faster than the speed of night

Things that take 15 minutes: from home (Mumias) to the next town at 60MPH; Wilco's Less Than You Think; cooking Santa Lucia spaghetti; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech; Andy Warhol's record-setting auction at Christie's; a half-litre tub of ice cream to completely melt at room temperature. Short-lived, fleeting fame is called 15 minutes of fame. It also takes 15 minutes for hijackers to completely clean you out when they jack your car at end month, depending on how far from the bank you live. A friend of mine was jacked last week, and it happened to her exactly that way. They took her just as she was driving into their compound (it seems the watchman let them in) and suddenly she sees two people one with a gun. They get in, drive off with her, first to the bank to get all her cash, then they wait till next day to get the rest, then they went with her very far from town and left her by the streets and went with her car. Because this was week 1, plus the week after Easter weekend, you need to understand that when I say they took everything I mean literally everything. None of her bills was paid, her shopping wasn't done, and she hadn't even paid the rent.

Then the most amazing thing happened - she mentioned it to one or two of her closest friends in the office (and told me too somehow - I have those like large ears and I ask questions) and then it spread through the grapevine, and all of a sudden there was all these people stepping up offering to help. You know, giving cash, in kind, whatever. Everyone was so nice and helpful, right from her landlady giving her an extension on the rent. She never even had to ask, guys were just volunteering. Plus the cops actually found her car in a day. I happened to be with her when she was receiving part of the cash, and I remember exclaiming "Wow, you've got a strong support group!" And I really did think so. Our setup is sort of like a school in the sense that every year they hire many new people so we have lots based on year hired so people are obviously closer with guys their own lot, and she's from the lot two years ahead of mine (but we're still friends) so I may have assumed her lot have organized themselves into a sort of chamma or something and that's where all that stuff is coming from.

What I didn't realise, was that there was no such thing. They were just people helping out another person because they could. Turns out that so called "support group" was really just people like me. So I finally looked for her and asked how I could be of help, and I felt much better after that. All day yesterday I was actually beating myself up over having not gotten it sooner. See I grew up self-sufficient, so while I'm not overly stingy, if someone doesn't ask for something I just go ahead and assume it's coz they don't need it so I don't offer. Or at least I used not to. I'm getting better but some situations clearly still fall through the cracks. She was telling me that thing just started as a joke and she's such a good sport so she was laughing with everyone about it like a day after it happened. She could not have thought the guys were actually being serious until the stuff started trickling in. And I was like, ya, people can surprise you that way sometimes. Truth is, they surprised even me. Human beings have an unyielding capacity for love. Maybe not all of us have, but those that do inspire those of us who don't. And I can only hope that one day I'll reach that place where I'll actually be the one coming up with the initiatives. Where reaching out to a soul in need will be more instinct than the product of prodding and conscience-beating. I heard this as a voiceover on Grey's once, long ago when I was still in school: No matter how hard we try, no matter how much we fight, we fall sometimes. But there's an upside to falling - it's the chance we give our friends to catch us.

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