It Happened on the Way to War Read Free Page B

didn’t understand until she translated it:
    â€œMawingu ya dunia ufanika wajane .” The clouds of the earth cover the widows.
    â€œIt is a lesson,” Tabitha explained. “When you have a husband, people respect you. If your husband dies, you’re looked down upon. People start hating you. And you know, you are not the one who killed him. If you’re married, you have a cover; even if you have a husband who is abnormal, you have that cover. So now this kanga, it’s telling me my cover is in fact the clouds of heaven. Oh, I think it is a good day for me!”
    Tabitha refolded the kanga with great care, reminding me of my military color guard detail in college, when we slowly lowered our flag and folded it into a tight triangle for the night’s watch. It was a good day, and I admired Tabitha. I doubted that I could live with such strength and dignity if I found myself in Kibera, alone, with no job and three children.
    We shook hands. Tabitha didn’t seem to be the hugging type. She walked me to a hill overlooking a portion of Kibera’s sea of rusted tin roofs. We parted ways. When I looked back, she was standing on the hill with her hands folded behind her back like a sentinel. I didn’t know if I would ever see Tabitha again, or what would become of the $26.
    THAT FIRST FAREWELL with Tabitha was on my mind as I walked through the sultry air at Camp Lemonnier to the colonel’s tent, his command post. I’d spoken to him only hours before. Inside me, in my chest, I felt a terrible strain. I imagined my insides as a rubber band, bending and stretching, latched onto two fingers pulling apart. How far could it stretch before it snapped?
    It was rare to show up without an appointment, but the colonel could see from my face that we needed to talk. He was only vaguely aware of the work we were doing in Kibera. Although they were different worlds, I wanted to believe that my work in Kibera made me a better Marine.
    I stood at attention in front of his desk, swallowed hard, and said, “Sir, I have an unusual request for you.”
    â€œStand easy, Lieutenant. Tell me about it.”
    I explained Carolina for Kibera, our organization, the difference it was making in the community, and how personal it had become. I poured my soul into it. I told him about Tabitha. She was sick and I needed to see her. I laid it all out. When I stopped, there was a long silence. Marines usually shunned such emotional appeals. I could feel my neck pulsing. My palms were sweaty. The colonel pulled his dog tags out from under his fatigues. A small silver cross dangled between the two gray tags. We had never discussed our faiths. The colonel pinched the base of the cross with his thumb and his index finger. He closed his eyes for a moment.
    â€œWell, what you are doing, Lieutenant, is God’s work.” He took a deep breath, “I think there’s something we can find for you in Nairobi for a few days.”
    I almost lost my bearing and gave the old colonel a big bear hug. “Sir, thank you, sir.”
    It was December 2004. I stepped out of the tent, packed my dad’s olive-green duffel bag from Vietnam, and caught the next bird to Nairobi.

CHAPTER ONE

    The Grenade
    West Greenwich, Rhode Island
    MY FATHER WAS THE MAIN REASON I WAS a Marine. He was a warrior, and the war that defined his generation lived on with a vividness and an immediacy that I neither realized nor had the capacity to comprehend as a child. He barely slept and would grunt when I tiptoed to the bathroom in the dead of night. After a neighbor’s home was robbed, Dad added dead bolts to the doors and created barricades with two-by-fours and metal hooks. He positioned a baseball bat next to each door, formed a neighborhood watch, placed lights on automatic timers, and rotated our clunker cars through different locations in the garage and front yard. When we walked through the woods behind our house, he spotted