Joannah

I woke up this morning to the news that my beautiful friend Joannah died yesterday evening. She was shot outside of her home in the Kiambu forest on the outskirts of Nairobi. It seems very likely—perhaps near to certain—that this was the price she paid for her fight to keep that beautiful and lush place from being pillaged and paved over, stripped down to nothing to feed the inexorable creep of human hunger for more.

For most people I know and love, home is no longer a phrase that means what it did for Jo. In our fragmented way of living and being, home doesn’t mean belonging to a place and knowing its essence in our bones. Jo had lived much of her life there in that beautiful forest, raised her children there, tended to her aging father there, built a beautiful home for herself from the very soil under foot. A heart as big as she had couldn’t help but be constantly broken by the atrocities committed against her homeland’s wild and beautiful systems and creatures. I never would have doubted for a moment that she would die to protect that beloved stronghold she called home. Selfishly, I wish so very much she had not had to.

I was fortunate enough to be a guest in that home several times. Memories that were already precious to me that I will secure now in the innermost chamber of my heart. Joyful hours spent lounging on the beautiful deck under swaying trees with Jo and her daughter Siana, cooking and laughing and drinking wine and telling stories and enjoying visits from charismatic cats and even a hedgehog. I know Jo’s life as a Kenyan was never simple, and that she could not always be happy in that place knowing how we treat this Earth and feeling helpless to stop it, but we were very happy in those moments. And that was part of Jo’s magic: being able to release the hurt of those things and give way to childlike delight in the company of loved ones or at the onset of an adventure.

I’m so grateful for the adventures I got to share with Jo. We had some truly epic ones, from the canyons of the Cuyama Valley to the remote vistas of Laikipia County. I treasured every moment I shared with her, and am left wanting more. I will miss so much her wry humor, her easiness to laughter, the incredible warmth that lived just beneath the surface of her tough exterior. I will miss her bold and vivacious spirit, and her deep love of what is good and true and wild and green. I wanted so much for her to know my young son, and even had a hairbrained scheme after he was born to ask her to come live with us for a year or two so she could rub off on him. My heart is broken that these things will not come to pass, but I am so very grateful for the precious times we had. Thank you, Sweet Joannah for being my friend and for the gift of your presence in my life. I will not forget you.