Cheetah in the bush
Lean spotted body, fierce eyes
I can see your stealth

Long, lanky body
Revealing your speed and grace
Pacing back and forth

Cheetah in the bush
Worried about your babies
Predators are near

Tear stains under eyes
Dark circles perfectly round
Muscles strong beneath

Cheetah in the bush
Fastest animal on earth
How blessed am I?

Take my breath away
With your long, purposeful stride
Nothing can compare

Lean
Spotted
Fast

Today I wake up in Masai Mara under a mosquito net in a safari tent. I am not stirred by the quiet chatter and laughter of girls fetching water and shutting doors. I am listening to birds and chirpers. It is not loud, but it is a deep surround sound.

Light slowly fills the air, first giving trees silhouettes and then  exposing their shape and texture. It is still.

The Mara (a place set aside) is vast and remote. The dangers are real. The people distinct and rich in culture. The homes are basic dung structures with mud thatched roofs.

Tall trees and branches with sharpened ends are planted upright into the ground seven or eight feet tall in small circles to pen livestock at night and protect them from lions and cheetah. During the day men and boys walk the land to graze the goats, cows, or sheep.

Livestock is everything for the Maasai; they are embedded in home, function, and tradition.

The homes closest to the savannah have the same protective barriers around their houses. Gardens can not be grown because the elephants will devour everything planted.  Young boys spend three years in the savannah with a small herd and kill a lion to become men. Living in this land has created a special relationship between human, landscape and animal.

Tomorrow we will go in and experience the wilds first hand.

Grandmother, Veronica says, you remind me of my grandmother. So you will be my grandmother here.

Every part of my body resists this title. Why not auntie, mom, big sis, teacher?

I could not be a grandmother I think, but I could. In some way the years have been added to my life and here I am, old enough to be a grandmother.

In this place Vero is not calling me old, there is no negative connotation. Only deep love, reverence, and respect.

A grandmother: holding love, tradition, and family in her hands and heart, giving wisdom and life. Watching and caring with compassionate nurturing.

Grandmother, she says,  and I grimace a little and smile.

Another volunteer here just turned twenty one. While I don't want to party like she does and I can see my wisdom of age over hers, I do not recognize that I am almost thirty years her elder. I do not feel it.

Grandmother.

How does one age without watching their own children grow? How do I measure my place in life and wear this status with grace and humility.  How do I become an elder when there is no stick for me to measure.

To grow old is an honor. To wear age with grace and humility, to take my place as an elder with pride and wisdom. What is my coming of age ceremony? What is the right of passage? When is it time?

How do I own this transition and become it? Do I need to change my thinking, actions, way through life? Can I be an elder without a family line? What does that look like?

A new journey to embark in time.

Grandmother.

Matatu: a small van in disrepair to move people nearer to their destination

The door slides open and the "conductor" shuffles people out and more people in. Crammed into vehicles in such disrepair, an American in America would never climb aboard. Small vans rusted, cracked, broken, ripped,  missing parts. Push start this one, bang on the side, move forward with a jolt. Conductor jumps in. Bangs on the roof. Slides the door closed. Bills folded in half, turned long ways and slid between his fingers, coins in his palm and a couple in his fingers to bang the door or click on the window. Every sound giving some message to the driver. Click on the window and the Matatu pulls to the side, off the pavement and into the dirt. Three people off, five people on. Radio blarring, the ripped seats rumble from the bass. Click, bang, jerk to a start. Weaving between traffic, passing on blind curves, honking to let you know it is coming around.  People sliding into each other. A light tap on your shoulder with an outstretched hand and you know you need to pay. Wrong change likely given. The three person bench seat in which you sit is holding six people. Bodies piled onto each other, no concept of personal space, handing babies to strangers, the conductor loses his seat and bends over the entire front row and through some flexible feat, closes the door behind him and bangs the window, the van bolts to a start. music deafening, body oder, dust and exhaust fill your nostrils. Young, old, large and small crammed, stacked, pushed in, rolled out, and we move on. Kenyan local transport.

Baboons move like gangs
Spread out to claim and cover territory
Piercing eyes look right at you with puffed up chests.
They swagger with confidence and a raw attitude of challenge
Don't mess with me is the message recieved.