Angel and the Orphan

By Neil Moreau

From eating raw potatoes in abandonment to being personally served cake by a future African President, experience the extraordinary life of an orphan child through a tapestry of divine interventions and mystical adventures. Driven by his quest to understand the enigmatic voice that has persistently guided and saved him from the jaws of death, each chapter unfolds a series of astonishing true stories.

Witness harrowing accounts of kidnapping, murder, and suicide, juxtaposed against uplifting moments, like growing up as a white child in an Aboriginal orphanage, miraculously surviving an Al-Shabaab terrorist attack, and working as a compassionate paramedic. Journey alongside him as he solves the 110-year-old mystery of a missing police officer and champions the cause of Albino children targeted by witchdoctors in Africa.

Spanning continents – from Northern Ireland and Austria to the USA, Africa, and Canada – these magical yet deeply human stories are not just a testament to one man’s resilience but also an exploration of the unseen forces that guide us all. Take this global odyssey and witness the miraculous in the mundane, the divine in the everyday.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798886934410

Neil Moreau

Born at Niagara Falls, Canada, Neil has spent thirty years on the Canadian prairies, lived twice in Eastern Africa, resided in the Northern United States and on the South Pacific Island of Fiji, as well as six years in La Belle Province of Quebec. He is very proud of his two wonderful adult sons. You will find Neil currently with sea breeze in his hair and the Northern Rainforest mist on his back, living the dream on Vancouver Island off the Pacific coast of Canada.  

Book preview

About the Author

Born at Niagara Falls, Canada, Neil has spent thirty years on the Canadian prairies, lived twice in Eastern Africa, resided in the Northern United States and on the South Pacific Island of Fiji, as well as six years in La Belle Province of Quebec. He is very proud of his two wonderful adult sons. You will find Neil currently with sea breeze in his hair and the Northern Rainforest mist on his back, living the dream on Vancouver Island off the Pacific coast of Canada.

Dedication

To all my family and loved ones that left me too soon but still guide me today.

To my sons, Evan and Jarrod, you mean so much to me that I have told the stars and the moon about you.

To my sister, Caroline, for being there and making our very small family a family.

To Sylvia, who is still here with me in the quietist moments…

To the ‘lost boys and girls,’ may you find your ‘neverland’…

Copyright Information ©

Neil Moreau 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Moreau, Neil

Angel and the Orphan

ISBN 9798886934397 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798886934403 (Hardback)

ISBN 9798886934410 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024900013

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

In Neil’s debut novel, he tells of his personal memoirs of being abandoned and left to survive using only his courage, born from hunger for weeks, as a child. Then ironically, years later, being served anniversary cake by the future President of Kenya, while in Africa.

Follow the mystical life of an orphan through his eyes, and own words, telling the amazing adventures and divine interventions that occurred. Driven by his personal search to find the origins of the spiritual and mysterious voice that continues to guide and save him from certain death. Each chapter contains life-changing true stories about kidnapping, murder, suicide, being a white child in an Aboriginal Orphanage, escaping an Al-Shabaab terrorist attack, working as an Advanced Paramedic, successfully finding the lost body of a Police Officer missing for 110 years and helping to save children with albinism from witch doctors in Africa. This courage-inspiring, very raw human stories occur across Canada, and in Northern Ireland, Austria, Germany, USA, Kenya, Mexico, Jamaica, as well as the Oceanic Island of Fiji. Follow his struggles, tribulations and sacrifices betwixt cradle and near-death experiences in his search for the peace that surpasses all understanding… Neil knows firsthand that there is more to this life than what we can see.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist.

– Jack London

Chapter 1

Sitting in the passenger seat on the left – as this was a British Colonial country – I could see the fast-approaching Kibera slums. Kibera – derived from a Nubian word meaning jungle. There are slums all over the world, but none are like the Kibera jungle. This Tin City is home to an estimated one million plus people and counting. When looking at it for the first time, your eyes can’t focus solely on the almost apocalyptic vision.

The energy draining mid-day sun was bouncing off this panoramic scene before us. But not before warming hundreds of thousands of corrugated metal roofs of this city that covers every square inch of the ginger-colored soil, rolling gently over three hills in the distance.

Kibera did not happen for over a decade, like many immigration camps. This camp was started over one hundred years ago, as a way for the then-British-Colonial government overlords to segregate their unwanted population. The growth spurred on over decades with the help of not only Kenyans fleeing tribal wars and poor rural living conditions, but also by Ethiopian, Sudan, Uganda, and Somalia immigrants fleeing wars or destitute situations. Kibera today, has the unfavorable distinction of being Africa’s largest shantytown slums.

Finally, after a stressful long eight hour drive in the sweltering African sun, A’marie and I arrived at Nairobi, the Capital City of Kenya, and its city limits. A’marie had been my female liaison and guide since my arrival in Kenya a month ago. She was now taking me to the airport for my long flight home.

An eight hour drive anywhere can be long, but when you traverse one of the most dangerous highways in the world with thousands of deaths every year and roaming cut-throat bandits, this is an exhausting feat in itself.

We welcomed the hot dusty overcrowded streets of this January dry season, because here if our car broke down, we had a better chance of survival than the gauntlet of death that is the Nakuru Highway. The extremely arid red and brown soil bathed everyone and everything with a dry dusting of its terra cotta powder. But with the long arduous journey behind us and reaching our destination, it was almost comforting like a warm hug. A’marie was driving as we had agreed. I would drive the lion’s share, but she would drive in Nairobi, with its congested, crazy routes and little-to-no road rules. She knew this East African City, having spent years here in law school and working after that which made this her second home.

A’marie was just a few years younger than me, but any woman growing up in a masculine world where she had the smarts and strength to pursue and obtain an honorable career as she did, showed her great personal resilience. She lived up to her name which meant, ‘gracious under pressure, a rebel’. Alone, she raised two grown daughters as a single mom and also served as a Federal Judge for Kenya, a feat not many women have accomplished. She spoke three languages: English, Kiswahili and her mother tongue, one of forty Kenya dialects.

We passed thousands of people on foot, close enough to hear them at work, negotiating in Kiswahili, for their daily needs. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. That was the driving force for many to walk a dozen kilometers to and from home for the minuscule $5.00 USD reward for eight hours’ work. As we pulled up to our first intersection, we both, without spoken words, rolled up our windows which instantly trapped more excessively broiling hot air inside our car with no AC.

We became accustomed to doing this because not long ago, A’marie had been robbed at an intersection much like this, while waiting for the light to change. She had a robber’s gun with his sweaty grip pointed at her head through an open window.

Now we do as most Kenyans do, roll up our windows no matter how uncomfortable the heat is when we are slowing or stopping in traffic. Better hot, then shot… – a saying that we stayed alive by. Even with the windows closed, you could hear over the traffic sounds a million voices speaking from the crowds wanting to be heard.

Our last rest-stop was over two hours before and the unrelenting heat had taken away any need for us to use a washroom, but we were still hungry.

I would like to take you to a great restaurant in the city center, A’marie said in her thick Kenya-British dialect.

Sure, is it far? I responded, knowing it was a good question because it could sometimes take three hours to cross this large traffic-snarled international city.

No, not long, maybe… twenty minutes!

Great, let’s go!

Shifting gears, A’marie said, I have always enjoyed this restaurant because they serve wonderful European foods, and many internationals go there, and it has a beautiful hotel right beside it that foreigners stay at for conferences.

This would be a nice surprise after such a long hazardous drive, and the day was far from over as I had to catch a midnight flight to Frankfurt Germany later that same day.

My mind turned to my wife, Sylvia, who was at home, sick, a world away. It did not take much for my thoughts to go to her and wonder how she was doing. We decided together that I would make this humanitarian working trip for both of us. She planned all the logistics and travel details as well as buying needed items for projects and smaller items to give to individuals like belts for sewing machines and toothbrushes not always available to the poor in Kenya because of cost and scarcity. So, while I made this trip, three continents and ten time zones away, she was waiting for my return on Vancouver Island in the North Pacific Ocean.

It is a large Island off the Canadian coast shrouded year-round by snow-capped mountains and deep northern rainforests, which grow right to the sandy shorelines. I thought of my children as well. It had been several months since the last of the four grown children moved away, pursuing what life had to offer them. Two of the four children are mine from a previous marriage and two are Sylvia’s, but they had spent a decade growing up together.

When I arrived a month earlier in Kenya, A’marie asked me if I wanted to go on a safari or do something like the other tourist would do, but I told her, No thank you, A’marie. I would rather do what you do and spend my time in the day-to-day activities that Kenyans do, but thank you for asking!

This being said, she did not disappoint as I spent a very busy time there. I was kept active by going to funerals, parties, gatherings, school meetings and day-to-day struggles of going to town to gather what items we needed. I met many amazing people and was able to change the lives of countless people in the successful projects I had taken on.

Mostly, the children with albinism was the reason I made the trip. These ‘Ghost Children’ are born with white skin, whiter than even mine. They are hunted at the request of some of the 8500 Kenyan witch doctors for what they believe is the mystical power of the white skin and body parts. They were the main reason I traveled some 15000 km to Africa where the arm of a child would fetch $7500 USD, equivalent to three year’s wage in Kenya. Once there, the children’s secured compound was the main project that I was working on.

I was also there to improve the greenhouses and irrigation to help obtain a more reliable water supply and a place to grow staple foods such as nightshade, and other green vegetables.

I was often asked what church I belonged to, but to their surprise, the project was being done financially from Sylvia’s and my own personal investment funds.

The children are called Ghost Children because as they grow older, they would just disappear one day from the public view. In truth, they died of skin cancer, blindness and resulting starvation, because they could not fend for themselves.

Worse yet, hunters are sometimes sent by unethical witch doctors who want to use the children’s body parts for magical concoctions. Such as leg tendons being woven into fishing nets to bring ‘luck’ to your fishing endeavors. There are thousands of good witch doctors in Eastern Africa, but unfortunately, there are those doctors that use the children as a commodity for financial gain. It is falsely said that a man with aids can rid himself of aids by raping a girl with albinism and by then passing the illness to the child.

Sadly, the distraught parents of a child with albinism who died would be forced to bury their child in the dark of night by flashlight to limit the chance of the deceased child being dug up and desecrated.

But now I had accomplished what I had come here to do and completed all of the projects and dozens of other smaller activities. I did not know if I would be coming back again to Kenya, but I knew there was much more there still to be done. Right now, it was time to go home to Sylvia, and my sons, Evan and Jarrod, who I missed immensely.

Arriving at our restaurant destination and beating the oncoming traffic to the corner, A’marie quickly turned into the long driveway of the DusitD2 Hotel complex. Well-groomed and full of colors, the grounds are even more beautiful than many of the nearly one hundred International Embassies off Upper Hill or Estate Funusi areas of Nairobi. The Hotel was flanked on both sides by High tower residences, university buildings and government offices. I could see why this was a popular place for internationals, like A’marie mentioned.

We drove along the paved driveway till the end and fortunately we were at the front of several cars, so we had the first choice of the next open parking space. Unfortunately, the problem was that when we arrived at the curved parking, there were no empty spaces available. Both of us looking left then right as we closely examined any possible opportunity to park. No one was leaving, no reverse taillights were activated, no one walking to their car, no one leaving the restaurant. Nothing! Damn, I thought. I was getting quite hungry.

Then I heard the Voice in my head. A familiar Voice I heard all my life. Neither A’marie nor anyone else ever heard it. No one ever could. The Voice was once again straight to the point. It never used very many words and it was not judgmental. Firm but not angry. It was never a discussion; it was more of a command.

You need to leave now! it said as I looked at A’marie, certain she heard such a loud voice, but she had heard nothing.

You need to leave now! the voice repeated. I looked at A’marie a second time and said, A’marie, let’s go! Let’s plan on doing this the next time I’m here! Not knowing if I would ever be back.

Just then, one of the four cars behind us angrily honked their horn twice out of impatience. Irritated by this, I thought to myself, Why are they in such a rush? Can they not see there is no place to park!

Hearing the car horn, A’marie begrudgingly agreed even though she was as hungry as I was. She turned the steering wheel and directed our car in the same direction as we used to get in the hotel, leaving behind the restless and anxious drivers in our rearview mirror.

Just as we reached the road entrance to the hotel, we heard a strange loud noise but A’marie’s cell phone rang a second after that. To which she promptly reached into her purse, and she quickly pressed the talk button.

It’s my daughter, Chepkirui! A’marie said to me while trying to navigate the car to the hotel entrance.

Having my ear only a short distance from her cell, I could easily hear the panicked voice of a girl yell into the phone screaming, Mum, they are attacking! Terrorists are attacking! They are killing people at the hotel entrance beside me!

Without hesitation, A’marie replied loudly into the phone while shouting, Run, run, run! Just run away and hide somewhere safe! Don’t call me, just text me when you are safe!

With that, the call ended and we were still at the hotel entrance. A’marie looked at me with terror in her eyes and said, That was Chepkirui, my youngest daughter!

She said terrorists are attacking behind us at the hotel parking space! She’s a student at the university next door, doing her medical courses! I told her to run away and hide!

Time seemed to have frozen at that terrifying moment. We could not move forwards because of heavy traffic and going back would mean certain instant death for us both, and death would not be denied his quota of souls this day.

We were trapped.

In life’s journey, we are all supposed to be right where we are meant to be, right at that moment in time. Whatever the constantly changing personal events may be, whether the moment is good or bad… we are meant to be right there. Those roads on life’s highway are so important. It is at that point that free will takes over and we make our next destiny-changing move in the fates game of chess which may save us… or kill us.

The Al-Shabaab terrorists at the Hotel were doing their deadly mission in retaliation for what they believe is Kenya’s involvement in the Somalia Civil War. They were right where their free will meant them to be. The Kenyan Defense Force, backed by the United Nations, was doing what was needed to stop terrorist acts against the civilian population of neighboring Somalia and using their free will to do so. The KDF was right where they were supposed to be that day, as well – at the local airport. Today, five Somalian terrorists will die, but will have murdered twenty-two innocent people and injured another thirty bystanders by day’s end.

Were A’marie and myself meant to live only because we could not find a parking space?

Did our delay in looking for a parking space stop the terrorist in the cars behind us from killing a person leaving the location or kill someone who just arrived a few seconds later?

This is not the first time I was so close to death. There were few reasons why A’marie and I were still alive, besides that there were no parking spaces, the voice in my head that commanded me to leave the area and of course death was not interested in my soul because he had his sights set on a much bigger prize that day.

Why did the Voice save me again?

Who was the Voice? Was it my imagination or maybe God or Allah, perhaps a guardian Angel or the soul of a deceased ancestor? We all have more questions than answers when it comes to the unknown such as this. But whatever or whoever it was, I knew for sure it was no coincidence. The Voice was my constant-companion and had been with me since my birth. It would most likely be right there beside me at the moment of my death when all my questions would be finally answered. Right now, I was exactly right where I was supposed to be at that moment just as I was born at a pre-destined second.

As our car drove back to the entrance of the hotel driveway, there were no drivers of cars trying to muscle past us. I watched the devastation in my rear-view mirror start to disappear behind the tall floral garden, wrapping around it like angel’s wings.

Their fate was not ours because they were probably dead in the carnage that ensued only a short distance behind us in the parking lot.

But there were plenty of people ahead of us on the main road. By then, many people may have heard from their family or friends on cell phones about the attack as we had. Everywhere we looked, we saw panicked people running away in the middle of the moving traffic, and on the sidewalks, trying desperately to escape whatever tragic story was being playing out a stone’s throw away.

The car radio announced the terrorist attack, with a slight panic in his voice. The announcer instructed anyone listening to leave the city core by any means possible. But the traffic was now at a complete involuntary standstill. Soldiers and police were already putting up roadblocks in all directions in their search of terrorists or to slow the attackers escape, which froze in time the city’s downtown area. Within minutes, only meters above our heads, military helicopters started passing by in the direction of the hotel because of our proximity to the Airport Military Base.

I am not a man without fear, but at that moment, A’marie and I made the split-second choice not to run and to stay in the car. This was a good decision because a space opened in the traffic, and we were able to push forward once more. Dozens of police and military troop trucks, as well as ambulances, started flooding into the city center.

As quickly as it started, it was over and we found ourselves several blocks away heading towards A’marie’s second home she had in Nairobi. The symbolic finger that was on the trigger of fear finally released itself as we traveled further away, but would still be felt by some four million people in Nairobi for another night.

We still had not eaten and knew there was nothing in her empty fridge, so we had to stop at a grocery store. This gave A’marie time to call her daughter and find out if she was safe and away from the danger she had been in. Because she was a student training to become a medical doctor, Chepkirui ran several blocks to the nearby hospital where she knew the victims would be taken, thinking they may need her help.

Meanwhile, A’marie and I entered the medium-sized grocery store and started loading two baskets with the necessary food. At that moment, both my ears were ringing very loudly from a non-human made sound that only I could hear. I knew instinctively that this was a hidden message to me which made me look around. A’marie and I were shocked to see that we were the only ones moving around in the crowded store. Standing with our half-full baskets, we saw that the checkout girls stopped running items through and they and all the customers and floor managers were motionless, staring backwards at a giant pile of televisions for sale.

Several of the televisions were activated, facing the crowd of people now standing in front of them. Across the screens you could see the scene that was unfolding we had just left behind us, with cars in the parking lot burning from explosions, people slouched over while running in every direction escaping from the gunfire and soldiers and police grabbing or dragging the wounded to safety. It hit home for both of us that we could still have been there and assuredly be one of the growing numbers of dead.

We were at her house thirty minutes later and turned on the television to get the latest update. But everything was in turmoil and any update was limited and unreliable. While A’marie called family and friends, some of whom were in the military base adjoining the Nairobi Airport, I tried to get a game plan for my midnight departure. Was the flight cancelled? Could I get to the airport? As in any situation like this, I had more questions than answers.

Looking at my watch and doing the math, I realized it was 3 am Vancouver Island time… I would take my chances and not call and disturb my wife, Sylvia. My absence and her illness had kept her from sleeping very well and my call would be of no help and only disturbing.

Looking at my watch again, I thought of my youngest son, Jarrod. He is three-to-four hours later in time and must be awake. My oldest son, Evan, was in the same time-zone as Sylvia, so calling him would be too early and he might not have his phone beside his bed. Picking up my cell phone, I tried making the international call to Jarrod, and on the third ring across seven time zones and three continents, he picked up.

Hello, Dad, what’s up! he said with the tone of someone who had been awake for a while.

Listen, Jarrod, there’s been a terrorist attack here in Nairobi! I’m ok! But… I don’t know what is going to happen as the attack is still going on.

I explained to him my concerns in a way so as to try and not to make him unnecessarily worried. I asked him to let his brother and Sylvia know that I was still going to try and get on the midnight flight and would try and call if something else happened. With that, I told him I loved him… I wanted to tell him to let the other two know I loved them as well, but did not want to alarm him. He said he loved me too and to stay safe as the line went dead.

A’marie and I ate a small supper on empty stomachs. Our earlier appetite had been lost because of today’s tragic events. I did a final inspection of my baggage, which I did not need to do, but I had nervous energy I was trying to get rid of. The airport was about twenty-five minutes away in the evening traffic but at least it was on our side of Nairobi.

You could feel the nervous excitement on the now darkened streets as we drove while anticipating the problem of having to get through several heavily armed roadblocks. The search would continue all night at the hotel for terrorists and victims. But at last, we made it to the road going into the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, named after Kenya’s first president and prime minister.

Here, the streetlights disappeared or were broken so we could only see what our dust-covered headlights could show us. That’s when out of the dark appeared several very well-armed soldiers or police, but it was too dark to see their uniforms covered in camouflage gear. The officer pointed his gun at A’marie’s face while she rolled down the window. Looking at my obvious white face, he then looked back at A’marie and asked in Kiswahili, ‘who of us was flying’ and she told him I was. Walking around the car to my door, he pointed his AK-47 at me shouting, Get out! The tone of his voice and the cold steel barrel of his gun left no room for negotiation. Sliding quickly out the door, I showed him my passport and I asked, Should I take my bags?

No, just your passport! Gesturing further down the road into the dark of night, he said with black unblinking eyes, Keep walking until you reach a checkpoint! Don’t stop, don’t turn around!

Without further questions, even though I had a dozen, I shut my mouth and my passport and started my walk in the dark.

It is not common knowledge for people who have never been there, but on the East side of the large Nairobi Capital is the open Savanna. It has only a newly-built four-lane highway and a small fence that separates lions, leopards, hyenas, rhinoceroses, elephants and a dozen other of the ‘big five’ that could easily and happily end your life. They were now only one road away from me and my late-night and unexpected walking safari.

At that moment, even with what I thought was a lion’s stomach growling, I was more scared of the terrorists that still had not been found. Squinting into the dark, I saw a single streetlight ahead and could feel my footsteps gaining speed. Once again, more soldiers were waiting for my arrival. This time, they did a head-to-toe body search of me and another check of my passport before sending me further into the waiting night down the road once more. But this time, from out of the dark emerged more and more people who were walking in the same direction to what fate, we did not know, which was now causing a cloud of road grime to rise above our heads further into the faintly dusk-lit sky.

At the next streetlight, it became a gathering point for about 200 people, including myself. Now everyone was looking at the direction we had just traveled in, and one by one, a car would appear out of the dark in a cloud of dust, looking for their anticipating and anxious soot-covered passengers.

The problem we all faced was that nearly all the cars were white, and it was pitch black outside and yes, the drivers were black-skinned inside the cars so you could not see inside the vehicles. Actually, knowing which of the speeding white cars was yours had now become a problem. The ever-growing crowd of people fleeing would now move in unison as a surging group, when we leaned forward, staring into each car arriving.

Like winning the lottery, I found A’marie by literally walking right up to within inches of the driver’s window to investigate the car, making sure it was her. Once back in the car, almost breathlessly, A’marie apologized for the delay. The soldiers searched her and the car, under the bonnet and the carriage with mirrors and dogs before letting her go further along the road.

Arriving at the airport parking lot I unloaded my baggage onto a near-by cart and said a quick good-bye to A’marie with a hug and kiss on the cheek. We told each other to be safe and when I said we will talk again she replied, Inshallah! – God willing! With those words, I quickly entered the Airport.

You would need a chainsaw to cut the tension, it was so thick in the terminal area. I remember being in the Frankfurt Germany Airport when I was 16 years old, almost forty years ago now. Sometime before I arrived, there was a terrorist bomb that detonated killing several people including two small children. But here in Nairobi, this was fresh with terrorism activity.

What was to be, for most, a cheerful good-bye to their loved ones as they took a flight to some holiday destination, did not show on their faces. These were not the faces of happy tourists. These were the faces of an African Nation facing yet another deadly terrorist attack in their Mother country. You could tell that some of the people traveling had little time to pack and looked like it was a last-minute decision to escape Kenya.

With the ever-presence of dozens of police and military soldiers everywhere, we were herded towards our designated enclosures and gates. Once through the necessary and more than usual interrogation, I made it to my departure lounge and sat down in an empty chair like a marathon runner crossing the finish line.

Nobody was beyond scrutiny and suspicion of being involved with what was still happening in Nairobi and the terrorist attack. Even the few white people like myself were watched for any suspicious activity. All the televisions were turned-off and soldiers would tell you to shut-off your cellular phones if they caught you talking or texting on them. This was not Kenya’s first rodeo; they knew that terrorists would watch the attack on television and relay important information to others in furthering their mission of terror.

After the clocks on the walls continued to go, what felt like backwards, for several hours, it was finally time for me to board the flight, I was so happy to be leaving but at the same time, I felt somewhat guilty for leaving my many friends behind. As I started walking onto the aircraft looking for my seat, I could still see the stress and anxiety of those already seated. I saw an elderly white woman who was traveling with her granddaughter. As I passed, she looked into my eyes and held me there. I forced a soft smile on my face which gave her a moment of peace. We were all in this together.

I remember Dave Chappelle, an American black comedian talking about terrorist attacks in his monologue. He said something along the lines of black people were not worried about terrorists hijacking a flight because it was the white people who would be attacked or taken hostage. This was because the White House did not care about the black lives and would probably just hang up the phone when a terrorist called to say that they had a black hostage.

Well, this is true in some sense in that the flight I just got on was about 95% dark skinned passengers and if there were terrorists aboard, Dave would be right. Thanks Dave!

It takes almost eight hours to fly from Nairobi to Frankfurt Germany, which meant we would have an early morning arrival. I did not sleep because of all that happened today and had now been up more than twenty-four hours. I was lucky to have a window seat. So, I spent the night looking at the long-since dead sleeping Volcanoes, Lake Victoria, large swaths of the jungle in Uganda, and the vast desert sands of the Horn of Africa disappear behind me as I headed towards Europe. The contrasting peaceful, and blackened star-lit-sky gave me time to digest all that turmoil that was served to me in the last 12 hours.

I expressed a sigh of relief as many others did on this midnight flight when the aircraft lurched to a stop at our arrival gate. As we debarked the plane and started to climb to the terminal, our greeting party was already waiting for us. We were the first flight out of Nairobi after the Al-Shabaab terrorist attack, and the question of whether there were still terrorists on the flight had to be answered.

Rounding a corner on the docking ramp going into the terminal, we were confronted by a silent wall of uniformed policemen six-deep. With a hard German accent, the closest officer to us started yelling in English for us to stop where we were. We were then instructed to remove our passport and to hold it open and up to our chest level while on our photo page. We then were ordered to move forward one at a time. Once reaching the fortification of uniforms, the police did not step to the side, and we were forced to zig-zag through the armed group. Looking first at me then my photo, I was told to keep moving by each row of officers.

They were looking for dark-skinned terrorists. Dave Chappelle would now have found himself, I’m guessing, up against the wall before he made it past the barrier like all the others stopped that early morning in Germany…

It is moments like these that we are forced to have a closer look at our existence. No matter how advanced we become as a civilization, from cradle to grave we still have a personal struggle to find the answer for… Where did I come from? and Why am I here?

Surprisingly even some members of religious groups, such as Rabbis to Nun’s, at times, ask these questions of themselves with uncertainty. They are well-versed in repeating the written words exactly as it was told to them in the Bible, Koran or Tripitaka, but they do not know much more than that.

Their deep-seated uncertainty comes from not listening to their internal voices. The secrets are there for them to discover but they are like many others, and they become soul deaf over time from the white noise that surrounds them in this over-stimulated filled life of media, social networks and electronics.

They do not see the miracles and signs right in front of them. Too many lose their way by using their free will and choosing the wrong path and get in trouble in their misguided search for awareness and insight.

Some people will not care, leaving any chance of salvation in the past and to pure luck. But most humans will be drawn to the question by the mystery. They will try to understand and be absorbed in their quest for redemption. Once tired from this lifelong search, they may put this crusade for the question of existence to the side and return months or years later when a death or life itself puts the question back in their mind’s eye.

Why are we driven and guided by an unknown force that allows us to have free will that can either save us or destroy us on the path to Understanding? I know the answer to this is personal and unique to each of us, and if we are lucky, we might truly find what the answers are to the meaning of our life.

But you must look at your whole life from birth until the present day. It is there that you will find the answers and the amazing gift granted to you that has been hidden inside of you all along waiting for you to listen to the whispers of Salvation.

Chapter 2

How consoling it is to know that we have a spirit who, from the womb to the tomb, never leaves us even for an instant, not even when we dare to sin. And this heavenly spirit guides and protects us like a friend, a brother.

– Saint Padre Pio 1887–1968

Niagara Falls, Canada, 1965

Normally in life, children grow-up with their grandparents living close by or under the same roof and sometimes even with another extended family as well. Or at least at times, the grandparents will have minimal to some involvement in the life of their grandchild. I have no written diary, but I have been blessed with a great memory which would be a saving grace in life. My grandmother, Margaret, had so much more involvement in my growing up and intervened many times more than my mother or father had or could have. Once by accident, she almost killed me, but she also more often than not saved me by pulling me out of the present danger I was in.

My divorced mother in her desire to become an independent, successful businesswoman moved out to the West Coast of Canada in 1965 with her children. Once there, she purchased a raspberry farm and started to try and build her empire. Unfortunately, she seemingly forgot to move me with her, and I was left with my grandmother in Niagara Falls under her loving care. I was too young to remember this, but my grandmother shared this information with me in stories and photos of her and myself taken in the early months of my life. This would not be the last time my grandmother and I would be alone together and not the last time I would lose my mother in my lifetime.

My grandmother was born in 1910, in a quiet small suburb near the Ontario, Quebec, border in Canada. Most living in those times would have found it an arduous existence, but my grandmother’s life was even more challenging due to poverty. The landscape of life, or the world, it seemed, was against her from the start. First the World War I broke out then the Spanish Flu, the birth of her two children and after that came World War II. She would be thirty-five years old before it ended. As a result, she had lost so many years of opportunity to save money because it was nearly impossible in that era, because when you finally started making some headway financially, the next global tragedy struck you down. She would be forced to continue to work relentlessly and twenty years later, I showed up on her doorstep and would be the next financial burden to her, but she never once thought of turning me away.

One late warm summer night, my grandmother said that I woke her up because I was fussing. She said something was not right, so she went into my room to check in on me. It was at that time she realized that I was not fussing. Instead, she could hear me cooing at something, but I was not crying.

Why are you awake, little one? she said looking down at me in my cradle.

Suddenly the house started to shake, and my grandmother knew right away it was an earthquake rolling through the area. She quickly picked me up and held me crouched down in a doorway until the earth shaking was over. This was something she learned to do from the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred only a couple of years before.

At the time, the local radio station had a contest for the best news story of the month.

So later that morning, she called the radio station. Thinking that several people must have already called in before her, she thought she would just try anyways.

Hello, I would like to report an earthquake that happened last night.

There was a rather long pause and the person at the radio station answered, Earthquake? Last night? That’s a new one! There are no news reports about that on the wire… But ok I’ll write your name and number down.

After checking later with the local Geological Centre, it was found that yes indeed there was an earthquake as my grandmother had reported. But they had to wait until the end of the month to declare a winner.

My grandmother was starting to second guess herself about the ’tremblement de terre’, when after a week the phone rang and sure enough, she had won that month’s news of the month contest and the $100.00 prize! That’s $803.00 in today’s money. Way to go, Grandmother! She always said that she and I worked together to make that possible!

She would later tell me that she never could explain why I woke up. She said it was like I was being entertained by someone and was cooing at them before she walked into my room.

There is a belief that children up until about the age they can talk, are able to see spirits or angels, but those abilities are lost as is their youth and innocence.

Like anyone, my memories are very limited of these first few early years. Two things do pop up though when I let my mind drift back, huge black squirrels and purity of life. Black squirrels, because they were large cute, fuzzy black animals I wanted as friends. The purity of life came from the calming, peaceful and uncomplicated existence that I lived. My grandmother always said that I was a happy baby. I hope I was able to bring as much peace to my grandmother as she had given to me at that time.

A few months later, I would be reunited with my mother and siblings on the West Coast some 4500 km away. There, I remember growing older quickly and every day was a new adventure waiting. With these mischievous adventures came danger as well.

I would climb the wooden ladder inside our giant barn with my sister, Caroline, to the tottering pigeon loft at the top just to see what was inside, something even the older kids found too scary to do. With my pockets full of eggs, I would then descend to the floor below only to find all the eggs had broken in my now-soaked pants. I would catch slithering green snakes and put freshly picked raspberry hats on them and chase my sister’s mercilessly around, with the hat wearing snake wrapped around my little arm. At five years old, I was tired of walking so far into the berry fields on our farm, so I figured out a way of fitting myself into the lower tubular bars of a ten-speed bike that one of the farm laborers had and rode it back to the house. Then my older sister told me nobody believed her when she fibbed on me, because, How could such a small boy ride such a large bike?

I rode our horses bareback with my sister, Caroline, both on our own horse by holding onto a scruff of neck hair. This would only last until the horse grew tired and galloped across the open field when expectantly, I would fall off and often land in a prickle bush. On a bet with my sister one day, I climbed to the highest point of a giant oak tree as I possibly could. As guessed, the highest branch was one branch too far and after it broke, I hit every branch on the way down. The insult to injury was that I landed on the wrong side of the barb-wire-fence and had to crawl through the sharp jagged fence, tearing my shirt even more to get on the homeward side. I bet Peter Pan never had so many bruises.

My best’s friends were Otto and Ramesh, who were the same age and were also in the same class at school. They were very different looking because Otto had blond hair and blue eyes and was a German or a Kraut from what I heard the old people say. It had been more than 20 years since the last World War, but people still talked about Nazis and told Nazi German jokes like skits on the TV show, Hee Haw.

Otto would go to the dump with me and my sister where the old man that lived there would keep a box of toys. Each time we visited, we were able to pick one toy each. Otto’s parents were large round people who owned a farm like my mother did, but Otto’s parents had lots of cows and no berries like us. They worked all the time and that’s why Otto and I played together often and did things like play under the shade of an old wooden bridge near my home where the water was not too deep, and we could swim in our underwear. His mom was very kind and would always feed us milk and cookies when I was there.

Ramesh was way different; he was the brownest skinned boy I knew. Even in the winter, his skin still stayed brown without the sunshine. His mom and dad were nice too but were not round like Otto’s parents. They were small and skinny and never had milk and cookies. They did not speak like Ramesh and I did. That was weird because Otto’s parents did not speak to me much either and Otto had to explain everything I said. Ramesh’s parents gave us these colorful candies and they called them kulkuls-something and a glass of water. Ramesh’s clothes always smelled strange at school and the first time I went to his house, I understood why. His whole house smelled like someone had lost a fight with a box of spices and Ramesh smelled like his house and now I did too. That was ok; I still liked him. He was my friend. In fact, Otto, Ramesh and I were great friends and never saw the color of our skin any more than that. That year in school, our whole class wore grass skirts and had our skin painted brown with strong tea so that we all could dance slowly in a line into the darkened school gym in front of our parents while In the Jungle played loudly overhead. There we were: Otto, Ramesh and I, all dressed up even though Ramesh did not need as much tea water on his already brown skin. Thinking back