Sweet Home

I am sitting at a beachside cafe in New Jersey.  We drove up to shoot a wedding for a friend of a friend of a friend.  We plan to drive back overnight, pack the remainder of what we own, and move to Kenya on Monday.  Sweet home Alabama comes on the radio.  Surreal and strange this whirlwind of packing and goodbyes has been.  

Alabama had been a sweet home, as were Winston and Greenville and Atlanta.  As will be Kijabe.  

The sounds, sights, and smells will be different high on the mountain.  No mourning dove, no pine trees and azaleas.  Instead roosters, monkeys, acacias, and the St. Bernard-Rottweiler mix that will be our new companion.  

I wonder when I will hear sweet home Alabama come in Kenya?  How surreal will that be?  It will happen, and I will become nostalgic.  But hopefully, by that time our new home will be just as sweet.  

"I'm home anywhere, if you are where I am."  Rich Mullins

**in Birmingham, first leg of the trip to Nairobi, Hakuna Matata comes on the airport radio - quite appropriate:)