I came home from Kenya about two weeks ago. In the midst of popping back through the wardrobe as it seemed to me last time, I’ve been thinking about why I love Kenya so much and what I hate about it. Perhaps it is a mesh of the two that makes it real. I love knowing deeply enough to hate some things. Things that happen to people, things that people hold on to so tightly, things people are never taught…But sometimes what I love most about Kenyans springs from the effect of something I hate.
Death. There’s death all the time, all around. I hate that there are
Sicknesses people won’t sacrifice to treat but claim a pricey funeral. The traditions around death make me sick. My friend Kevin who came to the farm and I went to Milkah’s house a few days after her daughter-in-law died. This was the second funeral I’d been to in her village. Relatives and friends come from all over and camp out around the compound. The family slaughters a cow which perhaps they paid a year for. Everyone sings all night and sits around all day, eating the family out until the food’s gone. I hate the collection of money demanded of hard workers in the family to pay for funerals. Yet I love the community, I love the family dependency (to a certain degree it is beautiful, but somewhere along the line it becomes outrageous, disgusting and debilitating.)
The mud on one house cracks with age as the walls of another are just drying. Last week when we were visiting, her son was just finishing throwing the mud, Kevin got to help him. “Nyumba yako ni mzuri kabisa!” (Your house is so good!) I say…I am in love with the genius use of cow dung:) I miss her family especially. Milkah and I don’t even speak English together, but we love each other so much. I carry with me her 5 minute hugs after showing me her dead daughter’s body under the shady branches, her hugs everyday for that matter. I carry her wet cheeks and unabashed sorrow when we said goodbye in my room, when the rest of us were wiping and holding back ours.
Death, I love the way it demands a life of honest thankfulness for today because you were given the grace to see it! “So, I’ll see you in a couple years I hope… “ “Yes, it’s only that life which we are praying for, then we will be able to see each other again.”
My mind can’t genuinely comprehend that I might not be around in two years, let alone tomorrow. I’m hoping to learn, so that I can live in sincere appreciation!
Death, I love that it is the worst end of man yet we don’t have to fear it—such is freedom.
Wickedness
“Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. - Ecclesiastes 3:16-18”
Sometimes I become discouraged by wickedness, sometimes I feel it pervading the culture—lying becomes as natural as breathing. Not just Kenyan culture but everywhere. The shortcomings of others are novel and shocking, but it’s just because we’re all at home with our own maladies—but we all have them. I’ve talked to so many people who say how hard it is to move forward in life when everyone can’t stand to watch you get ahead, pull through with your ideas, or be better than them. This angers me more than a lot of things. Instead of building by leaning on each other and using one another as support beams and foundation for the building, everyone tears it down and tries to stand tall and be something as a single beam. Even just at the school level, I always encourage people to compete in a good and supportive way, not in the typical “knock ‘em all down and be the tallest” kind of way.
Perhaps everyone goes through phases in their life when the evil of the world mulls on their tongue more than before. Again, back to the mesh of love-hate feelings, the sweetness of grace accompanies the mulling bitterness of evil. I can think of nothing lovelier than these words in Jeremiah…after everything Israel did to provoke the anger of the Lord.
“You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be handed over to the king of Babylon”; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.”
I love strolling down the road outside the farm and being greeted by roaming bicyclists, strangers and old friends alike. Here in America it is noticeable how no one seems to have an overwhelming urge to talk as they pass just inches from each other on the sidewalk.
I love living in a community. We see each other everyday, we flutter around between houses. We are a 60 person family, working for the same purpose.
I love learning Kiswahili songs from Nafula in her kitchen.
I love watching Mello and Jeanie—2 and 3 year old inseperable friends.
I love Timorna and Rhoda’s discussions about how they will “make their hair to be so smart” (braiding extensions in the most attractive fashion) and listening in agony to the number of hours they had to sit there, or laughing with Timorna as she knocks at my room at 5:30 am to borrow a bandana to cover her half finished hair before she goes to school to teach.
I love potlucks where I actually understand the love of Jesus more by the way we love one another. The joy in eating together, playing silly games, singing in a circle, traditions, speeches, babies falling asleep, excitement in a soda, nicknames, fireflies on the walk home.
The other day Marit, Kata and Lexi and I decided to write some “You know you’re in Kenya when…”s. Here are some I thought of. They hardly touch the treasury of all of them in my head or the others they wrote. They either won’t make sense at all, or will give you a better glimpse of what it’s like.
You Know you’re in Kenya when…
-You arrive in Jomo Kenyatta airport and henceforth notice everything is named after the first president, who named himself after his country.
-At any moment you could be held up by a herd of cattle, horns and all, lazily trodding in the road.
-You say “hello” to a passer-by and they reply, “I’m fine, fine” with both hands raised—pushing the fine-fines, when you didn’t even get to the how are you.
-Sometimes all you can think of is the lady on the radio’s voice saying in that lovely Kenyan accent, “Safaricom, the betta option”.. or “Celtel—making life betta. Giving you a chance to win, not one, not two, but seven houses…” advertising mobile telephone companies.
-Once or twice a week is excessive hair washing and people always comment, “You’ve washed your hair?” if it is wet. “ When I’ve plaited, Anne, I’ll wash after 4 months. Imagine!”
-Timorna refuses to carry our fish back from Kolang in a see-through polythin because, “You know Anne, some old Mama just sees you with that fish and puts a curse on it, then when you go home and eat it, you just find yourself so sick.”
-Chai appears on the low table within minutes of your appearance in Nandi.
-You can’t sleep at night because the symphony of night noises never ceases. When the bullfrogs break for five, you say to yourself, “Quick, I need to fall asleep right this instant before they start again!” but of course you cannot and then the restless heifer lowes and the chorus of piccolo mosquitos sounds dangerously near your ears.
-“Owe Are YOOOO?” are the three sweetest words.
-When a Hornbill floats to a branch above the little clearing under which the entire primary school and Karunga community sits and begins the ceremony with…”Without wasting much time, since time has already been wasted…I would just like to welcome Mzee Joseph to say a few words. But keep it short.”
-When you are told to “feel free” so many times by Cusmus Tikoi that you begin to feel uncomfortable.
-You realize you could buy anything you needed outside
It could go on forever, but I’ll spare you this time.
I love Kenya. There’s so many daily adventures I never had time to write about, so many funny conversations and letters the kids wrote me. Perhaps I’ll write again later, but for now, my heart is full, and my head is full and my eyes are sleepy. I am so blessed to know with confidence that I love and am loved.
Kuonane
