Gillian, Duke Divinity School student and 2009 Umoja Project intern

When I returned back to Rosalia’s from the rainforest one of her nieces had come to visit for the weekend. She grew up in Nairobi, and is fairly “westernized.” It felt odd to hear talking about the new movie “Angels and Deamons” and going to the mall. However, she was quick to inform me that she still enjoys the traditions of her culture.

Last night she told me that she had a pen-pal from the Netherlands. It is a quite lovely story about how they “met.” Rita was out one day and out of the corner of her eye she saw a coat. She said it was “the most beautiful coast she had seen with no tears or stains.” So, she bought it from the second hand shop on the street. She said that after she had worn it for about a year she noticed that on the tag there was a name of the coat’s previous owner. So, Rita sent her a letter saying that she had her coat, and thought it was so beautiful. She told her she would continue to take good care of it.

A few months later Rita recieved a reply from the girl living in the Netherlands. She said that she had loved that coat and taken good care of it until she lost it. However, when Rita asked the girl if she wanted her to return it, she told Rita she wanted her to have it now. The girls became friends and swapped letters for quite sometime. Rita said she would wait for two or three months, and would be so excited when another letter came. The girl in the Netherlands told Rita she was very sick with leukemia. So, they decided to mail each other pictures in case they were never able to meet. When I began this story I told you that Rita “had,” a pen-pal. That is because when the girl was fifteen years old her parents wrote Rita one last letter saying that she had died.

I was amazed at Rita’s story, her sense of adventure, her maturity as she talked of her friend afar having to deal with death at such a young age. It is amazing where initaiting communication may take us. Let us not be afraid to say “I think I have a coat of yours” or even just “hello.”