It was spontaneous. Joy sent a text asking if we should get together at a spacious café in Nairobi at 2 pm. The prospect of a face-to-face encounter with women friends was attractive. I responded yes, explaining that I would first need to jumpstart my car and drive it around to charge the battery. It has been sitting for long. I also wondered how to jumpstart social skills that have been dormant since mid-March. Now, I am tearful, in anticipation… I thought I was “managing” – doing everything online. Online work, trying to be Mamma from a distance w the help of WhatsApp, communicating with Mom thx to healthcare workers and FaceTime, online book club with members now spread around the world from Australia and North America to South Africa, teaching yoga online once a week with yogis across Kenya, meeting up with family occasionally on BlueJeans… Now I get to sit in person with three other women, and discuss what is going on in the world, and what we are learning and doing with others in our smaller worlds… How are communities handling coronavirus? How are communities coming to terms with and addressing systemic racism? I can almost feel the Warmth and the Nourishment before our encounter… I already feel Hugged… It is only in knowing that we are about to meet up, gods willing, that I realize how Hungry I have been… We are social beings, and we have been so creative in connecting virtually. What will it be like actually meeting up, face-to-face, each in her mask? What else will I wear? I have lost weight, eating mainly organic vegetables from the weekly farmshare basket from Mlango Farm in Limuru. What will fit me, and the occasion? In deciding I will keep in mind how cold it is here in Nairobi this month of June…