I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on May 17th, 2008 and went to the home of my friends and gracious hosts, Elsa and Romolo.  I have not been in Africa in almost 1 ½  years since the funeral of Father Angelo D’Agostino.  My dear friend is buried here at the Jesuit retirement home in the small cemetery along with a few other Jesuits, some I had met and admired.  Visiting his final physical marker here on earth fills my body as if I had taken an enormous breath of life experiences.  Also, the feeling of love is so great that when it is in communion with the spirit it can be felt completely before you can think with your mind!

At Elsa and Romolo’s home I would be surrounded by wonderful friends, a loyal, loving staff, beautiful gardens, animals such as horses, cows, ducks, dogs, cats and many others including Romolo’s eagle that comes to perch on his roof.  When Romolo calls (I guess eagles speak many languages including Italiano) and throws a piece of meat into the air the eagle soars and makes a perfect catch only to return to the roof awaiting Romolo’s next move.  Romolo is a strong character; intelligent, hard working with an enormous heart and Elsa has all of these wonderful traits and a few special ones of her own. 

Their home is beautiful as they built it together some 12 years ago for their retirement.  They have created an atmosphere of peace and relaxation, beauty and best of all great food.  From the cow’s milk they make wonderful cheese, from their garden, fresh vegetables and from the kitchen comes the best pasta meals, as my favorite is rigatoni with fresh tomato sauce.  Father D’Agostino introduced me to them and he would often go for meals and for their most loyal, loving friendship.  So today I continue this tradition and appreciate another gift received from my dear friend.

I spent 3 days with them and they left for Tuscany, Italy where Romolo has a home and family.  I will be gone from Africa before they return but they generously allowed me to remain in their home because of their generosity and also because the staff and I enjoyed one another.  It is because of this that later I experienced a most important day with two families displaced by the Kenya election violence. 

So I remained with Mary, whose job it was to manage the house and the rest of the staff, Morris who was the cook and also did other jobs on the property and Mary’s daughter Anne who is 20 years old and will start university this coming Fall.  Anne and Mary became curious and interested in my early morning readings, as is my practice to sit somewhere quiet to read, pray, think and write.  They asked if I would bring the books to the breakfast table and so together we shared this morning event. 

One morning Anne and I sat at the table (while Mary prepared the breakfast) reading a statement by Tolstoy about the equality and the suffering of the poor and weak.  While I read the words I looked at Anne and could see her eyes were expressing a scene of thoughts deep within her.  Her eyes looked like rays of light coming through a sand storm swirling in the wind, so much sand, so much light.  I asked her what was going on and she looked relieved and said can I tell you the story of my sister and her family?  

Anne proceeded to tell me that her sister and family were displaced because of the election violence and had to flee their home and are now living in Nukuru about 3 hours north of Nairobi in very poor conditions.  She and Mary were going to visit on Sunday and asked me to come along.  I said it would be an honor if her sister agreed and maybe we could sit and talk about their experiences on that day and we could write about their story.  A day later everyone agreed and was open to the idea and welcomed the upcoming visit and discussions.