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Women of Malindi

S. Nicholson
Nov 5, 2016
4 min read

Being a mom can sometimes be isolating. Being a foreigner can sometimes be isolating. So being both of them at once has lately proven to be pretty challenging for me. I don’t want to sound complain-y; I am so grateful to be where I am and have what I have. The fact is that everyone, EVERYONE, has a struggle of some sort. My mom used to tell me just to remember that everyone I meet is in crisis, and I have found that to be so very true. So for me, for now, this is my crisis. The cool part about crisis is the redemption that we get to experience as we endure. It’s not easy, and we have to choose to see the redemption taking place, but when we do, we grow in huge ways.

I want to share with you some of the amazing women that I have had the privilege to know through my time here in Malindi so far. The very situation that has made me question my own self worth over and over has also put me into relationship with these wonderful women and allowed me to appreciate even more deeply who they are, what they do, and with what amazing strength of character they do it.

Let me start with my good friend Jane. Jane is a beautiful Kenyan woman who works in Malindi helping to run an organization called Caris. This group works toward sustaining orphans, transforming women socially and economically, and running surgery camps for people to receive free, life-saving procedures. She handles all these things with grace and also demonstrates to the women how hard work and perseverance can help them become much more than what society tells them they are capable of becoming. She is mother to a precious little girl and every meal she cooks for us is somehow more delicious than the last. A few weeks ago she was able to speak to some of the orphans sponsored through CRF about the qualities of a good leader. I am so thankful and honored to be friends with Jane.

Elif teaches Turkish at Iddy’s school but she does so much more than that. Her and her husband and two children left their home to live in Kenya because they believe in education as a means of lifting children out of poverty. She regularly invites some of the female students to her house to spend time counseling them and listening to their problems. She also puts on a bake sale and bakes many items herself to raise money for tuition of students who struggle financially. She hosts people in her home all the time and works tirelessly for the needs of others. Even when I have her over to my house she finds ways to serve me. She has to be one of the most servant-hearted people I have ever known.

I came to know Fatma when Chris went fishing with her oldest son, Shabir. Her family has become part of our family through our time here. She doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak much Swahili, but I love to be with her. She is an amazing cook and does it all with a coal jiko stove. She even knows how to bake cakes over the fire, and everything she makes is delicious. Her children are precious, which is a reflection of her goodness, and she truly has the gift of hospitality. We have spent many evenings enjoying good food and then just sitting together watching our children play. It’s amazing the connection that comes between mothers even without any words spoken.

Then there is Mama Dina. She and her husband are an Italian couple that have lived in Malindi for many many years. They own a company which manages over 100 homes around Malindi. These are mostly homes which, like ours, are owned by Italians who only come here for a short time in the year and then hope to rent their home out to tourists for the rest of the time. She has dinner parties at her house regularly and is always inviting people into her home. We have had that privilege many times (what’s better than being invited to dinner by an Italian) and have gotten to know their family well. Her daughter and son-in-law, Liza and Peter, live here as well and are just as kind and compassionate. They all love our children as their own. Mama Dina is the picture of kind-hearted hospitality.

Last, but definitely not least, I have to mention my friend Amber. She is currently on furlough in the States for 9 months and I miss her very much! Her and her husband and daughter have lived in Malindi for 2 years now. I’ve never met anyone like Amber, who has the ability to bring joy to every person around her in the purest way. She constantly seeks out ways to lift up others, like baking a cake for a friend she met at the grocery store when she knows it’s his birthday. She brings her daughter along with her everywhere she goes, so little Nora is witnessing firsthand the spirit that lives in her mom. I am blessed to know her and spend time with her and walk away from our times together with a determination to pay more attention to the people that cross my path every day.

So there are a few, and, believe me I could go on. I have a lot of days when I struggle with myself and all the ways that I feel I have failed. There is a list of things that I keep mentally that I wish I could accomplish with my life. The other day I finally wrote them all down, and it was a very ambitious sounding list. I told myself it was time to throw it all away because that list was robbing me of my joy. It’s time to live in the day and just do what seems good NOW. Heaven is about living NOW. It’s not about checking off some huge list of lifetime to-do’s so that I can finally feel good about myself. Heaven is looking at women like the ones I’ve mentioned here and appreciating their beauty and all they have done. And heaven is me looking at myself through the same lens and celebrating who I am. Heaven is the love that allows me to have friendships with women who are all so different. And heaven is the knowing that in the ways that truly matter we are all very much the same.