Meeting Mercy

I arrived at the train station two hours early, sat in my assigned cabin an hour early - the train left the station two hours late. 


The cabins of Kenyan Railway cars are what inspire murder mysteries. The narrow corridors that lead down the length of the train are dingy, dark and invoke claustrophobia in the most adaptable voyager. Should you need to pass someone in them, one must back into one of the cabins or yield and reverse until you can cross paths in the noise of the connecting corridor. The rooms themselves have potential, or rather, have had potential in the past. Lights flickered, screens were more or less windows you can't see out of for the caked up dust. The windows did open, which was a relief. 


After a little less than an hour, a baby carrier entered the door, carried by a kind attendant who then helped a woman around my age get settled before going out to help other passengers. My inner eye rolled at the thought of spending the night with a crying kido, but the tension was broken when she apologized that I was stuck with a baby. Honestly though, I was relived for the most part. I had started to really work up this scenario in my mind that I would get attacked and no one would hear me scream due to the noise of the train and I forgot my PEP kit to boot. At least now someone would at least be aware of my demise. 


Funny, I would never advise a woman to travel alone in Africa by herself, but that seems to be all I do all the time. Weird, I'd never thought of that. I've got to check my recommendations against my actions. 


Back in car 2305, cabin E (we had been moved from C because the lights were not working), I formally met Tammy and baby Mercy. We exchanged the basic get-to-know-you small talk before the dinner bell rang. She and her husband run a baby orphanage in Mombassa, Mercy had been in the hospital in Nairobi for the past few days and they were now headed back home. 


Dinner begun before the train left the station (as opposed to two hours into the trip). I wondered through the car, finding few free seats. I heard someone mention they worked in the Congo, so I asked if I could join them. I enjoyed dinner with three of the most talkative and expressive people I have been around for a long time. It was a bit much at first, but a few drinks in of whatever wild liquor they brought with them and I was most likely spotting off just as loud stories and interjecting my opinions every chance I got. A photojournalist traveling with his Operation Smile girlfriend and a Scotsman who worked for World Vision. Conversation was as expected; the discovering of similar contacts, swapping security info on places been and to come, flying stories, kidnapping stories, Turkish pickpocket scheme stories, malaria stories… always the same with these types. Er, with my types, yes, I am one of them. Guilty. At least never having the same people in my life means I will never run out of really good stories that are super competitive, even in tough crowds like that one. 


After a while, it was clear the train staff was waiting for us to go to bed, we made our way to our respective ends of the train. I am convinced that you can walk in a much straighter line when drunk on a moving train, the two equal each other out. Scientifically proven, by me. As I crawled up into my bed without a ladder and fearing slipping and landing on the baby, Tammy expressed her relief that I was not kidnapped. No, sorry, just met some Americans with alcohol. 


I did not fall asleep until perhaps 4am. The train would not just go, it would start forward just a little then suddenly stop, causing our car, many cars back from the engine, to violently shake back and forth several times, accompanied by an atrocious noise that made me wonder if we were in a crash each time. While stopped I would lay in the dark listening to voices outside, avoiding the torch lights that flashed through our window. I know Kenya is a safe place, relative to where I live - relative. Each time we jolted forwards or to a halt, I understood the need for the cargo net that kept me from falling two meters to the floor that I scoffed at when getting into bed. 


After many a night spent in trains across India, China, Alaska and a few other spots, I thought I was going into the night fairly well prepared. However, I fell asleep annoyed around 4am and awoke after 7, missing the best part of the train ride through a safari park. Am I growing less travel tolerant as I grow older. Might be. I swore it would never happen, but I have barely slowed down since. Who knows. All I know is I did not go into this particular evening with high expectations and I still managed to wake up grumpy. 


I decided to shake off my mood and asked if I could hold Mercy. Tammy said she would love it, but to be careful because her head weighed more than her body and she had just gotten out of brain surgery, so a bit more caution than normal was required to lift her from her seat and place her in my arms. She didn't like it at first, but soon settled down. I asked Tammy what Mercy's story was, how she came to live with them at the orphanage. I appreciated the detailed story Tammy told, it would have been acceptably recited in any pity laden gut inducing manner. However, it was relayed with a mater-of-fact compassion filled resignation of an aid worker no longer new to the tragedies of life. It was refreshing. 

Her details need not be exposed, suffice to say that after he mother could not take care of her, hospitals passed her back and forth and finally gave up. There is no way, in her extreme state of malnutrition, she can be treated for the issues causing her head to swell with fluids around her brain and in that condition, her body will not take on weight or ever be nourished enough. She was on the train with Tammy, headed back to their home to pass away in the best comfort and love they could provide. 


Mercy is 13 months old. She must have arrived in the world about the same time I arrived in Congo. Not long ago at all. As I held her, I caressed her skin covered leg bones, swollen arm from the IV, and panting chest until she fell asleep for the first time in days. Tammy said she was mine for life, I joked that it was fine, as that wasn't much of a long term commitment. To my relief, she laughed along with me.


She also laughed as she said she had spent the better part of the evening fearing being poked by a needle containing a disease and she would not remember my name to be able to wake me up and ask for help. Whew, I am not the only one who dismisses clear and present dangers in favor of fearing the fantastic and near irrational possibilities! 


I was happy to find a comrade who could share the dark humor that must be adopted to survive in our lifestyles. Well, perhaps it is not a must, but God knows it helps. Our laugher laden conversation was interrupted by the journalist from dinner the night before. At the breakfast we did not attend, the conductor announced that a train two stations up had "capsized"  and we could either stay in the stopped train until 6pm or take matatus the rest of the way, from Voi to Mombassa. Matatu it was. After a number of failed negotiations, we found one that would not take too much advantage of our situation and spent the remaining three hours or so speeding past lories, camels and a landscape that dramatically changed four distinct times. At the station, we got our rides to our various respective homes and hotels. I said bye to the girls and spent the next hour in the taxi between dozing and thinking about mercy and its roll in the world. 

You cry mercy when you are about to get something you deserve, right? Or perhaps you do not even have to deserve it. Mercy is when the punishment you are receiving is lessened for no reason much beyond the good will of the punisher's hand you are under. At least that is my understanding of it. 
This world is in such need of mercy, but also of justice. 
In cases like Mercy's it is clear she is not deserving of the suffering her little body has been going through for the past six months or so. In the case of proven war criminals, it is obvious that mercy does not have a place, but justice should be served. The cases in-between are what confound me. Who is to day when justice is deserved or mercy should be given to every day folk who produce a mixture of good and bad deeds woven together in a life that gets by in society? 

For the past few months I have been chewing on a verse from Psalm 27, "I would have lost heart if I did not believe I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living". In my opinion, Christians tend to focus a bit too much on the justice that will come after our bodies die. That's great to think about, but to be super honest, right now, I am here, in the land of the living and that is what I can see and feel and know. 


I expect to see God's goodness here, it is not a far fetched desire and I will lose heart if I do not continually believe that His goodness has a place here, in this life. I mean, I am still fairly certain there is a heaven that awaits me, but Jesus promises a life that is abundant. I can't help but believe that mercy plays a key role in that, but also can't help but wonder where it is, most times. It is hard to see here, but I still believe it when I do see it. 


Every little victory is worth the countless colossal losses. I do believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living because I have seen it before and have faith I will again. 


So, soldiers, solider on while fighting the good fight. 
Help kids smile those smiles, use the press to expose injustices, kick start those micro financing schemes, keep caring for the orphans, push beyond the battle lines in search of the faces behind them, expose corruption though it may risk your life, leave all you love behind to fight a losing battle because in the end, we win. 


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In the mean time, I am going to take a break from the fight. I'll clear my head after a few days with so little energy I basically fall into a trance when handed coconut water upon arrival at Diani Marine Village. An article I read today stated that taking a break and doing mindless tasks helps the brain to solve creative problems, especially surrounded by the color blue. I have many blurred thoughts to organize and feelings to sort through, thank God for R&R. Shoot, man, now this is mercy! Few people are lucky enough to be forced to take a break from life at perfect intervals.