footprint.

So what’s in a name? Well in the names that I endeavor to remember I see hope, vitality, prospective joy and a force of Africa that is always constant and present. These facets of life here amidst the drudgery of low economic livelihoods and an existence that can be a perpetual grind are things that Western audiences can always use a reminder of. My next steps are shrouded like the un-seasonal rainstorms that have been besieging East Africa. Here in the uncertainty of the future, I rest in the promise of a new day and the hope everlasting.

Regards,