I am sitting on the dirt bench inside my friend’s hobbit house, after leaving the place I have called home these last four years. I am munching on some roasted ground nuts (well, hobbits do like to eat), reflecting on the last four months, the last four years.
And I feel like I imagine those hobbits felt who had just returned to the Shire from their adventures: struggling to reconcile all that has just happened, with the life they had had before, with the lives that continue on around them. How do the clash of swords and a trek through unforgiving wastelands mesh with the lowing of a cow and the chatter of the neighbour about the weather? How does a shy, bookish girl end up living in a war zone, learning to distinguish the sounds of different types of artillery, instead of just reading about them in her books?
On my journey in the far land I have helped set up a hospital. I have watched hundreds of babies be born. I have closed the eyes of more children than I want to count. I have learned, to some degree, how to eat with my hand without the sauce reaching to my elbow and my fingers being an absolute sticky mess. I have heard many rumours that maybe this is the time the battle will come and have listened to staff recount the nights they spent hiding in the bush.
And now, at least for a time, I have left that far place. I have returned to a place of peace and shopping for groceries and talking about what we are going to eat for dinner.
And we returned hobbits, have not only come back with maybe another inch or two of height or a tiredness around our eyes, but we have come with stories to tell.
We will tell of our enemies. For them it was of the Uruk-hai and Orcs, beasts with grotesque features and fearsome weapons. But, I cannot point at anyone and say, “There is my enemy”. I have delivered the babies of those on that side. I have cared for their children with malaria on the other side. I can understand to some extent why each side fights. Neither are my enemy. Yet I have seen my enemies. Fear has caused people to run from one place to another, as their crops rot in the ground and the possessions they cannot carry are looted and their little ones cry out in hunger and sickness. Hatred has blinded eyes so they no longer see a person, but a tribe, a grievance, a means of revenge, a means of power. And the Ruler of Darkness cheers as he watches those who claim the name of his enemy destroy one another.
But, the stories we will tell are not just the stories of our enemies. We also have journeyed alongside and come to know a king. A king who is now crowned and sitting in majesty upon his throne. One day, just as the dwarves, the elves, the hobbits and men all gathered together before the king; one day the Kakwa, the Dinka, the Nuer, the Nuban, the Kawaja, they will gather before the throne and they will bow down – together – in worship of the King.
But that day is not yet.
Until that day, I am a returned hobbit: no longer unaware of the forces of evil, but also able to recount the power of the King.
And, I will wait for what adventure will happen next.
Life Down the Rutted Red Road 