Year: 2011

  • Featured in “On to Baby”

    Don’t worry guys… this is still a blog about Africa, coffee, and whatever else it’s about EVEN THOUGH this week it looks like a maternity photographer’s blog. What can I say? I love those preggie bellies!

    The great people over at On To Baby are featuring my session with Bonita and her husband, Dylan, today. You can visit both the post and the full gallery if you like. I am thrilled to see Dylan and Bon up there, they look so great! You also catch a glimpse of a their baby girl, Mila, over there. She appeared on the scene right before our move to Burundi. As a mostly unpaid photographer and blogger/writer, it is great to see my work featured in other places. For the love of the art, good people, for the love of the art!

    Since we’re now living in the middle-of-nowhere-Africa, seeing these photos is like visiting another world soooo different from the one I am in now. I have loved the trip down memory lane.

    Love,

    Kristy 

  • A beautiful bump

    Sometimes beauty just crosses your path.

    When it does, let it refresh your soul.

    Love,

    Kristy

    Felix and Mercy, thank you for hanging out in Nairobi. All the best on your little wonder due this week. 

  • Lost.

    Last night we lost you. It stings with a heart wrenching, gut sinking foreverness. I am aching all over with the finality of it. You had no idea if we were ever coming back for you. But we were, my regal friend, we were. I feel as if a part of me has broken away from the whole. Cracked away under the weight and strain of  sadness. I knew this day was coming, the day when you would break my heart. I though I would be there for it. In my soul I was right by your side when you crossed over. I thought you would hang on for me, my precious girl. I wanted to guide you as you left. Surround you and ease your passing. Instead you slipped away alone, well loved but wrapped only in the comfort of solitude. Your terms, not mine… which is totally you.

    Here I sit, you gone, waring with myself. I’m angry that this is how it ends. When I said goodbye I didn’t mean forever. Why did you think I did? Why did your body give out on you before I could get there? You were there when I brought them both home from the hospital. You were my family when I had none. My ally in a house full of men. I have depended upon your existence for over a decade. How could you leave like this, my girl? I was supposed to be there. To see you off and celebrate a good life lived. To thank you. I loved you and treasured you for a long as you drew breath… and I love you still. Thank you for what you brought to our family. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your undying loyalty which, I am sure, still lives on. Thank you for being the best dog on the planet. No one can ever replace you, dearest of Danes. No one.

    You were more than just a dog, you were a Great Dane.

    Love,

    your people

    “here is the deepest secret nobody knows
    (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
    higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
    and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
    ― E.E. Cummings

  • I Drink a Lot of Coffee

    4:45 am.  Neo wakes up and starts laughing, talking loudly, singing,etc.

    5:00 am.  Neo’s noise has woken Myles.  Myles proceeds to get Neo out of his cot (crib for you Americans).

    5:05 am.  Coffee Guy stumbles into the lounge before two little boys can destroy anything more.

    5:06 am.  Espresso machine is turned on.

    I drink a lot of coffee.

    In Burundi I’m referred to as a “Buyer” by the people in the coffee industry.  A Buyer is a person who can change lives and give hope to farmers and economies.  They are also the guy who disappoints and confuses.  Buyers have a whole world of politics and drama attached to each word said or conversation NOT had.

    That’s a whole lot of pressure.  And let’s be real, I’m not the world’s answer to coffee farmers woes.  I came to Burundi to make a difference in the lives of farmers.  I envisioned whole scale change and holistic renewal of rural communities!  To help be a part of the change needed in this desperate land full of potential sucked dry by decades of war and unrest.  But then coffee world politics and pressure creep in.  The day to day mountain of mundane and time consuming work and phone calls.  Fears begin to paralyze me.  I wake me up at night dreaming of soldiers, or was that really gun shots that woke me?  I fear driving to pick up samples because of all the police pulling people over.  And the pressure I sense of the looming wet season that will render the coffee less desirable if it sits much longer in storage before being shipped.

    It’s not quite 6 am and I’m feeling overwhelmed.  Thats when I know I need a drink.

    A double espresso, perhaps a six cup Chemex, but usually a couple macchiatos.  I read my Bible, make the boys oatmeal, and have a second cup. Perspective and focus return.

    We are here to make a difference.  It won’t happen overnight, or in three months.  Our vision is still the same. I just need to breathe, be patient, and realize that something bad or frustrating will happen today (yes, it will).  But that frustration will not define us or our hope for this place.

    Then I get to cup.  Slurp coffee 40 cups at a time.  On a good table I’ll find a coffee that blows my mind.  On those occasions I run up  and get Kristy, “You have got to try this lot!”  She spoils me rotten with her interest.  Affirms my excellent selection.  Cocks an eyebrow at my descriptor of a “creamy smooth body, delicate acidity with raspberry jam and a lime zest finish.”  My over-cupped self is happy to find an ear to declair the truths of this amazing cup to.  I’m not the first to discover this washing station in Kayanza called Gatare. But I am the first to taste this micro-lot and confirm that the farmers there really have something special.  I gave it an 89.  A score that will inevitably put this coffee into one of the best coffee shops in the world. A coffee shop willing to pay a little extra for a great coffee, willing to put a little more into the farmer’s pockets this year.  I go back down to my lab.  I have another 40 cups ready to go.

    I drink a lot of coffee.

    It’s our start at trying to make a difference.

    Coffee Guy

     

  • the chocolate pirates

    I’m up. In the middle of the night. This happens to me on and off, especially when I hear weird noises that may or may not be gunfire. All this wakefulness has gotten me thinking about our weirdest night in Burundi. We had been here a little over a month when I woke up in the middle of the night with my mommy radar going wild. I hadn’t heard anything that I could remember, I just knew I needed to check on the kids. When I did I had the shock of my life. I could not find those babies anywhere. The crib was empty. The bed was empty. I wandered around the house calling out their names and got no response. I felt like I was stuck in some really bad black and white old school movie scene dream. I could not believe that they were just gone! I thought once or twice about whether or not I was really awake, figured out that I was, then started screaming for them instead of  calling out their names nicely. I went to the front door and as I did I noticed it was slightly ajar.

    Outside, in the driveway, on the ground were both of my beautiful boys and the 60 year old night guard John. Myles had brought his entire bedroom outside, including his brother. All his blankets were on the ground and he and Night Guard John and Neo were having a picnic. A picnic that consisted entirely of one thing, my dark chocolate stash that I keep, scratch that, that I kept in the fridge. There they were, Neo on Night Guard John’s lap, all with a huge slab of chocolate in their hands. Night Guard John included. He was just polishing off a piece of my Lindt 70% and looked like a little kid with his hand caught in the candy jar.  Now, if you have been following along for while you might remember one of my many freak-outs about the price and availability of chocolate in Burundi. If not, let me fill you in. Chocolate is expensive here. Were talking it-can-be-$25-a-bar expensive AND be covered in an inch of dust from sitting on the shelf for a year. Or two. Or three.

    Luckily, I discovered them before they finished off my whole stash, and because I don’t want them to grow up with some strange complex regaurding dark chocolate (a complex their mother may or my not already have) I chose not to inflict bodily harm on my biggest little for chocolate pirating. As for sailing the seas unattended at night, well… now we lock every door between them and the front door. And we lock the front door twice.

    When I put them back in bed, after washing off their sticky brown fingers, I couldn’t help but feel like I had just been in a nightmare constructed especially for me. If the universe were ever going to go out and create my perfect nightmare, it would definatly include missing babies and missing chocolate.

    I’m off to bed. See you in the morning… if you happen to show up in the driveway for a picnic.

    Kristy

  • but somehow…

    In silence I can finally see you.

    This aloneness soothes my weary self away.

    Even though it’s just.one.minute.

    I’m bent like a twig before you,

    the Creator of all time.

     

    My minds eye wanders to love.

    Your love for this place.

    I can see it as clear as day, you love this land.

    You are chasing it down…

    like my baby, arms wide, running after a new friend.

     

    This no electricity, barely any running water,

    dusty, pot hole infested, people killing for no reason land.

    You hover over it.

    Aching to snatch it up from misery.

    To hold it close.

     

    Here the sun shines like a light chasers dream.

    Like my dream.

    The mountains are purple with it,

    the lake reflects it back boldly.

    You love this land and at first…

     

    I thought I didn’t.

    I thought I couldn’t.

    I was sure I wouldn’t…

    but somehow,

    I already do.

  • the Dino-my

    He’s a dinosaur. He’s a Myles. He’s a Dino-my, and the Dino-my rocks. End of story.

  • My open sore floor show

    Do you know those weeks that seem like ten thousand weeks all rolled into one? The ones where you look back on Sunday and can’t believe ALL OF THAT LIFE fit into one week? I just finished one of those. When last week began I didn’t have a five year old, and then suddenly I did. A tantrum throwing, I hate you yelling, sweet talking, cuddly love of a five year old. I also had a terrible horrible embarrassing THING on my face. I noticed an innocent zit on my chin before going to bed one night, but while I slept it turned into a monster the likes of which I have never seen. When I woke up, it was an open sore that had a pulse all it’s own. The monster would not heal. It refused, despite strict orders to myself not to even touch the darn thing. For one whole solid week it would leak and weep and leak some more until… my lymph nodes were swollen to the size of  jawbreakers. Then Saturday morning I woke up with tonsillitis too. The morning of Myles’ big birthday bash. Yeah, that’s right… I invited his WHOLE CLASS to our house plus other new friends, all so they had a front row seat at my open sore floor show.

    Somehow I got through it. I told myself to suck it up because this day was not about me… but inside I wanted to run away and cry and not let a soul see me. Instead I faced them… mostly by avoiding mirrors. Thirty kids, their parents and Myles’ teacher. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking it probably was not nearly as bad as I am describing, because “that Kristy” is such a drama queen… I can be, it’s true, but I am not exaggerating about this other BEING I was carrying around on my face.

    Early in the day it began to pour and our outdoor Star Wars party ended up inside. Just imagine thirty kids and their parents (and a few people without kids that I think are insanely brave for even setting foot in my house on that day) all inside. It was one big old Norwegian “Uff-Duh” and I woke up the next morning unable to swallow, with now golf ball sized lymph nodes and the friend on my face still naked as the day it was born. Ben called one of our great doctor friends from South Africa and asked him what to do. Then he zipped out like a hero and bought me some prescription antibiotics over the counter without a prescription for next to nothing. Ahh, I love Burundi. My open sore floor show is beginning to heal, but what a terrible awful no good tag along it has been.

    I have to make one observation after all this. Clearly something is in the water here, above and beyond just Cholera, because we seem to be striking out in the keeping healthy department early into the game. Maybe we need to eat more apples… if we can find some.

    Now I’m craving apples. Dang it!

  • Keep Calm…

    Luv,
    Kristy

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