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alwaysmercy · 4 years ago

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Turning Point

Beatrice and Christine in the kitchen, Kenya, 2006

A turning point is a time at which an important change takes place which affects the future of a person or thing. (College English Dictionary).

Fifteen years ago, (this very month!), I was seven days into my first mercy trip to Africa. Truthfully, since day one, I had been marking time till I could return home. I missed my family. I missed my familiar and ordinary routine. I missed my bed. I was struggling to adapt to the eleven hour time difference, the intense heat, and the various odors and sounds that surrounded me each day. My senses were overloaded. My nerves were standing on end. I longed for home—the place were I belonged.

And then, almost imperceptibly, something shifted.

My journal entry for June 13, 2006, reads:

A turning point for me as I finally relaxed and got in the groove of Africa. My anxiety is dissipated and I no longer have an intense longing to go home. While I still miss my family, I am content here and will be sad to leave….

The deaconesses are incredible women who just give and give from a heart infused with the love of Christ. They are quite inspiring.

I am particularly fond of the women in the kitchen--Christine, Margaret and Beatrice. (They are not deaconesses, but women hired to feed about forty of us gathered for a conference on HIV/AIDS and mercy). They lovingly prepare tea and our meals in a very hot, tiny kitchen over wood burning little BBQs. They have a sweetness about them that is infectious. Some of my most joyous times have been connecting with them! I learned how to make chai tea: boil water; add milk and bring to a boil; add tea (finely ground ginger tea), then sugar to taste…

(pretty amazing taste for the girl who at home drank her tea with skim milk, sans sugar).

Beatrice and chai, 2006

June 13, 2006, is when I was welcomed into this circle of love and hospitality and found a home away from home. I snuck away from the conference to go to the kitchen where Beatrice, Margaret, and Christine were getting ready to prepare ugali. (A staple in Kenya—like very thick polenta). A gigantic metal pot of water had been placed over the red hot charcoal and was coming to a boil. Christine poured the bag of ground maize into the boiling water, while petite Beatrice (with a face of an angel), used a paddle to stir to mix the maize with the boiling water. She wasn’t fooling around because this paddle was no small tool—it was big enough to command a canoe on a river.

As the mixture thickened, it got more and more difficult to stir, but Beatrice made it look easy. “Hey, may I give it a try?” I asked. The women were a little surprised that a muzungu (white person) would want to help, but they handed me the paddle and I was poised to stir away. Except when I tried to stir, the paddle barely moved. I tried again and it moved an inch or so. “This is ridiculous.” I thought. “I am in good shape”. I gave it another try, this time bracing my legs and putting my weight into it. I made some small strides and actually got it going—for about a minute when the strength in my arms gave out! My antics delighted the ladies to no end and we all began to laugh. Beatrice graciously took the paddle and her position of ugali queen and finished up the job. This was a turning point. These women welcomed me into their sisterhood of love, encircling me with their joy. Their kitchen became a refuge and a place of delight. It became home.

Beatrice and ugali, 2006

It amazed me what came out of that tiny Kitchen—food made with loving hands and hearts to nourish both body and soul. Margaret certainly had command of that space. For morning tea rose the intoxicating smell of chai and mandazi, a Kenyan doughnut of fried sweet bread. Chipati came to be my favorite bread staple. Rice, sumuwiki (kale or collard greens sautéed with onion, peppers and tomatoes), chicken, fish, potatoes, and always ugali. As wonderful as the food was, even more wonderful was the friendship these women extended to me.

It’s the women in Kenya that keep me anchored. They embrace their femininity and are eager to share their gifts of nurturing and compassion. They don’t shy away from hard work—it is a part of their lives, yet they go about their work with joy and gratitude. Over the years, we have remained friends. I am often blessed to be able to see them when I return to Kenya.

Beatrice--now a deaconess!! and married to a pastor, standing next to another dear friend, Deaconess Lorna Meeker. Point of Grace Academy, Kenya, 2019

Update on Hospice Project.

Yes, we are still working towards getting this hospice project off the ground!! Slowly, slowly, slowly. We are waiting for the Kenyan government to move forward with the paperwork that shows the community gifting the land to this project. Patience has never been one of my virtues, but I am learning.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Always Mercy,

Pamela

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ngendo · 4 years ago

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Birthday Flex

*Text first published on 23rd March 2021 on Facebook.*

Dear People, Thank you so much for the birthday wishes. It's very strange to try to celebrate while there is so much hurt in the air, streaming through our blood, burying itself between each, single, breath. I know three people who have lost loved ones this week, and it's Tuesday. Because of them and so many others, I celebrate the fact that I am still here. That I still breath, that I still get pissed off, that I continue to march on wards to (and hopefully through) 40, that I can complain, that I can lay on the grass in my garden, go for walks in the evening, drink tea, cuddle with my lover, play football with Chairman, harvest mint between giggles with my niece. I MUST celebrate that the things that prickle my skin and make my blood boil, can only do so, because I am here. Being angry is part of being alive, and knowing, that we DESERVE better WHILE we are here. Here. Not tomorrow, not in an afterlife unseen. HERE. I am grateful to be alive on this beautiful, hectic, violent ass planet. Violent, because we made it so. I am grateful to be aging because the other option is to be gone. I am grateful to have anger coursing through my veins, because it means that sometimes I find enough courage to erupt, to burn, and to say NO FUCKING MORE. The liberation to be a woman and to burn so bright that people fear your voice, but cannot come to your face and silence it..... ahhhhh, it's like eating cool chunks of pineapple in the afternoon sun, until my tongue stings. To be an African Woman that can shout my truth and only receive whispers in the wind from those who prefer my silence.... to KNOW that I have brought fear to those who willingly oppress others daily..... it is the scent of freshly cut strawberries saturating my nose. It is the fruition of my toil. I wish that all of us could experience this at least once in our lives, for it is simply being a human. Being allowed to occupy space. That is it. Daily, we operate in fear, silenced in advanced by doctrine, by tradition, by manhood, by whiteness, by the patriarchy. Fuck all that shit. Burn Bissshhhh. Burn. My anger is born of LOVE. >Love for my people. >Love for Afro women carrying too much weight on their backs, while foreigners with lenses exoticize the length of our necks, and our male counterparts pontificate about our resilience with opaque ideas of 'tradition'. >Love for my LGBTQI people ducking and diving between shadows because our society worships a white god that banished Blackness and ALL African sexuality, into aberration. >Love for the people who service our middle class asses daily but every damn time one of us tries to get them better salaries, the neighbourhood committee throws mountains of paperwork in your face to keep poor people poor. (Note for anyone who is economically marginalised, DO NOT trust the Kenyan middle and upper class. We're too busy imagining we can become millio-billionaires while using the Bible to justify your poverty. At any chance you get, throw us overboard.) > Love for the fucking effort it takes just to speak your truth despite knowing that some of your friends will feel the need to inform you that they as a person living in white skin (especially the ones in Europe) KNOW the ultimate and only legitimate complete alpha and omega truth about being a Black person. (Fuck right off by the way. Cheers.) > Love for all of us surviving Christianity through complete cultural erasure and the severing of ourselves from our own Black bodies and tongues, even when we cannot name that emptiness. > Love for all of us relegated to even lower depths of the hierarchy because we were born with not a penis nigh! >Love for us additionally ostracized for being the parent that stayed. (Single moms where you at!? ) > Love for all of us who silently cry NO MORE even as society uses our bent backs as a foundation for the institutions that oppress us. Growing up, I was repeatedly told that I as a girl should be quiet, I should sit with my legs close together and cover myself up, I was told it's not nice for me to be angry, or to swear, nice girls don't move their hands about when talking, nice girls don't shout. I was told, "Women don't have muscles" even as I could tense the rippling sinews on my abdomen and form a juicy waru on my arm. Anger is perhaps the greatest muscle we were taught to never flex. It was smothered into the most silent corners of our ever silent bodies. But our anger is bright and buoyant and fucking beautiful. While others are allowed to tear through nail salons, and churches, and communities, and races, and entire continents, and their psychosis is celebrated as conquest and empire, or noted as depression and 'having a bad day'...... Our rightful and justified anger has been silenced from our very first cry at birth. The rage of women, could turn this whole world upside down, inside out. This woman has muscles. This woman swears. This woman sits with her legs open when she fucking wants. This woman has sex. This woman takes shits. This woman writes poetry and paints pictures. This woman makes films, and my films are fucking legit. This woman loves herself. I love myself. I love myself over and beyond the conditional respect and allowances you may grant me. They are not important to me. I have no love for your rules and regulations set to limit my freedoms. If this hurts your sensibilities, try loving yourself instead. In any case, IDGAF. Happy New Birth Year to me. Happy Re-Birth to all the women I know. We must burn today, because we won't be here tomorrow. We must burn today, because otherwise, when we are gone our only legacy will have been our subservience; kneeling as a stepping stone for the dreams of others. We must burn today, because that subservience will be celebrated to oppress those that come after us. Women. Burn. May our collective anger over run the shackles that contain us. Heck fucking yeah!!

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coffee-books-and-roses · 6 years ago

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FAQ about American politics for those who do not live in America (and also Americans who don’t keep up with the news). This is a long fucking post heads up.

I’ll start by saying that if you want to keep up with American politics, listen to Pod Save America. It was created by former Obama officials.

One last thing, when I saved this as a draft, a lot of the words turned to emoji’s, So incase you see clapping hands, that means p a r t y.

Ok, now to begin. Incase you didn’t know, America is more or less one shit show when it comes to our politics right now. Most Americans are struggling to keep up with the news, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for those outside the US, who have no cultural context.

(Some notes before we go: We go by a two party system (1) Democrat = liberal. The party of Obama. (2) Republican = conservative. The party of Trump. Also, GOP stands for “Grand Old Party.” It’s another name for Republicans)

For the last two years (2016-2018) Republicans have controlled all three branches of government. The three branches: Judicial, Executive, and Legislative. However, that turned a few days ago when Democrats took control of one of the two Chambers in the Legislative branch called “The House”. This is the first time in eight years that they have taken control of the house.

This will now be conversation form, making it easy to follow along

“What are the midterms?” America holds presidential elections every four years. Meanwhile, every two years we have an election in the legislative branch, also known as congress. The mid terms are the elections between presidential elections. Every election, all 435 house seats are open. Mean while, the number of seats up in the senate range in the mid 30′s. This year in 2018, 35 seats were up and open. (It is the same during the presidential election. Again. all 435 seats in the house are open, and somewhere in the mid 30′s senate seats are open.)

“How are the 435 house seats distributed among the states?” It’s all proportional, based on state population. The more people in a state, the more house seats they get. For example, California with 39 million, get 53, while places like Alaska, with only 700,000, gets just one representative. Each state will, at a minimum have one representative.

“Wait- how are the representatives divided up with in the state?” I’ll explain that when we get to gerrymandering.

“How many seats do Democrats need to take in order to get control of the house and senate?” For the house: 23. For the senate: 2.

“Wait- you only won 194 house seats in 2016. Wouldn’t you need 24?” Democrats won a special election in Pennsylvania in 2017 after the Republican guy who held the office quit.

“Same with the senate, you only won 46 seats in 2016.” There are two independents in congress, although they vote almost always with the Democrats. We had a special election in Alabama, which we won, making us need only two seats.

“Let’s say that Democrats with 50 seats and Republicans with 50 seats. Being that they would vote along party lines, what will happen to the bills?” The vice president- aka Mike Pence, will get to cast a vote on any bill that is half and half. Being that he is republican, he will side with his party. This is the only time the vice president is allowed to vote on issues in congress.

“Back to the 2 seats in the senate. 2 seats don’t seem that hard” We had to defend 26 of the 35 seats, and then gain two more. In 2018, Democrats had to win 80% of the seats to take control, which, of course, didn’t happen.

“So, what were the results?” Well, they are still counting a few races. However, regardless of those outcomes, we know for a fact that Democrats have taken at least 225 seats, seven more than the 23 needed. As for the senate, Republicans have at least 51, so even if the rest come out democrat, it won’t matter.

“What will American politics be like for the next two year?” Democrats can put a pause on Trumps agenda. Without control of both houses, he won’t be able to get his bills passed. Also, we will have subpoena power, meaning that we will finally investigate corruption that Trump has ignored.

“Why did it take so long to get back control of the House?” Voter ID laws and gerrymandering

“Voter ID laws? Don’t those protect against people from illegally voting? Okay, I tried writing about it, although it got to long. I’ll give you a 3 minute video for the shortened version. Just a heads up, when there are voting fraud attempts, they are mainly done by mail, not in-person. More democrats vote in-person, which is why they are doing this.

“Gerrymandering ?” I don’t know how to explain it, so just watch this 3 minute video , it will explain the next questions below.

“How often do the gerrymandered districts get re-drawn?” Every 10 years. See, the republicans took control in 2010, a census year. The next time states get re-drawn is in 2020

“What the heck happened in 2010?” The TEA party was formed

“What is the TEA party?” It stands for “Taxed Enough Already”. The name also is a reference to the “Boston Tea Party” in 1773, when the American colonies dumped a bunch of British Tea into the Boston Harbor.

“So what were the political views of the tea party?” They were a far fringe in the Republican party. The tea party argued for lower taxes, and reducing the amount of debt America had to other countries

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Why is that a problem?” Because in reality, it had very little to do about taxes or debt. While certainly people did joined because of financial reasons, in reality, it was more about racism than anything else. A bunch of old white people lost their goddamn shit because Obama, an African American, was in office. To them, he was a communist-atheist-Muslim-socialist-gay-Kenyan who was here to take away your guns and It’s not just me saying that. There has been evidence to suggest that racial resentment played a part in the tea party.

“Yeah, well, didn’t they make good on the promise of lower taxes? After all, they just passed the largest tax cut in decades.” Yes. For the rich. As for the middle class and poor, they get almost nothing. The over whelming majority- 83%- will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

“What about caring for the debt?” Their tax cut actually expands the deficit- exactly opposite of what they promised.

"Where, then. are they going to get the money to pay for the debt?” Republicans now want to cut funding Social Security and Medicare, programs designed to help the poor.

“What does the American public think about this?” 60% of Americans think the tax cuts help the rich, not the middle class. That would probably explain why Republicans really didn’t talk that much about their tax cut during the 2018 midterms

So what could they run on if they didn’t talk about the tax cuts? Two things, first “pre-existing conditions” regarding Obamacare, and, or course, racism

“Wait- before we go any further- what’s this whole Obamacare thing?” Obamacare allows people to get health insurance. In America, health insurance is a for-profit business. Of course, there is Medicare and Medicaid, but those are for really old people or really poor people.

“I thought that program was called ACA?” Obamacare goes by many names. The official title is “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” although people shortened it to “affordable care act” then shortened it even more and abbreviated it to “ACA”. People gave it the nickname “Obamacare” because it was passed by Obama.

“So how does everyone else get health care?” Two ways: though their employer, or by a single plan. This means you can, on your own, shop around for the best price.

“What was the point of Obamacare then?” Prior to Obamacare, while you could get insurance through your employer, you couldn’t always get it on the single market. There are these things called “pre-existing conditions”, which means that you were sick before you bough their health care. This could mean anything from cancer to acne. If you had a pre-existing condition, the company could charge you more money since you have a history of medical problems, and might cost them more money in the future. In some cases, they would deny allowing you to buy their health care at all.

“Holy shit. Is it possible to buy health care while your sick?” Technically, yes. However, most insurance companies would not do that. If you had cancer, then went looking for health care, almost always it would be too expensive for people to get. In most cases, they would just deny you insurance. Of course, you could get it through work insurance, however, you have to work full time for a month before you can get the health care.

“So what problems of the health care system were solved with Obamacare becoming law?” Now companies couldn’t charge you more or deny you coverage if you had a pre-existing condition. Also, it gave more money for medicaid and medicare, so more people could be covered. It did a lot of other things, like help fund rural hospitals, although I don’t have to go into all, but those were the main ones.

“Why the fuck would the republicans want to repeal Obamacare? Why the fuck would anyone want it repealed!?” Because repealing it would give a major tax cut to the rich. Again, all about tax cuts.

“How did the American people support this?” Fox news and the right wing nut jobs created fear. Pundits and Republican law makers were on tv (including CNN) telling people that this was a government take over of health care. (It wasn’t. We still have the private health care industry.) They told bullshit stories of “death panels”, that the government would line people us and decide who was most deserving of cancer treatment.

Did the Republicans at least show their version of improving healthcare? Nope. For seven years, they ran on “repeal and replace”, yet never once showed what the “replace” part would be. They just kept telling people that once they got both chambers and the presidency, they would replace it with something better.

“Why wouldn’t they get a plan together before the 2016 presidential election?” They wanted to push it off another four years, since all the polls were showing that Hilary Clinton would win

“So when Republicans held onto both chambers and won the presidency, what did they do?” They made two major attempts, both in 2017, and both ended up failing

“What was the first one?” In late February of 2017, almost a month after Trump came into office, they tried to write a bill. Of course, the democrats wanted a copy, but the Republicans wouldn’t give them one. So on March 2nd, Democrats went on a legit scavenger hunt trying to track down a copy of the bill. They finally revealed it on March 6th. The bill ended up being too moderate for the right wingers, and to right wing form the moderates. Anyway, the bill got pulled before it could get a vote on March 24, just a few weeks later.

“The second one?” On June 22nd, 2017, they revealed another bill called “The Better Care Reconciliation Act.” They wanted to vote on it by the end of July. Just so you know, health care is 1/6 of the economy. In one moth, they wanted to recreate 1/6 of the fucking economy. Long story short, we got a few republicans to switch sides and vote with us. However, we needed just one more vote, In come John McCain, one of the few decent Republican left. On July 28, just after midnight around 12:30 AM, John McCain voted no, and you can watch it in this dramatic video

“So why did they vote no?” Americans put a ton of pressure on their senators and representatives.

“Wait- I heard that Republicans supported protecting people with pre-existing conditions this elections?” They lied. Most still wanted to get ride of protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but Obamacare has become too popular. For example, Republican Scott Walker, who just lost his seat to the Democrat Tony Evers, told people he supported the pre-existing conditions part of Obama care, all while he was part of a lawsuit challenging it in court.

“You mentioned them running on racism?” Yup. If you want a deeper dive in all the examples of racism in the 2018 midterms, read this Atlantic article

“How did the Republican party get so full of racist people?” It started with the TEA party in 2010, but took off with Trump. It has gotten so bad that In the 2018 elections, they had a white nationalist run in North Carolina.

“Are you saying that all republicans are racist?” No. Many republicans don’t hold these views. The republican base is shrinking, with those who just want tax cuts leaving. For example: Ana Navarro, a hispanic republican, decided to vote democrat in the Florida election. She was the hispanic chairwoman for the John McCain campaign in 2008.

“How did Trump play into the racism for the 2018 election?” He lied about the migrant caravan in South America. Basically, they the caravan is made up of people fleeing government oppression and violence in South America. Once they reach the US boarder, they are going to request asylum. This, of course, is legal. Yet Trump lied, falsely calling them an “invasion”. saying they there all a bunch of gang members who were going to kill Americans the moment they arrived. He said democrats were “too dangerous” to govern falsely saying that they would have “open boarders”

"I don’t hear much about the caravan now.” That’s because it was a political stunt- he din’t care about the caravan. He just used them to stir up fear for the elections. Of course, he still doesn’t want them in America. Yet he’s not going to talk about it because the elections are over.

“Obviously not all Americans fall for his lies, but why do I see Americans tweet and support his lies?” A lot, but certainly not all, are Russian bots trying to divide people

“Speaking of Russia, how did this whole Trump-Russian thing start even?” TL;DR He was being investigated way back in July 2016, fired the FBI investigating him in March 2017, and then a special prosecution council was made in May of 2017, with Robbert Muller being the lead prosecutor. Supposedly Muller is going to write his final report soon, but it hasn’t been confirmed.

“Shouldn’t this whole Russia thing all over the news?” There is so much going on that it is hard to just focus on the Russia investigation. The midterms, tax cuts, health care, immigration....all the things I listed above. Now it is only reported on if something massive happens- like an arrest or if someone is called to testify before congress.

“Wow, man, this shit show is really bad. The whole thing could have been avoided if Hilary got the majority of the votes.” She did. She won the popular vote by 2.5 million. If we were in any other democracy, be that Canada or Australia, she would be president right now. This also happened in the 2000 election, when George W Bush lost the popular vote yet became president

“Wait” You say “How the fuck does something like that happen?” Welp, get ready for your head to explode in anger [Part one] [Part two]

So....the guy who is trying to take away health care and give tax cuts to the rich is also they guy who lost the popular vote and could be working with Russia? Yup.

“Any good news?” We won the house, and for the next two years, we will make Trumps life a living hell.

Anyway, I’ll end here. This is about 2,700 words and I’m exhausted.

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