I tried to make her feel at ease by giving her a Coke and a croissant I had taken with me as my lunch, but she sat there just frozen. Her eyes looked sad, her face sunken, her shoulders slumped. Monie did not want to talk. I could see the pain of her heart. Her soul had been scarred and wounded. She was still like a raw wound, hiding like an injured animal inside of herself.

Just a few weeks earlier she had seen her father beaten and shot, her mother and sisters raped and killed. She herself was thrown for dead into a pit of bodies where she remained until nightfall and then crawled up through the dead bodies and made her way back to Kigali. There she knew of Gisemba Orphanage, where she knocked and was able to find shelter even though the person running it was a Hutu and not a Tutsi like her. She remained in hiding for three weeks until the war was over and the Hutu soldiers had fled and the Tutsi rebels had won the conflict and saved lives, even though it was to late for her family.

Monie still sat there, she moved a few times and I thought as to how I could reach her soul, touch her heart, help her on her way to healing?

I understood what was going on inside of her. She did not trust me. Like with so many people when they meet, there was an absence of trust. This little girl of eight had seen so much, had been hurt so severely, that it was safer not to risk, safer not to trust, to reach out and take the hand of this white man.

My thoughts went to my own life and how I reacted to someone when I did not trust, when I was skeptical about their intent and motive. When words would flow from their lips, but my heart could not receive them.

I thought how trust was a sharing; a knowing that I will not be hurt will not be used, abused, thrown away. Trust means I can be open, honest, vulnerable, share myself knowing that I will not be rejected, but what I say, who I am will be taken to heart and held there ever so tightly.

Monie did not trust me. I looked at her into the eyes, took her small frail hand and led her down the path to town. We stopped at a little restaurant that had just recently reopened. Bullet holes, stains were everywhere. The owner came to us and I asked him to get us some ice cream. He looked at me like I was crazy. Ice cream in Rwanda, with no electricity, no ingredients, impossible.

I looked over to a taxi driver and asked him to come. I gave him 20 dollars and instructions to go to the Belgian Sabena Hotel and bring us some ice cream. He thought I was crazy. Mumbled something about those crazy Americans.

The voice of Bette Midler drifted through the hot, humid African Air, "From a distance." I thought how ironic. That was exactly my problem.

In the meantime we sat there. We had ordered some fries and chicken. I have moved a plate in front of her. She looked at it. I could see her mind churning. She grabbed the drumstick and ate like a person who had not eaten in days. The food at the orphanage was nothing like this.

I began to tell her about my daughter and told her some funny things. She never spoke but her eyes began to gain color and sparkle. I began to tell her stories of my youth in Germany, of the times I spend all alone not thinking anyone understood me. About my father leaving when I was young and never seeing him again. Not knowing whether he was dead or alive.

She listened and even nodded or shook her head at times. Monie was slowly coming alive. The sound of the taxi returning got both of our attention. The driver approached us with a big grin and a package.

Quickly we opened it, got some plates and ate Mango, Pineapple, and Passion Fruit Sorbet. Monie surprised me when she started to say a few things as to how it tasted and how she had some before like this with her Papa. She was coming out her cocoon; she was starting to trust this strange white man who made her laugh, who ordered ice cream via a taxi.

She began to unfold. I had made her feel good about herself. For a moment the pain was put on a shelf. I had affirmed her as Monie, simply by being with her. My hand reached out for hers. For a moment she hesitated, and then put her tiny brown hand into mine. We smiled.

There is a great landlocked ocean in everyone, potential not yet discovered; not yet dared to be let out. There are words floating around that have not found the substance they fit; the words are ourselves-as yet unsung. Trust is knowing that the other person near us wants those oceans to be without dams, boundaries, those potentials fully realized. I saw it happen with Monie, even without words, just as our hands met, our eyes looked at one another. She knew that I understood her.

Like a flower that meets the morning sun she began to unfold, to talk to me, of her pain, of her heart. She trusted, she knew I understood. It was not the ice-cream, the food, it was that she knew I was not gong to harm her. She knew I was safe to be with, a place of refuge after a long storm.

She talked, I listened, and tears welled up in my eyes as I heard her story in childlike terms. I felt her heart, I felt her soul, felt her pain. It was as if I was experiencing it vicariously. She saw my tears, she felt my hand, she squeezed and we were in the same place.

Monie did now know it, she did not understand it all, but she was on her way to be healed to be opened, to be healed by sun, to be touched by light. Her wound could heal as it was exposed.

Strangely that night I thought about my own past, the wounds that were still there. The ache of heart of rejections, of feeling thrown away like a used Kleenex. I took my Swiss Army Knife and unfolded the small blade and squeezed it in my hand. I could feel the sharpness. The words let go came to me. I opened my hand and the knife dropped to floor. Symbolic of letting go of the pain of it all.

We were sitting at the Kenyatta Avenue round about and wishing that we were instead sitting in the cool garden of the Norfolk Hotel, which had hosted such people as Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway and of course Karen Blixen who gave us "Out of Africa. "

Just then a young boy came alongside my side of the care selling some peanuts, as is the habit of street children in Nairobi. Sharon and I looked at him and his pitiful state and dug out a few shillings to buy some nuts that we would never eat but simply give away to another street kid. Just then and there Sharon let out a loud shriek and I looked over as another young boy was literally tearing off a gold earring off of Sharon's right ear. I could see blood running down her neck. I instinctively bolted out of the car and ran after the young thief who was darting in between the stopped vehicles.

Thank God, I was in reasonable shape and soon caught up with the boy and grabbed him by the shirt. He looked at me with angry eyes and said, "Muzungu, let me go." I dragged him back to the car as quite a few of the people around me clapped and applauded my move. The problem of street-children in Nairobi was well known and their cons had affected many a person.

"Where are you taking me he screamed?" As the traffic slowly began to nudge forward, "to the Police Station was my reply." He began to cry and asked me to let him go.

Sharon was nursing her ear that had suffered quite a bit from the tearing away of the earring. She began to speak to the boy in Swahili telling him that she was sad as to what he done to her and whether he had any regrets. In the rearview mirror all I could see was a boy who had stopped crying and had this defiant, angry look on his face.

We turned back down Kenyatta Avenue to the Central Police Station. What amazed me thus far was that this boy had not try to bolt, had not tried to jump out of the vehicle but simply sat there in the backseat of the car.

I pulled into the red-clay parking lot of the station and Sharon and I proceeded to take the boy in. Inside the typical Kenyan Police Sergeant met us. The kind who was always ready to take some "Kido Koddogo," or in English "just a little something." In Kenya and most of Africa one can avoid most any problem or citation through the use of money as a bribe since the police receive hardly any salary from the government.

He took out a large book and asked as to what my problem was and I proceeded to tell my story. He asked the young boy to come closer and abruptly whacked him on the face several times until the boy tumbled over and went down.

No matter what the boy had done my heart went out to him. I intervened and during the next few minutes I found out the boy's name was Leaky and that he came from Kibera, one of the worst and largest slums in Nairobi.

As I watched the whole proceeding the thought of turning the other cheek, of not giving evil for evil came to me and I asked the policeman if we simply could let the boy go since he had endured enough punishment.

Oh, Mr. Blanc you do not understand our ways and how we deal with criminals like this boy here in Kenya. I chuckled and said to him, "that is exactly the reason I am asking because I have been here long enough and know your ways. What will it take to let the boy go?"

The Policeman looked long and heart and said "500 shillings will be just right." My thought was why pay 10 dollars for someone who I had just brought to this so called system of justice but then I felt an inner voice telling me to do just that. Sharon looked at me and there was that knowing look on her face as she went along with my move.

A few minutes later the three of us walked out into the Nairobi sunshine and I asked Leaky to come along with me. He willingly climbed to the car and I proceeded to take Sharon home, she did not ask me any questions and I did not volunteer any answers o r engage in conversation in general and off to our house we went just near Ngong road.

I dropped Sharon off and told her that I was going to spend some time with Leaky and take him to our children's home in Dagoretti, just outside of Nairobi. Leaky had remained silent the whole time, until I asked if he would like to sit up and front and he asked me "where are we going?'

I answered him Uhuru Park. A few minutes later we pulled into the largest park in Nairobi named Uhuru which means freedom in English something that was yet to be realized by the average Kenyan 30 years after gaining independence from the British colonial system.

Leaky and I got out we walked over to large shady tree near a statue of the founder of modern Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta. On the way over I bought some Somosas and Coke. I could see Leaky smiling and we sat down under the large Acacia tree and talked.

He looked at me and said, "what is the boy's name?" I looked at Leaky and quietly said that boy was me. He did not say much, he seemed to understand the story though our cultures were miles apart. He felt what I had felt; though maybe in a different way, most of all, Leaky felt what all of us want in life, "understood."

I asked him whether he would like to live in a place where he could learn, be, become, have food, a bed and other children like him and he simply nodded. For the next twenty minutes the car remained strangely quiet as we made our way to Dagoretti and the home which I ran and had started.

We were greeted by the Head Mistress of the School, Eunice, with her big Kikuyu smile as we pulled through the gate with the typical African greeting "you are most welcome." I took Leaky to the boy's dorm and found him a bed, a locker and took him to meet some the other children in the home who were out back playing soccer. Soon I saw Leaky join in and I walked back to my car for the journey back to Nairobi. The next day I flew off to Kigali, Rwanda.

Six months later I drove up to the school at Dagoretti and honked for someone to open the gate of the compound, I was surprised to be greeted by a smiling Leaky who gladly opened the gate and welcomed me with a big Swahili "Bariako," meaning how are you. I smiled back at him and said "mzuri" which means good.

I found out that Leaky had become one of the best students. That he had become a leader amongst the children and was a positive influence amongst the others. To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised.

As I walked across the courtyard a few hours later he approached me and asked me whether I would like to meet this family? I said I would love to do so. Off we went to the home of Leaky, Kibera slum.