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The Facebook, A murder and Prison: A fictional story of true events

Pious Onyango Ombede awoke with facebook on his mind. Most mornings he woke up with chai on his mind, or school fees, or occasionally, in the life he left behind, it was the headache in his mind from the drinks the night before.  But unlike most mornings, the somewhat mysterious and coveted something, “the facebook” seemed to lure him out of bed with such curious intensity that he arose, dressed and left his house immediately. Although he claimed to know nothing of computers, he also knew that if he wanted the facebook, a computer would not help. The closest internet café was all the way in town, which is an unreasonable distance for a reasonable man. But phones on the other hand, were a common commodity. Everybody had some kind of Mobile. How else would someone “MPESA” money to their family? How else would someone “Flash” their friend to say hi? Having a mobile was a must. It made up for all sorts of woes in the world.

Alice, his wife, stood bent over the fire blowing at the milk to avoid a spillover. She glanced upside down at his blue sandals shuffling his feet along the freshly swept dirt. He was shuffling right past his breakfast and she wondered what he was up to.

Although he felt a quickening in the usual pace of his heart, there was no change in his perpetually relaxed way of getting from one place to another. At 5 feet 8 inches he looked precisely his age, and his face possessed that rare quality of precisely portraying his life. This morning he looked decidedly well rested with a hint of apprehensive curiosity. “Will I really find a mobile with the facebook for 2,000 bob?” he wondered as he pressed on.

As he reached the roadside he wove purposely through the regulars who were setting up their wares for the day. Godfrida with her pastel wash basins, Mama Martin with mounds of clothes spread in disarray over old feedbags, Boaz straddling a stool selling nothing but trouble and a radio. As Onyango thoughtlessly avoided a chicken and her entourage, he came to the conclusion that yes, the facebook would be a bigger investment than just the cost of the phone. Connections, a whole other world, a better life awaited him.

Ah! At last. “Eh! Oyoure?” he called a good morning over at Isaac, the fat phone dealer straining his old eyes over the padlock. Owning a shop next to the mandazi dognut maker is too much a temptation for anyone to bear and he had given up the resistance long ago. “Oyowre a enya…..Sema?” he asked, finally standing up with difficulty and a deep grunt from the arduous opening of the lock.

As Onyango explained his pressing desire for the facebook, Isaac shook his head in dismay…”Ah, bro…you  don’t need one of those! Look here, what I have, if you need a new phone I’ll give you the best price. You and I have been friends a long time, don’t worry, I’ve got something for you.” “No Isaac, I have a phone. I just want to see this here, the facebook. You don’t have? Kweli?” A sudden stab of disappointment hit him in his chest and his face reflectively cringed. “tss tsss…Aye buana, sure?”

The fat man nestled his body comfortably in his shaded stall and pointed his lips and his eyes in the direction of Boaz, still slouching on the stool. “You know, I saw Boaz trying to buy a mobile with the facebook from a guy just the other day. Couldn’t pay you know? 2,000 bob for that thing. But kweli, that is cheap. It must have been broken.”

Now that sounded promising. And after further inquiry, the man in possession of the facebook mobile was still willing to sell for 2,000 shillings! Boaz gave the directions somewhat jealously and followed him with a mouth chattering away on Onyango’s shoulder until at last he was distracted by a woman garbed entirely in purple heading to town with a suitcase on her head, a purse in her hand and a high heal stuck in tangled barbed wire.

Onyango sidled slowly into the compound and looked around to detect any signs of life. All was still and even after he wrapped on the wooden door, it took several minutes for anyone to answer. Just as he began to walk back, the door opened and a man with glossy eyes looking far away stood there expectantly. Onyango tirelessly explained for the third time that morning his desire to have a mobile with the facebook and this time, there was an affirming smile spread over the blind man’s face. “Ah!” he said. “ Come in. I have just what you are looking for. Will you take tea?  Yes, of course you will, and bread? I have bread.”

The mobile immerged from the back room, sleek and dark as a black mamba, and just as poisonous too. Onyango unknowingly held and carelessly caressed the venomous thing, easily imagining how casually he could whip it out of his pocket and possess all the good things that could come of it. His motives were honest, pure, innocent and harmless, yet he knew not its sly power, nor where it had come from.

The deal was made and the phone was monetarily half his and wholly in his hands. He thanked the man, taking his phone number to MPESA him the other half of the bill when his own pocket would allow.

Two weeks passed with no detection of the evils awaiting him. The phone sat in a drawer, waiting for the last payment to be made. “I better not use it until it is completely mine, then I will feel right to use it” he thought. On the very day he made his last payment he came home from work early. He had been welding at Nehemiah, feeling that the day was normal. His face was bland, a bit sweaty from the bicycle ride home, and his lips stuck to his teeth with dry, viscous saliva. He called for Diana, his daughter, to fetch some drinking water. He sat down with his head lowered to his chest, resting outside of his house and waited.

He awoke from a doze by the sound of footsteps, and thinking they were his daughter’s, he cheerfully looked up at her. But it was not Diana he saw, nor Alice, nor anyone familiar. A policeman armed with an AK-47 and duplicated 7 times behind approached with hand cuffs and a frown. Onyango’s eyebrows pulled together in puzzlement and his bewildered cheeks rose in honest protest. “Are you Pious Onyango Ombedde? You are under arrest.”

“Why did you arrest me?” Onyango retorted fiercely.

“Where’s the phone?” the policeman stabbed back.

“The phone? The one with the facebook? Inside.”

All 8 of them marched inside tearing the house apart and taking anything of consequence. His tape measure which Boyce gave him, his leatherman knife, his new grinder, all supposedly stolen, as was the receiptless phone they found in the drawer. Onyango, the thief, no, the murderer they said as they filed him passed his wife, passed the overthrown table and into the car.

The black mamba bore his teeth, and pierced him. “What is my crime? “ he wondered. “How did they know I had the phone?”

The police customarily took him to the elder counsel for a background check.

“No,” the elder said firmly. “Onyango is not the sort to do such things. I have known him many years.”

His crime was described to the elder as follows: The man who stole this phone killed the original owner.  Because of the high technology of this phone, we were able to track him to Mamboleo.  We will take him to the prison in Siyaya to be tried for the theft of this mobile and the murder of so and so, that one politician’s son.

The murder of a politician’s son? Mobs, political violence, theft and murder….Onyango never dreamed that this would be the new world of connections his new mobile with the facebook would bring. But there he was, handcuffed in the dark of night, travelling to his needless imprisonment. “I have made a mistake, I admit I made a mistake, the worst mistake….I didn’t even have a receipt.” He moaned hopelessly to himself, half confessing to Jesus, half pounding himself for not being smarter.

Eighteen of the longest days he ever spent went by, his face sagged along with his foggy mood and the horrors of life inside with the inmates were too unspeakably burdensome to the mind as to cause him never to tell of them again and therefore will remain unknown to us.

However one of those 18 days held an unexpected surprise which saved him. One of the Kenyan Nehemiah board members made a phone call.

-Put him on the phone, I want to speak with Onyango.

-Unheard of. You can’t speak to him.

-I’ll speak to him

The details of the bail are uncertain. But one thing is true: Kenyans know how to take care of each other in a pinch. The anti-venom for the black mamba facebook phone took Pious Onyango Ombede by surprise, shook him up and put him flat on his face in awe of life, and of God (“I would never have made it out of there without God.”)

Pious Onyango awoke with the facebook on his mind. Still curious. Humbled, doubtful, and more than ever aware of the fragility of a day. He shuffled again across the freshly swept dirt in his blue sandals and sat with Alice, sipping chai.

Proverbs 31 and your average Kenyan woman

Many Kenyan women I know are very much like the Proverbs 31 Woman. They consider fields, they rise before dawn to care and prepare for their families, they save for the servant girls, give to the poor, they’re good money managers, business women…Their children call them blessed and so do their husbands. Their arms are strong for their task and so is their neck.

Life in Bible times is much more accessible to my mind and more palatable to my understanding since tasting Kenya. In Kenya, you don’t need to weasel your way into this passage and spend time thinking about how it translates into your life. A Kenyan woman often considers fields, and when it belongs to her family, she digs and digs. She prepares the shamba with rhythmic, forceful swings of the jembe. She raises it above her head and releases it down with a noise that resonates out of the ground and changes depending upon the last rain. Black cotton soil cracks in the sun and makes short, struggling chlink chlink sounds as the metal edge picks its way through. The sound of wet soil is more of a shlink, shlurp, suctioning sound. The wet soil is like a hostess who quickly and warmly welcomes you in, but then clings to you, hanging as you make your way to the door, not wanting you to leave.

Many families have house girls who are usually a younger relative like a niece or a cousin or a sister who want a change of pace from their home or need a sure meal and a place to sleep. They take girls, and often treat them like daughters in a way.

“Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.” This makes me think of David and Meshack, the two fathers on the farm, and how they love and trust their wives, Anne and Susan. They adore them and respect them and are always being thoughtful towards them. The word “confidence” is the perfect word to describe their stance toward their wives. They make decisions together a lot more than other couples that I see in the area and they also like doing things together. I am delighted when I hear things like this: David says, “ Oh, let me just pull over here and buy some tomatoes for Anne, she will be so happy.” Meshack says, “You won’t mind, what I am gonna do, is to stop and pick up some bananas because my wife loves to eat bananas.”

“She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.”
I think of Anne Isuvi measuring their milk out to people who come to her kitchen to buy. I think of Rosalyn and Juliet who have little shops in their homes where they sell the essentials: soap, Roico seasoning, little yellow balls of cooking fat wrapped in plastic, sugar, salt and matchboxes and kerosene. I see Rosalyn’s head balancing a load of firewood, which she traded by giving an old Mama some beans to plant. Her trading is profitable; she knows what her family needs and what she has to give. They trade buckets of maize for a day’s labor of weeding in the field and trade vegetables for vegetables.

“She opens her hands to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.” I see Rosalyn wrap up a hot chapatti in a torn corner of the flour sack and send it home with the lady whose house burned down last year. I see her piling mounds of popped corn, hot off the fire, into the cupped hands of the little raggedy boys sent to her to fetch their family’s milk for chai. They sit on stools and stuff the popped corn into their mouths with both hands held close to their face for easy access. Their teeth and the whites of their eyes match the popped corn and they all work in unison to fully satisfy Rosalyn’s generosity.

Sizco sits shredding greens for Anne and the next minute is helping Kimae prepare chapattis for the apprentices to bring for the potluck. Nancy is bending thoughtfully over Lucas’ math problem, explaining his confusion away. Anyone who comes to chat while you’re in the middle of something, will automatically take up the task with you and talk for a bit. Kenyan women actually do get up while it is still dark and rarely eat the bread of idleness. Susan does make garments and sell them, and the women I know watch over the affairs of their household with a care and dedication that leaves little time for the distractions of luxury.

Nehemiah families begin to have a higher propensity to honor instead of blindly expect the dedicated labor and noble character of the woman of the house. “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Saturday Celebration

Saturday October 23, 2010

(A graduation party for Josphat, our children’s department head)

David, in his playfully formal manner, stands up to welcome us and give a sort of agenda for our gathering. He says something to the effect of, “I think we all know why we are here; because Josphat has invited us to celebrate with him. He has done a noble thing in graduating with high honors and we are all very proud of him. First I’ll ask for a prayer, then we will sing a song, and eat…we have plenty of food. After that we will have some speeches from various guests, and from the man of the hour. Then we shall sing again and close our evening with another matter that concerns us.”

The afternoon leading up to the gathering in the church was spent busily preparing at the Isuvi house.  I sat on the cement patio peeling potatoes for two hours while all around me the boys swirled in and out with pots and firewood, cabbages, chicken feathers and armfuls of tomatoes. David pops in and offers me cooked bananas and strong tea for lunch and then darts away again, gathering helpers to slaughter Josphat’s lamb. After seeing signs of the slaughter carried past, (knives, buckets of water, buckets of blood, a skinned sheep’s tail…) I finally see Ken (our lab technician) walking over with a huge grin and a bucket with protruding hooves and carved delicacies. “I am a slaughterer!” He tells me jokingly and swirls the bucket around as I peer inside. The joyous bustle culminates as all the other woman come to the kitchen to help make chapattis. I am in awe of Josphat’s generosity and ask if we should have just done it like a potluck where everyone contributes a dish. But he says no, he wanted to bless us and have a way to thank us all. And besides we were helping in the preparation anyway. I can’t but think how much this meal will set him back, but in true Josphat fashion, he thinks more of others than he does of himself.

We are all satisfied and full of rice and meat and cabbage, licking the grease off our fingers and finishing the last of our bottled sodas. The florescent light of the church is only available because of the generator, noisily groaning with the tractor outside. The power is out but our milk needs chilling and our party needs light. Voices slide away silently and our faithful M.C. rouses our attention for the speeches. “ I am just going to call upon a few people to say something about Josphat. Fidelis, you’ve been with Josphat, what can you say to him?” Fidelis stands, smiling as always, pauses with decorum and proceeds: “Good evening, we want to thank Josphat for being with us and caring for us. We love him and we need him.” The speeches went on and on, as David randomly and surprisingly gave each person present the opportunity to affirm Josphat. Anne made jokes about him as her “first born son” in a manner worthy of a mother, Jeanie encouraged him to start looking for a wife, friends told how much Joshphat had encouraged them. The boys all thanked him, and there was not one person with any thought but joy and gladness that we know and have Josphat among us.

I can’t  stop smiling and even crying for how beautiful and life giving those words are to Josphat. The openness of the Kenyan heart shines like I’ve never seen this night and we aren’t waiting for a funeral to praise a person. He also stands and gives each one of us a word of gratitude and friendship. Josphat has no supportive family apart from Nehemiah, but he fears the Lord, takes advantage of opportunity in humility, and loves people, which gives him great success. He was honored with the highest position in his psychology and social work program and received many offers from organizations, but he knows he is called here for now. This family celebration is truly the first of its kind here at Nehemiah as we have never honored and appreciated one person in this formal and intimately united of a way. The overarching sentiment is that Josphat is bearing fruit. Fruit that he has shared and blessed us with.

Songs are sung and prayers are said and one last item remains. David hands the floor over to Meshack who stands and begins with reminding us of the purpose of families. He says something like this in his melodically loud and eloquent way: “ We come to share together our joys because it concerns us, and we are happy together when one of us is rejoicing but when something bad comes, we also want to share in it because it concerns us. Tonight we want to bring to the community’s attention, something disappointing. But when one of us is gone astray, we want to bring him back because we care about him. Solomon would like to give a confession.” Solomon stands in front of us, solemn and pressed. He strains to confess over the noise of the generator, but his volume is not satisfactory. Meshack translates his volume and forms such an interrogating voice that he would be more appropriate in a court room. Solomon confesses publicly, although some of us are aware, that he snuck out of the fence and slept with a girl in another house. By doing this he has broken most of our rules, namely, sneaking out, having a relationship, and dishonoring and lying to his parents.  He asks for our forgiveness. The floor is opened to various people for responses. He is forgiven but not trusted, for regaining trust takes time and is up to him. Please pray for him as he is so well loved, yet rarely repentant to the point of changing his behavior or heart in other similar cases.

The mood with which we leave the church is an entirely opposite atmosphere than the way we entered. In some ways it seems odd and inappropriate to me to have both agendas smudged into one evening for the sake of convenience and timing. Yet in another light, I see the goodness and grace of being able to hold two things in our hands at once; to pair our joys and sorrows together as any family would. The foundation of love in the first half epitomized and peaked the beauty of our community which set the tone for loving discipline, although it was not facilitated perfectly, it seems right to be capable of handling opposites in such a way that reminds us who we are as a community and how in all ways, we want to help each other grow.

Last Week in Kolanya

Those Good ‘Ole Luo Days

I am involved in a widows and orphans group in Ohero, off the Nairobi—Kisumu rd. One day the group got together to bead bracelets and while we beaded we storied.  “Tell Anna about the olden days around here,” says my friend to Alonso, the Mzee (old man). Mzee leaned forward and stared into his bowl of beads for concentration, for composure and after a pause to rewind the years he slowly began to speak.

“Oh yes, I’ll tell her. I was born in 1939. I remember how the community members used to be together. They could sit and discuss in a forum, they talked about their welfare, or plowing; they discussed everything so at the time of harvest, no one would have to beg and everyone would have harvested. Those who had animals could herd, others would go for wrestling as recreation—the best wrestler would be chosen—then they would invite another clan to compete.

I was ten, and I saw how everyone was together. I saw how they armed themselves in defense of other clans like the kipsigis. Those clans were coming to raid. In meetings they planned how to defend from external attacks and cattle raids. They were using arrows and spears. But we Luos were not planning attacks, just defending. … It prompted the Luos to remove the lower six teeth—for identification—in a war we’ll see if you are one of us, or one of them. Also it was nice for passing medicine to someone whose mouth refused to open. The space was helpful, but now we don’t do that anymore.” I told him to open up and let me see. He smiled to reveal his toothless lower gums.

“I’m seeing differences in how we were together then, and how we are together in present. A long time ago they were loyal and faithful to each other—they were serious—the difference between the older generation and now, they’re just not serious. Now people back on their agreements and want to do things on their own.  But you see here this group of ours, it isn’t so new in theory of course. Our purpose is just a little bit different from those days. Now we believe that the Government is defending everyone, so now our group has a different role. We come to share new ideas and to agree. Being in a group makes people know each other. I went to such and such a place and saw that, can we try it? Will this work? You share a lot, you find out if people are sick. When I heard he was sick, they called me, we collected money and sent him to the hospital and now look at him, he’s recovered! We see that this friend of ours is needing new thatching on her roof, you see how it leaks when the rain gets in? We arrange and build her a new roof. That’s why we have groups now. “

Now we turn to Mary, his wife, her hands deftly stringing beads as she muses over the past like sucking on a cherry pit---The tart and sour taste of those memories are gone, but something solid is left.  She begins mildly, her age roughly 14 years less than her husband’s, but still a grandmotherly type—a “Danni”.  “There was a method of marriage back then—eloping. When I was 13, I came to visit one of my relatives here. We went to the market to buy some vegetables. The men were sitting, and then all of a sudden they forced me to go home with them. If you refused, they cane you or carry you there. Those men were friends of my husband’s. They were sent to bring me home to Alonso because he had seen me in the market. Then they guarded the door so I wouldn’t run away. They were ready to fight my brothers who would come. Once you go into that house and become a woman, a wife, you can’t go home, so I stayed. Then the dowry was all arranged—that’s how we did it back then.” The happy old couple look at each other and that is that.

Churches and Hospitals

June 13, 2010 Sunday Morning 8am

The chapel is in the middle of our compound and through white iron shutters I can see the apprentices coming down the road that leads from the dairy. Other family members are coming late, but immaculately dressed after spending the morning hanging up a line-full of dripping fresh clothes. Nancy, my roommate, gets up to lead the service and urges us to get up and say, “Welcome to the house of the Lord” to our neighbor.  She says, “ I know we all live together, but maybe you have not greeted everybody yet this morning, maybe you can just stand and ask how someone slept and just say hello.” I love the orderliness of our Sunday services, which separate the ordinary, sporadic greetings of every other morning. I love being directed to inquire after someone’s sleep, and seeing work clothes replaced with tucked trousers and pressed dresses---even though the church consists of our small Nehemiah community and only a few people from outside, it is a morning where we are all in the same place at the same time and there is a uniqueness about it that I love. It reminds me of the feeling I get when my family is all home at the same time, but what I want most is for us to just sit in a circle in the same room and just be altogether.

A few people get up to lead us in singing and the room is filled with the sound of intricate clapping and muted drumming from the buckets covered in animal skins.  All songs are lead out and followed with repeating choruses by the congregation, who join in seamlessly from one song to the next. You let the leader sing, and her sound fills the whole room until it is half drowned with a crashing wave of echoing and agreeing voices.  The songs are never planned, just sung. And when the songs get slower and the harmony comes stronger and the sound softer, you know the singing will cease and Nancy will say, “Just come before the Lord, pour out your heart to him, tell God who he is…” and everyone whispers his own prayers.

We all sit down and anyone who has something to share is given a chance to come forward. “If anyone has an encouragement from the word, a song, a memory verse, a testimony---we welcome you” This is one of my favorite moments in church, either lasting 5 minutes, or half the service, you never know. This particular morning is memorable to me because I realized it is a platform where the question “So what’s God doing in your life these days…” is openly communicated, showing us more of who God is and what he is doing in our midst.

Lucas: Praise God. (Amen) Praise God again. (Amen). I am thankful for God’s healing power today. On Wednesday while I was at school I became very sick, I was just lying behind the school vomiting, even blood, and I couldn’t walk home. I was feeling headache and hot and then I started to get these bumps all over my arm. When school was finished Robert told this man to give me a ride home on his bike because I was walking so slowly and painfully. I was then taken to hospital and admitted for Malaria. I just want to say that God’s plans are not the same as man’s because the doctor said I would be there for five days but after two days I was healed. I remember praying on the second night and when I woke up, I was completely fine. I am now just a bit week. I came home physically the same as normal, but spiritually, I am different. Thank you.  (Amen’s dabble the benches)

Meshack and Susan: Ok praise God! (Amen) Bwana safiwe tena! (Amen).  I just have a testimony with my wife Susan, the Lord is really doing something in our lives.  We haven’t been here for the service for a few weeks and as you can see we are changed, Susan is looking different on the outside and we are also different inside. As you know, two weeks ago we were blessed with a baby boy. But that baby boy had a problem. His intestines were not fully inside him and the doctor gave him some surgery, but he could not handle the second surgery and he went home to be with Jesus. But I was at the hospital with a man who had to bury the wife and the child, and I am praising God that he has spared me my wife, that we will continue well in life with another chance, with more children to come. We are seeing this, our first child, as a firstfruit, that it is not the end. We are thankful for how we were supported by all of you during this time! Susan do you want to say anything? Yes, but first I want to sing a song… “We give all the glory to Jesu..”  (her song was swallowed up by her hands shoving the tears back and Anne Isuvi took up the song for her and the rest of us joined in, but as soon as Susan started crying I lost it and cried too.) Then, Meshack and Susan, swaying in a side-hug, led us in “What a Friend we Have in Jesus”

What a friend we have in Jesus, 
All our sins and griefs to bear!
 What a privilege to carry 
Everything to God in prayer!
 Oh, what peace we often forfeit, 
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
 All because we do not carry
 Everything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
 We should never be discouraged—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
 Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share? 
Jesus knows our every weakness;
 Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
 Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
 Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
 Take it to the Lord in prayer! 
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
 Thou wilt find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised
 Thou wilt all our burdens bear;
 May we ever, Lord, be bringing
 All to Thee in earnest prayer.
 Soon in glory bright, unclouded, There will be no need for prayer—
Rapture, praise, and endless worship
 Will be our sweet portion there.

Anne Isuvi: I just want the visitor to come help me sing this song. (Her sister makes faces from the pew and says, “me?” with her eyes as she reluctantly joins Anne to sing a hymn)

Kimae, Gordon, Fidelis…all get up to share verses…

Friday June 11, 4pm St. Monicah’s hospital

Josphat. Lucas, Sizco and I all sit on a hospital bed, talking, not talking, praying, waiting for Sizco to get an IV. We had come to pick up Lucas, and admit Sizco. I was struck by what an amazing thing it is to have a community like ours. Sitting there with these three in silent solidarity made me aware of the uniqueness of our “family”. Here we were, all from different tribes…Sizco’s a Nandi, Josphat’s a Luhya, Lucas is a Luo and I am…What tribe am I from anyway? I am a Washingtonian? Yet we were answering the doctor’s questions as brothers or sisters….”No she hasn’t eaten anything today…She is 22 years old…We will pay in cash….She is applying to be a nurse…She is our sister…Josphat is a pro at women’s hospital wards. Everyone in Kenyan hospitals needs a caretaker who can stay with them and help them eat or go to the bathroom holding the IV bag, or running to get the nurse etc… Josphat saw a woman in the next bed, thin as stick bug trying to pull her food closer. He went over and helped her eat, ran somewhere to find a straw, talked to her, came back…”You know she doesn’t have anybody staying with her. I spent a month with my mom in the hospital before she died, I just slept next to her and helped to take care of her, but everyone else in the room needs help too. I saw a lot of things in that month. I got used to it. People would roll out of their beds at night and nobody is around, so I pick them up, or someone’s IV is up and I run for the Sister. “

I stayed with Sizco that night and the next day and experienced something I’ve never done here or in America. All day you watch all the rest of the patients in the room. You get to know them, even if you aren’t talking, you get to know their caretaker of a sister or daughter just by looking at each other for long enough. Various mama’s or sons would come in and out bringing tea or fruits for their old old mother acting like babies in a grown up crib. All the patients are at various stages of recovery, some walking around as if they’d been living there for weeks, but didn’t need to be there anymore, others with catheters and constant sickly sleep. Even at this nice, clean hospital, it is all open air hallways and walking outside to the toilets, and at any given time there were 4 small cats in the room, crawling under the beds and lollygagging about the wards. I didn’t bring anything because I didn’t know I was staying over, and I could hear the other ladies in the room discussing it in their kind way. Then they gave me one of their wraps and a sheet so I wouldn’t be cold. “Si baridi” I am not cold, I said. “Utaenda baridi asabuhi!” You will be cold in the morning they said. While I was sleeping one of the patients got up and put another scarf of hers over my bare feet! I couldn’t believe this kind of environment! Everyone is looking out for each other, even the patients were looking out for me, and I wasn’t even sick! Night life in a hospital is an interesting thing…being a caretaker too. It was fun getting to know the doctors and nurses and mostly precious spending time with Sizco.

April

Every morning around 8:30 (a half hour early) a troop of children come up to the library for our little class. I can hear them coming from half way down the farm as they run and yell excitedly past the other houses and through the field. Four of them are siblings and one is an only child. They immediately start singing as we gather and their little distractible bodies float in and out of song and speech and anticipation to enter the library and hear the story of Jonah one more time. Every day they ask to hear the story about Jonah and how he did not go to Nineveh at first and how the big waves came on that boat and how he prayed inside that big fish…”Jonah pray in fish kubwa!” It is their favorite story, and for some reason we have several story book versions with different pictures inside. (American Christian publishing companies have gone wacko with some of the drawings, the varieties are endless, it is amazing they can still follow the story with Jonah looking like 5 different people from a fat white old man to a young dark and ruddy fellow…) Their enthusiasm for one story over and over is endearing and makes me laugh every day. We are working on the cardinality of numbers---that counting has a one to one correspondence and the last number you say really indicates the whole amount in the set. Because they age from 2—8 in age, it is fun to see the different development stages. Letters are a big deal. We are learning how those letters represent things when you put them together. It is hilarious engaging them in this when English is their third language and they don’t speak it all that well if at all, because they will recognize a picture and say “Yes, Yes! A for ndege! (Ndege is airplane and bird in Swahili) Pictures are quite confusing you know, H for hen easily can be H for chicken and then the correspondence isn’t strong. Using their names has proved powerful in noticing letters and comparing and observing---“Wow, look, David has a big D in the beginning of his name and a small d at the end of his name…they look different but they sound the same don’t they?” The tri-lingual school system here is quite impressive.  Even though they all grow beans and have seen them in the shamba their whole lives, they still race to measure our beans we planted and can’t believe how tall they’ve grown, after studying insects they can’t wait to point out all of them even if they’ve past them by in the past--Maybe they are seeing ordinary things with new eyes, which is my hope for them. Investing in the smallest of children can seem so relatively insignificant on a daily level, but is so eternally crucial.

Story Telling

One of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard, writes, “The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting.  A weasel doesn’t “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he is meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity. I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient and pure to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you…”

The tender, live spot for me is in a person’s story, in writing it and witnessing it in every way. I found out that Nehemiah really needed someone to record life here, to capture Nehemiah through the mosaic pieces of each person’s story, which come together to portray Nehemiah—a place trying to be so many things at once, a place so hard to describe without the people who put flesh on the bones. 

I recently went to Kolanya to visit the Mboya family, who used to live on the farm. They are an example of Nehemiah’s goal to have our community members move on to start their own small farms, to share their knowledge and become lights and leaders in their communities. I learned so much about their lives that I didn’t know before, and I was able to witness and record how God has changed their lives through Nehemiah. It was wonderful to get a feel for their new life, the challenges they are facing in their new community and with their farm and the progress as well. I have included bits and pieces of their story below. E-mail me if you want the whole thing (it is to0 long to put here).

Basically, Tom and Rosalyn come from really hard backgrounds, they didn’t go to school, Tom was a drunk who misused his family terribly and Rosalyn was calloused and cold. A pastor befriended them and they began to change their lives and follow Jesus. They ended up at Nehemiah….

The transformation from that moment to the present is so overwhelming that Nehemiah’s story cannot be complete without the testimony of how God fulfilled the vision of Nehemiah International in the Mboya family ---the vision to help people grow and to rebuild a generation after God’s own heart. His mother doesn’t recognize him for he is a new man, those who knew them remember their bitterness, and harsh life and thought them the most unexpected couple to turn out so faithfully full. 

Fatherhood

Tom

Everyday that I was there little pieces of their life slipped out and found a new place to connect to what they told the day before.  One evening, after supper, Brian sat studying with a kerosene lantern while Rosalyn, Benson and Tom finished a hearty laugh over a funny snippet on NTV—national television—broadcasted on their black and white TV hooked with jumper cables to a car battery. The screen fuzzed out and Tom stood up to adjust it and then changed his mind and turned it off. Their laughs together and playful comments to each other reinforced what Tom remembered next. “I ended up with Lucas, Solomon, Isaac and Martin. It was so hard at first and they were fighting all the time. They were not from the same tribe and they were being so bad! I knew I had to make them work it out, otherwise I would have failed to be a good father and this was my task and I couldn’t send them away. You know, we started having parent training at Nehemiah so we would know how to parent orphans, but that is the time I learned to be a father to my own children also. They are no different. I was just so careful to follow all the advice, to take to heart all that we were learning. We didn’t take short cuts, and in persevering, we were greatly rewarded. “

Their family became quite close. “I can’t believe I was able to be a good father—They just came running into the house calling “Mommy! Daddy!” I don’t think any other family had that happen. I couldn’t believe that we made it! I don’t see mistakes as a bad thing, that is just learning, but to repeat a mistake is very bad indeed.”

One example of Tom’s seriousness in being a dedicated father is his learning English because his boys needed to learn it and he wanted to be able to learn with them and help them.  Over the years Tom and Rosalyn both became fluent in English and now his new neighbors say he is just lying when he tells them they only went to class 3. “They are just seeing me as a University man!”

Motherhood

Rosalyn

In the evening Brian and Benson lay on the bed in the dark kitchen watching their Mom stir sufrias of ugali or beans----all food from their own shamba! The boys tut tut all the little chicks under the bed and the chickens and proud rooster daintily step over the threshold and make their way to a huddle in their make-shift roost. Benson loves to sing and Brian loves to boast so they make a little game of out-singing each other. Benson starts a song and Brian begins another and continuously begins new ones while Benson fumbles in his brain for a different song. “Ahhh! See, I can think of more songs than you!” teases Brian. The confusion, loudness and friendly banter of the boys may have irritated any mother, but not Rosalyn. Today she is smiling at them and urging Benson on. “Louder Benson, use your voice!” She encourages.

Their new home…

Kolanya is a small Teso area in the Western Province of Kenya, close to the border of Uganda. From Kisumu  it takes about 3 hours to get to Bungoma by matatu . Matatus vary in luxury and maximum capacity regardless of their outward monotony. It all depends on the passengers and their wares and destinations. If the gentleman sweating in a black suit and tie wishes to alight with his large suitcase from the rear seats, perhaps the mother with the decorated little baby sucking a lollipop will half stand half sit on the lap of the old Mama next to her to let him pass. The old Mama doesn’t notice much, but looks out the window in cramped familiarity. The wooden slatted seat put in to the opening is removed along with which ever unfortunate passenger sat there and the man will now pass out the sliding door with a bit of a tumble to the roads edge. The conductor hangs on in the open doorway and clinks a coin on the roof to say, “Hit the road!” and the matatu moves on.  Once in Bungoma, a fairly large city, it takes about 15 minutes on another matutu to arrive at Kimaete. The fastest piki piki (motorcycle taxi) from Kimaete will arrive in Kolanya about 45 minutes as well as many markets, potholes and puddles later.

Kolanya nestles little houses between wide fields of bright, broad tobacco leaves and tall slender maize stalks with beans growing at their bases. (Maize and beans “Guidere” mixture is a common Kenyan dish. Amazingly the two foods spend their whole lives together side by side!) Tom and Rosalyn’s home is about two kilometers away from the little main hub that dabbles either side of a ten foot wide dirt road containing a large primary school, and little “dukas”—kiosks selling the necessary sugar, oil, kerosene, soap and whatever else one needs.  The pathways around the area are lined with tall trees that Mzee Johnston plants. Neighbors greet each other in Teso, which Tom is picking up here and there.

The Mboya’s are Luo and are still learning many things about the Teso culture. “The problem here is that people don’t believe in God, they just believe in alcohol. Everyone is drinking so much changa (illegal maize liquor)—even the women. They even give their babies when they are first born—their first taste at their birth celebration. They are just raising very nice drunkards! But it is good they see me—I don’t drink and they see I don’t have the problems they have anymore. They see my wife and I have so much peace in our marriage and they are asking me why and how they can have peace with their wives also. I tell them it is very simple, we don’t drink and we love each other. We talk now instead of fight, because if you fight, you still haven’t solved anything.  We are trying to be a light here. The view of women here is terrible. They pay so many cows for the dowry that they just say, ‘I’ve paid so much for you, now you can work!’ “ Rosalyn chimed in from the kitchen “slaves!” Tom continued, “They have a backwards view. The men just sit in the market and drink and the women work very hard. If you have a lot of daughters in Teso land, you are seen as a very wealthy family because you can sell them for a very nice dowry.”

Despite the general drinking culture, the Mboya’s neighbors and daily lives seem blessed with friendly neighbors who drop by to buy milk, provided by the Mboya’s cow “Gift”, or to trade vegetables. Even the boys, Brian and Benson, light up the community and host little football gatherings in the yard after school as well as raise rabbits to trade for chickens with the neighbors.

Future Hopes and Prayer Requests

They would love to keep orphans again and to continue blessing others as they have been blessed. They are not concerned about the food, but they want anyone who stayed with them to go to school and are not able to afford school fees at this time. Pray for a way for them to set a radical example in their community and be able to be a father to the fatherless and a mother to the motherless. Pray for wisdom in their farming and for innovative ideas to scale up their farm, take risks and find a steady market. Pray for the continuing safety of their cow, who has been fed hidden metal objects wrapped in leaves by jealous neighbors. Pray for deep friendships and trustworthy people to share life with. Pray for their continual protection against sickness, especially Malaria, which they have experienced frequently since the move.

Final Thoughts

Tom: “We learned so much from Nehemiah, I remember everything that Jeanie has taught us and everyone else. I remember especially the time she told us that people have hard stones around their hearts and that ministering to people means to remove those stones one at a time. That was me. I had so much hardness in my heart, but now it is gone. I realized that it is a sin not to value yourself and to have low self esteem. I lost so many years thinking I was a nobody, but God knew I was a somebody. I can’t believe what he’s done for me.”

__________________________________________

The Grandmother and the Egg (a silly story for Heather…)

There is a grandmother here whose chickens lay one egg a day. She has so many grandchildren she doesn’t know who to give the egg to. She also really likes to eat eggs herself, so she tells the children that the doctor prescribed her one egg a day to be eaten with her eyes closed to keep her in good health.  I asked why she had to close her eyes—she closes her eyes so that she doesn’t have to look at all the sad children’s eyes watching her eat the egg! Clever huh?

Speaking of eggs…

I have been teaching a small class of little children from 2 years to 9 years. However, they all have lots to learn and love everything we do (even learning to recognize and write letters is wildly exciting to them—I wish I could remember what it was like not to remember which was which!) Back to eggs…We dyed some hardboiled eggs to learn about what happens when you mix certain colors together. That was all well and good, but the real joy was when they discovered we were going to eat them! I loved watching them glory in the taste. Eggs are my favorite food so of course I was just as happy to be eating an egg with them and hearing them sing the little song we made “E double G spells egg!” We read story books and Bible stories and learn about how the world that we live in works, what it takes for seeds to grow, why the rain comes, how to count all the fingers in the whole circle (whew!) They also lead in songs---Yes, even Terry, the three year old, is as bold a leader as any Kenyan Mama leading a service.

Other fun happenings…

• ·      I have been making homemade yoghurt from our delicious milk. You should all try it, it is soooooo easy!
• ·      I also made homemade gingerale, which becomes bubbly by putting a bit of liquid from the yoghurt or whey in your mixture and letting it sit at room temp for a few days. It is delish.
• ·      I know how to milk cows now
• ·      The weaver birds have moved to the thorn trees by the pond (see pic at top of blog)
• ·      I got to go on a bike ride with my friend Josphat on Sunday afternoon to visit one of our boys, Martin, who went home to be with his Grandmother for a while. We rode on the classic Kenyan archaic and heavy contraptions that take work just to hold them steady. It was so fun to ride all over through the villages of Kano and Obumba and visit other friends as well.
• ·      I am continually impressed by our apprenticeship meetings---I’ll write more about them another time…
• ·      The students in Form school are back on the farm for the month of April, so the farm is fuller and more lively at the moment.
• ·      My dad sends weekly updates about what’s going on at home to all his girls who are away from him. I love hearing your news, thanks to those who have e-mailed, I love hearing from you and will try to be more prompt in writing in you back!
• ·      On Sunday Paul, one of our boys in 9^th grade, was welcoming people to the front pews of the church but nobody moved. He told the whole back bench to switch to the empty front bench, to encourage them he said, “I think when Jesus comes we will all just want to be sitting in the front row, so why don’t you just come now?” It was really funny.
• ·      Last night I taught Nancy how to say, “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”—(I told her bugs are insects).  “How do you say it?” she asked, “Goodnight, sleep well, don’t let insects bounce off your beds?” Then I realized it is a silly (but extra appropriate) thing to say, but it is so catchy I can’t stop!

Karunga

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)