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Arrival in Zanzibar
The air is heavy and warm. Cool night air rushes through the car windows, all four windows are rolled down because we’re cruising through the highway. It leads us from town through the tropical Jozani Forest. I breath as deep as I can to be filled with the life-laden winds. We are heading towards Paje village that lies on the south-western coast of Zanzibar. The man driving me, Hassan, is playing Islamic Tanzanian music from a flash drive. The melodies seem to dance in the wind. Palm trees, street cats, and mosques illuminated with warm lights. Sometimes the roadside is a marketplace, sometimes it’s a front yard, and sometimes it brings us deeper into the forrest. Bed frames sit out, fruit stands, and a man selling ice cream from a cart. Beautiful kitenge fabrics hang on lines outside homes. Mango yellow, baby blue, tangerine orange, lime green, fuscia - the colors in kitenge here sing of the seaside and its surroundings.
The stars here are set in the sky just the same as in Nairobi. I smile as I remember my first time seeing the constellations from East Africa, it’s rotation from Los Angeles and Oregon were stark. Now, it’s clear how fast something like the night sky becomes a new familiar to me. The moon is full on this night.
As we drive east the landscape opens up, more grass, larger plots of land, each thing is further from its neighbor. The crickets sing loudly the further we go. The air feels lighter on my skin and in my lungs. The trees are bigger, the houses too. Every few hundred meters a rich, smokey, sweet smell fills the air. Hassan says that every night at this time, the villages we’re driving through burn piles to maintain the forrest. The fragrance of the earth is like a romantic poem to me, courting me to cherish all that is here. Huge mango trees line the road on either side. Just past them are palm trees, banana trees, and fiery orange flowering shrubs.
The small buses here are called Dalas Dalas's. One passes by full of construction men perhaps ending their work day. The night sky is a warm blue. The full moon carves out silhouettes of palm trees and tin roofs of brick houses.
The air gets warm again. We approach Paje beach.
This is where I will live for fourteen days.
WE YOUR TEMPLE
It all begins with an idea.
8/21/2023
Yesterday I went to a Hindu temple in Bali called Pura Luhur Uluwatu. As we walked along the Cliffside overlooking the Indian Ocean the sun began its swift and brilliant descent over the horizon. We were lost for words by the majesty of the view. Bright pink flowers cover the cliffside and turn into green and grey rocks on the shore far below. The stone walkways were laid with offerings to the Hindu gods and inscents decorated the air. In all honesty, as I marveled at the splendor, there came a moment when I selfishly thought of the one I worship, Jesus. I wished I could create a temple this magnificent in his name. Looking out at the sea and sky that He so tenderly birthed out of darkness, I thought that He is so deserving of such a temple.
There’s a song that sings, “oh the glory of your presence, we your temple give you reverence”. I have heard scripture of the body as God’s temple before (as in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19). I mostly heard it referenced in conversations of sobriety, modesty or sanctification. Today, however, as I heard these words I was struck by the beauty of it. That God would prefer to reveal His splendor through us, that we would be the ultimate display of His glory through the gospel, His masterpiece as He says in Ephesians (chapter 2 verse 10); as I thought about it today I realized it as God wishing to honor us, to call us most beautiful, most sacred, most beloved, a sanctuary for Him to find rest in. It was one of those times when the word becomes rema - alive in your spirit - and it stirred my soul so that I was moved to tears.
The Gold Painted Jarik
In a city of Central Java called Solo, I toured a museum collection of batik called the Danar Hadi Batik Museum. One textile from Kesultanan Yogyakarta was covered in the small flower motif called Truntrun, ornamented with pure gold flecks. The gold was painted on using egg whites for the princes coming of age ceremony nearly 200 years ago. Upon close inspection you could still see the residual egg white surrounding the ornamentations on the fabric. The piece itself was worn only once by the prince and since then has never been washed. It was gifted to him by the king following his circumcision ritual, which traditionally would happen around the age of twelve. For princesses the coming of age ritual would occur when she had her first menstruation. It was incredible to imagine the time and precision that went into attaching each gold fleck to the fabric, to be worn for only a few hours. This fabric to me, more than any other in the museum’s collection, commemorated Batik as a ceremonial voice. In this royal tradition it speaks of parental blessing, a covering of kingdom, like Josephs cloak of dreams, it is a gift and a blessing given.
To learn more about Batik and my visit to this museum, click here