I live thousands of miles from where I was born and yet I am HOME!! Capital letters and exclamation points. (OK, not home in an eternal, spiritual sense but as home as a person can be in this world.) Despite its size and problems, I just love this city. Sitting on my roof I can see mosques and cathedrals and churches. I watch horses and carts go by being passed by UN SUVs going way too fast.
The beggars know me as teacher and the little girl who sells gum always shows me her teeth- to prove that her product hasn't rotted them, despite what I say. The waiter at the Casa knows that whatever the specials, I'll get the one with the most meat in it. There's a grocery where I only by a candy bar once a week, nothing else. I walk into the bookstore to talk literature with the high schooler who works there and to see if there are new paintings for sale. I walk around the city looking at artdeco houses that need saving that I'll never live in. Students stop me as I walk and invite me for tea or coffee.
This city, like the Seattle suburb of Ballard, just connects with me. I never could get used to Peoria. The people in Eureka were great but nobody walked anywhere. Bloomington had gotten too sprawling and stressfull. Indianapolis is one big strip mall. Nairobi is...if you've ever been there, you have your own reasons for feeling queer about that place. But I don't think you learn to love a city because it is perfect. You love a city because it reaches some part of you that others don't. For all its crazy drivers and broken sidewalks, despite having to dodge road apples when biking, even with the frustrations of dealing with shops that close just when you have time time to run errands, this city still makes me smile.
About Me
- Jonathan
- I'm an expat professor, an academic nomad currently living on an Asian island with my wife and three year old son.
1 comment:
I use to feel this way about Vegas. Everyone questioned us when we wanted to move there because as we all know, it is the Sin Capital of the world! But you know, we didn't see what everyone else saw. There was life there and in our opinion, more need for Christian impact (being that it was sin city and all). And so for over two years, we lived in our own mission field and saw God do some really amazing things. And after all was said and done, it was the first place that I truly felt like calling home.
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