Lynn K. Hansen

Living in Nairobi, Kenya, we were behind a white pickup at a stop sign. The pickup slowly rolled back and bumped us. The other driver wobbled out to me and yelled that we had hit him! I pulled around him and drove down the road. He began to follow us and honked to his friend waiting nearby in a beat up aqua pickup. They both began to follow us, tailgating. So we dove into Village Market’s parking lot.

They chased us around the parking lot! Finally, the guards figured out that we were in trouble and waved us into a parking space. The pickups immediately blocked us in and the guards all descended as the drunks got out of the vehicles, banging on our car and windows! They yelled in Swahili and English saying that they wanted me to get out and fight with them. The guards told us to go to the police station. We drove back out of the road as if we were going to the police station, but the aqua pickup tried to push us off the road! I stopped quickly. To block our way, he stopped sideways ahead in the road. It was dark and he didn’t have the lights on! By the time I got turned around, and oncoming car had blocked the pickup from following us and we were able to escape back to Village Market.

This time the guards dropped the gate to prevent the pickups from entering. The white pickup stayed outside the gate for a long time. We kept checking, peeking around the corner. Finally, I called the school so someone could pick us up, incognito-like. We could have driven out the back of the parking lot. But since the aqua van was not visible, I thought he might be waiting on the dark back streets.

Lynn K. Hansen, And Then The Phone Rang

When we were about to be carjacked I was so scared because people are often killed or maimed by these carjackers. I imagined that dead of night call to our family. Then when we moved back to the States, my daughter would sneak out while we were asleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night and walk the streets looking for her body under every bush. Then my mom died and I had a heart attack. All these events reminded me of that dreaded 2:00 am phone call. I visualized a woman who has been up worrying about someone she loves and then she hears the phone ring. The painting shows my extreme feelings about it. I hope that viewing it will help with viewers’ fear as much as painting it has helped with mine.