Day 19

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Morning in the African Wilderness

It rained briefly during the night. I remember waking up to the sound on the tin roof. It sounded like an attack. I rolled back over and went to sleep. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and being able to see. Light was seeping into the hut. Holes in the tin roof looked like flash bulbs on cameras. I rolled rover got out of bed and the day started.

I did not see anyone around so I took my camera and went for a walk. I found some birds building a nest at the edge of a field of corn. I waited and got a couple of pictures.

Maurice’s brother came by the road and saw me. He wanted me to take a picture of him. Then I showed it to him on the digital screen. He was thrilled. He took a picture of me. Then he made claim to the camera. I did not see it again until it was time to leave four hours later.

Breakfast

Bread and tea is the way to do breakfast in Africa. They had a thermos of tea and milk and mugs. The milk is real, its from goats, and gives the tea an interesting “wang.” I’m sure it was not homogenized. I just keep praying the missionary prayer,

“Lord, I I’ll get this down, If you will keep it down, and get it through me, just not too fast.”

Maurice’s Home

We go up the hill to the family house. We sit under a beautiful tree in the front yard. Some of the children are gathered in the area. Maurice is not around to translate so I’m on my own a bit. I got one of the boys who looked to be about in 4^th grade to come sit buy me.

I drew a tick/tac/toe board in the dirt. Then using rocks and leaves I begin teaching him how to play the game. Eventually, he begins to get it. An older teenager is watching. After the younger boy looses interest he wants to play. He gets the basic idea, but doesn’t realize you can always play to a tie. We play for a long time. I win 5 times, he wins five times and we call the game a tie.

I slowly start getting the picture of who lives here. Maurice has 7 children. One of the boys lives with the grandparents and goes to a local school. They also have taken in three children that were orphaned at the death of Maurice’s younger brother and the brother’s wife. I’m not told, but I would assume from AIDS. They were not married, there seems to be reluctance to talk about the situation. Then there is another boy who is an orphan from and great aunts family that was brought to look after the animals.

One of the youngest orphans is obviously malnourished. He also has an eye infection that they are treating, but he has been going to the Dr. for several months and he is still suffering. Maurice says that it is much better. The mother who died last year did not take him to the Dr. because she believed that the cause of the trouble was a curse that had been put on him. When she died Maurice paid to have him seen by the Dr. It has been going on for almost 18 months.

Africa will break your heart

There is no way to deal with all the things a person sees in the desperation of poverty. There are images that I cannot wash away. People washing in streams that are obviously polluted. People begging from those that don’t have anything. People wasting away.

People laughing, people greeting each other, kids pushing a round metal wheel down a path with a stick, tag, singing. Animals being tended to, crops being weeded.

I vacillate between tears and smiles; between feeling totally overwhelmed by inadequacy and experiencing the simplest pleasures of life. How can we have so much and they have so little? How does this balance work in life? What can be done to even the playing field? Would I be willing to make the sacrifices to at least address the inequity in my own life?

I have no answers just the pain of living in the midst of suffering and wondering what I am supposed to do about it.

Maurice’s Father

Maurice’s dad is an elder of the Luo tribe. He sits on the “Baraza” or Elder council, that meets twice a week in the area. I interview him about that process and cases that he has seen that relate to my research paper. We have a long conversation. It is a trade back and forth. He answers a question and then asks me a question.

What is our land like? How much land do we own? What is grown on our land? (How do I tell him I grow grass for show and cut it down with nothing to harvest? How do I tell him that I irrigate this crop with clean water while they have to struggle to collect rain water or travel a great distance to the nearest well?). How do get married? What are the customs? How come we do not give Bridewealth? Why do I only have two children? The one with long hair is a boy? (I show them a picture of our family when Lance’s hair when it was at its longest). They cut the hair off and give it to others? (The whole idea of chemotherapy is lost on people who do not have a doctor and have never been to the doctor).

Time to Go

Maurice told me that we need to leave by noon to get to Homa Bay before dark. He tells me he does not like getting there after dark. I’m ready at noon.

At about 12:30 lunch is served. We had meat, and rice and the best tortillas I might have ever eaten. That last until about 1:15 PM when Marucie tries to hurry things along. We start out walking at about 1:35 PM. He says it is always like this when they are together as a family.

To the Next Village

We have to get to the cross roads to get a Mattatu going to Homa Bay. Maurice and I start walking. His wife, baby and daughter are somewhere behind us. I keep looking back to find them. The daughter starts out about 500 yards behind us. I still can’t see the wife and baby. Then I see a bicycle. One of the boys is pedaling and Maurice’s wife and baby are on the back. He explains to me that they will go on ahead while we walk. When they get to the cross roads the bike will turn back and come get the daughter while we keep walking. Eventually the bike will get back to us and take our bags so we can hurry faster.

On the way I solve the cell phone question. About 20 minutes from Maurices house there is a hut. It is about three feet by three feet. It has a set of batteries and adaptors and they charge cell phones and sell minutes. There is no such thing as billing, it is all pay before you use.

I now put it into high gear. I really enjoy walking and Kili is on my mind so I take the opportunity to push hard. Maurice tells me it usually takes about an hour and thirty minutes for him to walk to the cross roads. We get there in an hour and five minutes. We are hot and tired, but it felt great. Especially after sitting in the bus the day before.

Mattatu to ? Bay

After then minutes a Mattatu van shows up. I am thrilled. I figure we will get seats and have a better ride than in the civic. Not so fast there, Alverez.

People pour out on to the street to get in the van. Lots of jostling, lots of pushing. Eventually, the five us are in the van along with 9 others, bringing the total to 14. It is packed. Then we start the drive to a place where we will have to get another Mattatu to the place we are actually going to spend the night.

There is a saying in Kenya, “There is always room for one more.” We stop along the way and pick up more people. We drop people off. For over an hour we travel this way. I am so glad to get out of the van.

? Bay to Homa Bay

We arrive in another boom town right on the edge of Lake Victoria. We see fish, boats, and even worse poverty. We hike about five blocks to the edge of town to the area where the Mattatus gather to collect people for Homa Bay.

We get in a van and essentially fill it up. Then there is lots more jostling. Before we leave the area there are 18 people on this Nissan van built for 12. There is also a bunch of fish under the back seat. I am moved a couple of times because I am too big and make it hard for people to get in and out. Finally, we set out. Every inch of the van has a person in it. People are standing and leaning over others.

The smell is still in my nose. I try breathing through my mouth. I just want to keep from gagging. Then we start stopping and adding people. What I realize is that if you stack people two deep you can get a ton more people in the van. We eventually have 24 people in the van.

Someone in the seat in front of me vomits. The van never even slows down. There is struggle as people try to deal with this reality. Somehow it gets taken care of, I can’t move because all of our luggage is piled under my legs and in my lap. The window next to me does not open. Then a person gets on the bus who smells worse than anyone I have ever smelt before. He sits right in front of me so that the air coming in the window passes over him before it gets to me.

I just keep trying to be somewhere else in my head. I try to slow my breathing down so I can take less breaths per minute. I try to figure out how to tell my noise to ignore the smells. I try to ignore the sweat running down my legs from being pressed against the other people. After two hours we arrive in Homa Bay just as it is getting dark.

Homa Bay

We head towards the motel, but then stop at a car. The daughter gets in, she is going to go all the way to where she lives with the mother tonight. I ask why the do not travel together. Maurice tells me that at the other end there is only one bicycle to pick them up and take them to the school where they live. So one has to go now and one in the morning. We wave a quick goodbye and she is gone.

Of the three towns Magori, ? Bay, and Homa Bay, this is the worst. It seems forgotten. There are bars down the main street. There seems even less to do and I understand why Maurice does not what to arrive here after dark.

We head down less and less crowded streets and find the Quiet Rest Motel. He say that he wants me to look at the rooms and decided if I can stay there. The room is simple, a bed, a night stand a chair, a mosquitoes net, a long drop toilet in the corner, a plastic tub and a five gallon container of water. All for $8.30 a night.

We drop our bags and go run a couple of errands. We go and see the Lake. It is filthy. He tells me it is being polluted all around the area. We see the fish processing plant. We see the racks of drying fish bones and heads that they sell to the locals after the fillets are taken to Nairobi.

We go to the market to buy fish that Maurice and his wife will take with them to eat for the week. One of the people in the market approaches me, “Can’t you help us here in our suffering?” I don’t have an answer.

Right after that the strangest thing happens. Its as if the whole place starts to glow orange. The sunset is hitting the clouds in just the right way and the whole area is bathed in a soft warm glow. It brings a sense of peace to the whole area. The merchants all begin to pack up their things. Within minutes the place is dark and most people are gone.

When we get back to the motel, we eat the pineapple we bought. We are thinking about dinner, but did not find anyplace open. Maurice says they are going to go and try to find some food for the baby. I decided to skip this process and sit in the courtyard and unwind from the day. I know it will be their last night together for at least another month.

After about 10 minutes, he comes back to get me. They have found a place to eat right across the street in another motel. For 150 ks (Kenya Shillings about $2.50) I get a piece of chicken and hominy paste. About half way through the meal the power goes out all over the city. We finish by candle light and cell phones.

Night

I take a sponge bath and try to wash away some of the day, but nothing seems to clear my head. I lay down to sleep again the place is amazingly dark. I really treasure the misquote net as I can hear them all through the night trying to find a way to my warm body.

I don’t sleep well. Maurice has told me it is imperative that we leave the hotel at 5:45 AM in order to get the bus to Nairobi. I set my phone alarm and my watch, but keep jumping awake and checking the clock.