New Years Eves of Yore

So I never forget….

2005: The beginning of a habit.  Traveling NYE’s.  This year I spent the New Year drinking bucket cocktails on the streets of Bangkok.  Ate pad thai, and watched the throngs of tourists returning from tsunami ridden areas of Thailand.  I was with my friend Lillian, and we embarked on a great adventure to Cambodia the next day.


2006: I was lucky enough to attend the Tibetan Studies program in January.  We went on a middle of the night boat tour of the Ganges in Varanasi.  I gave blessings to the river, drank chai from clay cups, and watched the sun rise. 


2007:  To ring in 2007 I boarded a plane home from Cambodia.  I rang in the New Year asleep in premier economy on Thai Airways.  I awoke to 2007 in the United States.  It was bittersweet.


2008:  I fell asleep before midnight in New York City.  My gf at the time was not amused.


2009:  I honestly can’t remember.  I think i was in NYC.  Maybe I was in Beijing.  I went to Beijing that January….


2010: I went to India to celebrate my best friend from graduate school’s wedding.  It was magical.  Seriously.  The entire evening was like something from a Bollywood film.  We danced by the fire, drank cocktails, and celebrated like it was the end of the world.  It wasn’t, but it was stunning.


2011: I had just turned a friend into a lover.  She is the love of my life.  We were stunningly happy (still are). We kissed at midnight.  It was the first time in years I had a kiss at midnight, maybe the first time ever.  We were in the mountains of Colorado, and it couldn’t have been better.


2012: Last night I drank Tusker with three of my favorite people.  The head of staff for MOSIKO, my moto driver (and good buddy) and his wife.  We listened to bad pop music, danced in the grass, shouted to the sky, and went to sleep promptly at 12:01am. 

Must not forget…

I will be in Kenya twice a year into the foreseeable future.  I often forget to write down the ways in which Muhuru Bay touches me.  It stirs my heart and tugs at my soul strings, calls me back time and again.

-Mama’s hug.  Her rough hands.  How beautiful she looks when she smiles at me.

-Gray shoved fistfulls of ripe mangoes in his pockets today. He smiled gleefully from treetops as he did so. While we walked home, him in the lead, his trousers fought gravity with all their might.  Every 10 steps, I yanked his trousers to aid in their fight.  We sat on a rock wall and ate together, mango juice running through our fingers.

-“White people can climb trees too!” I exclaimed when someone asked me if I was having any trouble scaling the tree near the water hole.