the moment

Both of our weekend farmer’s markets here in Baltimore have a bakery vendor that also sells “Mexican Cokes.” They are Coca-Cola bottles filled with Coke’s brewed (?) with sugar cane rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). In most countries around the world, Coca-Cola is made with cane sugar. In the US, we got HFCS in our Cokes sometime in the 1980s. I hardly drink soda anymore - I think it wrecks my body. But I have to admit these Mexican Cokes are a nice weekend treat from time to time.

In 2006 I was able to go to Africa for the first time - Sierra Leone to be specific. We were there with Covenant World Relief checking in on some of our partnerships with Mercy Ships as well as pitching in and helping out in their fistula clinic in Freetown - one of the few places in West Africa where women could be treated for this horrible in-pregnancy condition. My eyes were broken open to the struggle so many people live in in far off places. I also was awakened to simplicity and beauty. The beaches in Sierra Leone are extraordinarily beautiful. It was also the 2006 World Cup and I have vivid memories of watching matches in locally occupied make-shift tents and bars frequented by NGO workers.

We were also able to go “up-country” in those two weeks  in Sierra Leone to visit a couple polio rehabilitation sites as well as a sustainable agriculture project. It was a short trip distance-wise but a long-trip road-wise. Holes and craters made up much of the road beyond the foothills East of Freetown into Hastings. For long stretches we were able to traffic on an Italian-laid road, but much of the way we meandered and puttered over and through some of the worst road I have ever (and surely will) see. The day was long too with troubling stories of hunger and need but peppered amidst those stories were witnesses to “polio victors,” micro-enterprise and good farming.

We packed in as much as we could humanely muster that day, I believe. And we weren’t even able to grab a bit to eat.

So as the sun set we found a roadside stop on the outskirts of Makeni hoping to find some sustenance. They said they had a few Cokes and could grab us some “meat pies.”

God knows what were in the meat pies, they were like roadside hotpockets, salty and thick. But the Cokes were extraordinary - sugary sweet and cool to drink.

That’s how I feel about Coldplay’s 5th album Mylo Xyloto.