Searching for the Southern Cross

I think having grown-up in Minnesota, the North Star State, I have always been intrigued by the stars that guided the explores and the sailors at they traveled around the world: the Northern Star and the Southern Cross. My father knew many of the constellations of the northern sky and I remember many nights spent lying in the grass staring at the sky as he explained to me each constellation. I was never very good at remember the constellations but I can still find Orion’s belt, the Seven Sisters, the big and littler dippers, and the North Star. I remember my friend Hugh was the first to show me the Southern Cross in the sky during my first trip to Bolivia, but it wasn’t until my second trip that another friend Peggy showed me how to find it in the sky every night.

For me on my trips to Bolivia and Madagascar each night I would search out that cross in the sky and feel that it was the way home or sort of spiritual grounding point. Here in Kenya on clear nights I can stand on my door step and see the cross hanging low in the sky. Kisumu is just about 60 kilometers south of the equator and though it is the third largest city in Kenya there are few lights on in the city at night so on clear nights I can see the star very well. Unfortunately many nights over the last two months have been cloudly and rainy since we are still in the rainy season here.

In my long days of seeing poverty, sickness, and despair, I feel that seeing that cross is a way of remembering that despite everything I couldn't do to heal someone or improve their health that I am not alone in this world. This isn't to say that every night is easy or that everyday I remember just that, but in some ways it is a process of searching for me, searching for the Southern Cross. The search is about understanding the reality of life here and how I fit into that reality. This reality became very real to me this week when I was working on some data collection at the rural hospital one day and saw a very very sick child of about 1 years old. This child, who had severe pneumonia, was struggling for each breath and the rural hospital just didn't have the medical equipment necessary to ease its breathing. The child fought through the night but died the next day at the hospital before adequate transport could be found to take it to the a larger better equipped hospital. The same day another child died at the same rural hospital, also of severe pneumonia. I have spent much of my summer looking at statistics for this region of Kenya and I know that the infant and child mortality is very high, near 250 deaths for each 1,000 live births. Knowing these statistics doesn't make knowing about two children's deaths any easier to understand or any less sad.


It is experiences like the one from this week that still make me feel that I am searching for the way in the dark and that I am not sure which direction to go and that I need a guide post as big as the sky to help show me the way. Living in a big city and going to school sometimes it is hard to see those stars, and on the same token the stress, speed, and bustle of life make it hard to seek the direction from that I am searching for at times. I am going to miss that easy and true spiritual connection that I feel when I am here beneath the equator, under the light of the Southern Cross.

(Special thanks to Steve and Alene for having first inspired my writing of pieces of this post during their trip to Kenya in 2006).