Dreamed that Israel was bombing Kenya

It's not that far-fetched. The Uganda Proposal, put forward at the International Zionist Conference in 1903, would have established a Jewish state, Israel, in what is now Northern Uganda. 6 million Ugandans would have been displaced by 6 million European Jews.

Kenya would be Lebanon.

I dreamed the Israelis were bombing Kileleshwa, the neighborhood in Nairobi where my parents live. In revenge, mass reprisal on Kenyan civilians, for a rocket fired at a plane of Israeli tourists (this actually happened in Mombasa in 2003). Claiming that our neighbors from Somalia, from Uganda, driven into Kenya by civil wars in their own countries, were terrorists.

I dreamed that the complex of maisonnettes our home is in was hit. My parents were buried beneath. Trapped in the small storage space under our stairs where they had taken refuge when the shelling started. My father was still conscious. He was trying to text me on his cellphone. But his glasses were lost, blood was running into his eyes, clouding his view of the tiny cellphone display - the only source of light. His fingers kept slipping on the keys. He was crying, cursing, yelling for my mother, who he couldn't see, or find with his hands in the dark: Chandree, are you alive? Are you OK? Answer me!

I was at SF airport, running from airline counter to airline counter, skidding on the smooth airport floor, begging to buy a plane ticket to Nairobi. The counter staff kept repeating, like automatons: Sorry ma'am. All flights to Kenya have been suspended.

I woke up numb. Body icy, frozen in fetal curl, heart pounding. Mouth a rictus of horror over clenched teeth. Tears squeezing out of the corners of my squinched-up eyes.