March is going by so fast!

February 26 A small picture of something very big…

Today Nancy came into my room and decorated the walls with tissue paper streamers she cut and posters. I had been so excited about having my own 6x6 space to keep however I wanted—a haven. I had been enjoying the simplicity and beauty of staring at flowers in an old water bottle on a stool and the blank wall. What a picture of classic cultural exchanges that occur in the other direction so often. I am most cautious about imposing ideas I think are wonderful if they are not initiating them or invested. Now it is my turn to feel the consequences of an imposed idea. I see how easily they can just keep quiet to please you, and then abandon the idea as soon as you leave. I feel the same way--how can I take these decorations down when she has so thoughtfully invested her love, time and resources to bless me? Yet if she leaves I would abandon these decorations the same day.

February 28 No, I am not a cannibal…

Baada ya mkutano wa kwanza, nita enda mkutano wa pili. On and on I struggled with their assignment of detailing what I would do that day. In the end I managed to say all that I would do. We threshed maize which I’d never done before. We whacked the dry maize ears with a fat stick and made the kernels fly everywhere around the small cement room—down my shirt, in our hair, up the walls. Then we sat for hours and days prying the kernels free with our fingers. It works best to slide the rows sideways but if they are large and dry you can twist your hands around the whole ear and they will easily fall. During these hours we make three part harmonies in which the base and soprano always fail laughing and the alto always wins. We also talk and on this occasion I said, for the third time this week some sort of innuendo in Swahili that I was a cannibal. It all started while we were slashing in the orchard. Sizco told me how she first came to Nehemiah in Form One. She was afraid to come because she had heard that Mzungus ate other people. We fell down laughing at this and she recalled how another girl was about to come with her, but chickened out at the last minute. “It was just the Lord that brought me and I am so thankful now, and see how funny it is.” The next day while relating what I would do during the day I said, “Baada nitakupika” which means “Later I will cook you” (I used the infinitive instead of nitapika –I will cook. I didn’t think I said anything wrong but because of our earlier conversation Sizco could not stop laughing! Later, I honestly mistook the word “girl” for the word “lunch” while translating from a book. “Sizco, Msichana means lunch doesn’t it?”

March 7 The best welcome

I went to Kano today to see Milka and her family. I went alone, and felt so free with no one in sight and the wide expanse before me and behind me. I waded through knee high streams and drenched grasses and kept my shoes off through the rest of the thick mud. Claudia always says.. “Matope ni nyingi” Now I know how to say “There is so much mud!” I passed several houses of plastered smooth mud with iron sheets or thatched grass. I know many of these families vaguely but I was on a mission to find Milka’s house. I headed in the direction of Kao School, past the railroad tracks, past the river flowing with chocolate milk and Rooibos tea, and past the newly expanded school buildings. I greeted people as best I could along the way and eventually heard Milka shouting “Anna! Anna! from beyond an irrigation ditch and a row of banana trees.

I was so excited I misjudged the depth of the ditch and figuring it was about knee high, I plunged in. To my surprise I fell in to my hips and was pulled out, laughing hysterically, and surrounded by Milka’s intense embrace and the rest of the family (Grandchildren, sons, daughter in laws…) who welcomed me like no other welcome in my life. I noticed a round-bellied cabbage patch girl standing naked in the gathering who was immediately whisked away into an oversized yellow frilly dress that dragged behind her like a proper princess gown, snagging on thorns and becoming less yellow every minute. She was brought back and introduced to me as Anna Schuler (Shoolay)—my three year old namesake! She smiles all the time and has a magnificent rounded overbite, that, combined with her all around brown round pleasantness, reminded me of Mrs. Beaver from Narnia. She followed me around most of the afternoon and we became good friends. Even when the mzee would wave his tired hand to shoo the other children out of the house, she would stay as they scattered.

When I first entered, Milka excitedly presented me to her 8 sisters and cousins who were squished together on the wooden couches. We came clapping and dancing and they all joined to slap my hands and kiss my cheeks. “Ide Nade?”---“Adi maber!” ----“Eh! Oyoure?”----“Oyoure a enya” I passed along the Luo greetings but that is all I know. Everyone is so encouraging about languages. They make you think that if you surprise them with casually saying Good Morning in mother tongue with no trouble that you will be fluent in no time. I think it takes a lot longer.

They were all gathered to have their monthly merry-go-round, which is a loan sharing money pool where you contribute to one person each time. They sat there in their pretty dresses and head -scarves for awhile, then they got ready to go. The ladies helped one sister assemble her wig—She finger combed it before, then they helped her by being the mirror. Then they smoothed it with body lotion till it was sleek and black. They each pool 200 shillings, which is less than $3 but adds up when everyone contributes.

Later, when they returned, they agreed at my plea for them to sing. Sisters always know how to sing together—even if they are silly songs. I had no idea what that would turn into. It starts like rain—one drop—one voice thinking of a song out loud—quiet, timid and affirmed by another voce and then the first livens up the lead and you can hear it now coming in a throng and then the claps begin just like the thunder claps and then mmm mmm we’re all on our feet and since I don’t know any of the words I start to move a little and they love it and start moving too. But the roof is too low and the mud walls to confining and the low wooden table is hitting our knees so she leads us outside to the rhythm of the claps and the 50 or 60 year old sister lady club and I duck under the doorway and circle in the sunshine. I can tell they are loving it just as much as me—I always knew dancing was the way to people’s hearts around here. The leader still leads and the rest sing a repeating phrase. I have no idea what it was about but the booties were flying and the waists were bent and the bare feet kept time in the moving circle. I suppose the rain and thunder dance storm is now in tornado phase. They kept laughing at each other and the rest of the family just sat under the eaves and watched. Lilililililil’s and Lylylylylyly’s throttle the tongues in high trills and when it was over they piled firewood on their heads and went back to their husband’s houses.

Kano is a place of intensity—happy and flamboyant as well as intensely remote with terrible hygiene and sanitation practices, intense poverty and hospitality. A few days later I returned and spent the night and came down with a high fever. It was quite an experience being so vulnerable and open with letting other people take care of you when you are way beyond self- sufficiency. At first I was praying it would just go away and when it hit harder than ever I was annoyed. Then I came to realize that maybe God wanted to use them to be his “hands and feet” and to have us experience the joy of their own ability to love and care and see their prayers answered.

March 12 George

I never think about death as much as I do in Kenya. Partly because people are constantly going around praising God because they are so happy to be alive this day, and partly because death is prevalent, public, common, practiced over and over again. It is at the tip of the tongue. In a way the frequency eases the pain. “It is just Ok, everybody dies, it is a part of life!” she says the week before her husband dies. There is a hand written poster entitled “Time Wasters” in the Miwani Estates teacher’s lounge. Item # 1 long meetings, item #2 long tea breaks, item # 10 weather conditions, item #12 sickness/death.

I just returned from our dear friend George Ogola’s transitional funeral. They were transporting his body from the mortuary, to his house for a “practice funeral” and on to his mother’s property for the proper funeral and burial. He was one of the original farm fathers who used to have Shebby and Robert and Dominic and Bonface living with him. He and his wife Juliet have two daughters, Jeanie and Claire. They are almost 5 and 3. It is hard to even fathom.

The herse came in the form of a big black bus---dull, matted and chalky black, not shiny limo black. We could hear the referee whistles blowing and the wailing and singing coming down the rocky, red road to the house from a far distance. The procession from the mortuary was awaited by a few teachers and family friends who stayed behind to prepare chai and bread and guidere—a maize and bean mixture. I was luckily friends with the ones preparing and was soon put to work serving the refreshment. The mother, step mother, solemn Juliet, frilly Jeanie and Claire and all the rest stepped out of the bus. The men opened a compartment under the bus and pulled out a shiny wood coffin and carried it inside. One by one the wailing women old and young passed through the yard and into the house yelling “George, Moyo oh mOyo! La la!” and tossing there hands in a grief as old as their traditions and as new and fresh as their genuine loss. However, sometimes it is hard for me to tell the difference. I am the only one trying to distinguish between them and I suppose I don’t need to.

The whole procession was video taped. Everyone gathered around the open casket with only a glass separating the altered George who is no longer George. He was already home. We sang and prayed and the men sat under a tent for shade and the women went inside to sing hymns led by Juliet. I knew all the hymns by their tunes, not by their kijaLuo lyrics. I listened to them as I cut bread outside. (The picture is of Jeanie)