I left when the leaves were just coming out. April 14, 2025. That tentative spring green that Virginia does for about a week before committing. I came back April 12, 2026, and the same thing was happening again.
Kenya does not have this. Nairobi has two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. The plants respond to water, not to temperature. There is no single annual moment when everything comes back. Things are green or they are not, based on whether it has rained.
The American spring — this specific April thing with the leaves and the particular temperature change and the daylight lengthening — is an American thing that I had not realized was a thing until I missed it for a year.
Coming back to it felt like being handed a clock I had not known I was running on.
Sanctuary has many shapes. One of them is the repeating year. Knowing that the leaves will do this again, that you will be there to see them, that the cycle continues. It is a small and enormous comfort.
Gabriel Mahia writes from the intersection of U.S. institutional infrastructure and East African operational reality. This essay is part of the Year in Kenya series — twelve months, April 2025 to April 2026.