It was February 3, 2015, and I had just returned from a week out of town. Chris, the nice and neutral Tennessee man, whom I had bonded with about life in South Africa and come to respect on a deep level, wanted “to talk”. No, it did not play out like the romantic movie scene currently playing in your mind. And the only soundtrack was a 7-year old wild child, bouncing around in his underwear.

Dirty, desolate Benji has probably never had a smiling mama to wash away the dirt or to sing away the desolation. He lives with relatives, but he has no parents. He shares a living space inside a culture that feels no obligation to reach for you, touch you or sing over you if you are not their own. No matter how many baths he takes or how many people are around him, without being seen, reached for, touched, he will always be dirty, desolate Benji.

I found her homeless, lost and scared in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike on Galveston Island in 2008. Ms. Armstead was 87-years old and the evidence of her long life had been washed, tossed and left for debris in one night’s windstorm. I met Ms. Armstead in a hot, humid, roach-infested hotel room, and she couldn’t find her son.

Twice upon a time, in two faraway lands,

Two strangers moved to Africa, only bags and passports in their hands.

She packed her boots and told Texas goodbye,

She only bought a one-way ticket and didn’t know why...

Six years ago, I had no idea that you could use buckets for everything. Bath-taking, food-serving, dish-washing, house-cleaning, rat-trapping, water balloon-storing, laundry-doing, foot-washing, and even an indoor, night-toilet when life so calls for one. Disclaimer: NOT the same bucket for everything. Let’s not be gross. Four years ago, I watched malnourished, 2-year-old legs walk too far to get a plate of food his body just couldn’t take in. Pre-school aged family members showed him how to dip his fistful of food in his juice to soak the food so it would slide right through his revolting throat.