Half-Walls Between Us
Maria Said
January 1, 1999
For two years, I shared my home with over 30 children, four freedom fighters, a government bureaucrat, a wife-beater, a Red Cross worker with a taste for liquor, a number of prostitutes, a madman, and all the customers of the tea shop next door. This was not my original intention in moving to the desert, but the rather unexpected circumstance of living in a room with only half-walls.
Originally, when I decided to work in international development, I imagined living in a small hut of my own, with a palm tree to the side. Instead, when I arrived in town, I found that no housing had been arranged for me. After a few nights sleeping outside on a rope bed, scrounging water from people I didn't know, and living on kilos of bananas, I was anxious for a room of my own. When a man in town finally showed me an empty place, the fact that the walls only reached to the level of my head seemed like a minor inconvenience.
On my first visit to the small town of Agordat, located in Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, I fell in love with its mystery, its quiet, its soft sandy colors. The searing heat that seldom abated created a lethargy in the atmosphere and engendered a lifestyle which initially seemed more like a snapshot than a moving image. At any hour of the day, one could look out onto the street and see a camel in mid-step, a child with a finger in his mouth, a local tribesman carrying baskets suspended from the ends of a pole laid across his bony shoulders.
Traditionally, the desert calls mystics into its presence, and its vast silence allows them to confront the chaos in their hearts. For me, however, in my half-erected home, the desert forced me away from the solitude I found so comfortable and placed me amid the chaos that ...
Like the preview? To read this complete article
and 20,359 more in the archive—JOIN NOW!
Easily find high-quality, well-researched materials that provide a Christian perspective on topics ranging from headlines to history.
Start using this invaluable tool TODAY for preparing your Bible studies, presentations, class lectures, sermons, meetings, and more.
|
It's easy and quick to join:
Brought to You by Christianity Today Int'l |  |
|
| 
Find similar articles
E-mail this page
