It takes a village

I didn't have a lot planned today. Make mango chutney, take kanga to my seamstress to be hemmed, ask my village executive officer about a letter I need him to write.

I didn't plan on going to a funeral.

A little after noon I headed down to see my seamstress, but on the way I saw her little brother herding the family's bull, who told me that she had gone into town today. I also ran into her father, my carpenter, who informed me that the furniture he's building for me isn't quite ready, and he can't work on it today because there's a funeral. The burial is in the afternoon, he told me, and asked if I was heading over now. I told him I would go later. 

I dropped by to see my drugstore sister, and even she told me she was going to the burial. I asked if we could go together and she agreed. 

So I went back to my house, put some nicer clothes on, and went to find my dada again, but she was nowhere to be found. I walk to the market to see if she passed by that way, but the ladies there say they think she already went to the burial, but that I should wait for them, they'll be heading over too. So I camp out in the market for a while, and buy some fried sweet potato with "pili pili" salsa fresca, and hang out until three of the women and I finally head down to the house where the burial is. 

There are several cars and people everywhere, many people from my village but also people from out of town - mostly I can tell by the way they dress. There are women cooking, and men standing and talking. I see one man I know from church and he gestures inside, telling me to enter. There are at least two dozen women in the room, sitting on a few couches and on large mats on the floor, singing and reading prayers. The focal point is a small red and gold casket, with a photo and a wooden headboard leaned against it, reading the name of the child, not even six years old, who has died, from complications of a stomach illness, as I can best understand. 

The women are interrupted and we are told that Mass will be said now, and we file outside into the courtyard, while men carry the casket and place it on stools before the makeshift altar. Tarps have been suspended overhead, to provide some shade, and there are some chairs but I find myself with some other women standing on the sideline during Mass, with some large tanks and buckets of water behind me. The priest is aware of the large number of Muslims in attendance, and acknowledges them in greeting. 

Mass is said, then the casket is opened and a procession around it is orchestrated. The mother and close female relatives of this small boy are in poor condition; when they bring up the procession, they can barely walk, supported by other family members and friends, and launch into hysterical crying, grieving even until they let their bodies go slack and they are carried inside. 

When the procession finishes, the casket is closed again and carried a stone's throw away from the house, into the field where pigeon peas are growing, soon to be harvested, where a hole has been dug and a mound of red clay soil awaits. 

Up until now it has been a women's ceremony. I only saw one young male family member shed tears, while many women held their shawls and head wraps over their face, grieving quietly, in sympathy, in empathy. But now the men take over. More prayers are said, more holy water dispersed, and the casket is put in the ground. I stand near the small group of women who have been leading the songs throughout. All the other women except this small group disperse, to help with cooking, to sit and rest, to check on the family who is grieving hard. 

Shovels and hoes appear, and the group of more than thirty men, Christians and Muslims, start to tackle the huge mound of red soil. There are fewer than five tools, but it seems that each man seamlessly offers his help, moving the soil efficiently into the hole. The dull thud of shovelfuls of soil being tossed down is rhythmic enough to sound like a heartbeat, coming deep from the earth. 

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but they failed to mention that it also takes a village to bury one as well. For the first time today my tears are close to the surface. I know many of these men, Christians and Muslims, who are dutifully and carefully burying this small body. Most of them have children, even grandchildren, of their own. They all know, we all know, that this misfortune could have happened to any family. 

Funerals are an outlet for sadness, frustration, and grief, in this culture that seems to tamp down emotions such as these. At a funeral, tears are permitted. Mothers breaking into hysterics, even until they cannot walk, is permitted. 

And the men, still stoic, rain down soil on the remnants of a life gone too quickly. 

Hunger: the expected, but uninvited, guest

I ended my day yesterday exhausted, with what I like to call a "triple S" headache: one that stems from Sun, Smoke, and Swahili. 

Perhaps I should rewind a bit to explain it all. 

Yesterday was Idi, which is the day of celebration after the month of Ramadan. I had some idea of what to expect but nevertheless it was an entirely new experience for me. 

Things were different even from the first thing I do when I leave my house every morning: going to the spring to get water. I knew today was a holiday so I made sure to bring my own bowl to scoop water from the small shallow pools where it collects, and when I arrived I was glad I came prepared, because there were only a few young girls around the water, sent to fetch that morning. So I took water, then headed back home. 

After dropping off my water and swapping my kanga for a nicer one, I headed down to see my guesti sister, and found her eating a beans and corn dish with her four-year-old son and our friend from up the hill. She handed me tea and invited me to finish the dish with them, and I obliged, since I told myself Idi is the one day of the year I don't mind relying on other people's hospitality to feed me, since generosity and cooking pots are overflowing this day. 

We compared henna, which the three of us had applied yesterday, and then we headed out, first to stop at our seamstress's place. I'm pretty sure the poor girl didn't get any sleep last night; despite being a Christian herself, most of the village (and thus her clientele) are Muslims, who have been bringing her swaths of brightly printed fabric to sew all manner of dresses, skirts, and shirts for to wear on Idi. Our friend, a mother of twins, came here to check on her request to sew small hats for her daughters, to match their outfits for today. Our seamstress assured that they would be ready in a few hours. 

Next stop was the market to stock up on vegetables, then we got meat at two butchers who were making brisk business that day. Then we headed up to our friend's house, to cook porridge for the twins, and to start cooking pilau. 

I can't say I was much of a help during cooking; there was only one knife, which passed between the capable hands of the two other young ladies. Mama Wawili ("mother of two") cooked on the charcoal stove burning warm and toasty in the sitting room, while my guesti sister used wood to stoke a fire outside, cooking in a pot balanced on bricks over the smoky fire. I peeled garlic and onions and shuttled the bag of salt from inside to outside, while the grandma kept the twins out of range of fire and trouble. 

Finally the pilau, meat and sauce, and additional rice were cooked, and a pot was put on for tea. Mama Wawili had a small crisis when she realized she misplaced the earrings she had bought for her twins to wear. She and my guesti sister take off, thinking maybe they left them at the guesti, and return some time later, calmed down, and with the newly-sewn hats for the twins in tow. 

We eat, then my guesti sister washes her son, then wraps him in a kanga to walk back home to put on his new suit and good shoes. I head out with them, then strike out for my own home, to cuddle my puppy and take a breather from the cooking smoke and the sun that has started to shine with intensity, burning off the haze of the morning. 

I head down to my "road mama", the wonderful old lady who always beckons me if she sees me head down to the road to catch a bus on days that I travel. One of her daughters is visiting from Arusha, and I am fed again, and asked many questions, struggling, as usual, to keep afloat in this world of Kiswahili. One of the schoolteachers comes by, offering to take a photo for a thousand shillings (about 50 cents), then go to develop them in town and bring back copies. I find myself in the center of several photos, then even more as I accompany a granddaughter up to the health clinic, where swarms of children wearing their Idi best are waiting to have their pictures taken. 

Many people have invited me to come visit and eat with them today, but it would be physically dangerous, or even impossible, for me to eat that much food, as they would be disappointed and/ or offended if I didn't eat at every one of their houses. So I stuck to the two meals I had happened upon, and as the day drew to a close, I made a circuitous route to my home, as I didn't want to pass by the health clinic and have to deal with swarms of children trying to take a picture with me. I got back to my house for the most part unnoticed, drank some kool-aid, and fed my dog. I was completely exhausted from a day of loud music, salty food, and bright colors. Talk about sensory overload!

I have mentioned this briefly before, but my tribal name is Kwaari, which means Hunger. I was named such because when I first came to visit my village, it was the season of hunger, before the crops are ready to harvest. This year has been especially hard for my village, so many of whom are farmers, because the rainy season was not a good one and the corn crop, the staple food, suffered. 

Ramadan, the month of fasting, could not have come at a better time, because I think it helped my village forget the trials of the crops. Hunger is normal during Ramadan. Hunger is expected. 

I was talking to a fellow volunteer about Idi. "It's like if Christmas came after Lent," we decided, trying to categorize the festivities in terms of the Christian ones we understand and grew up with.

In my family back home, during Christmas Eve we have a tradition of preparing for the "unexpected guest". When we set the table to eat in the evening, we set one extra place, just in case someone shows up, so that we are ready to invite them to the meal and show them hospitality. 

And on the day of Idi, I found myself here, invited many places but unexpected in others, an unexpected-but-expected guest, never wanting for hospitality. 

Many people delight in my name, "Hunger", but I think that it may be a constant reminder of something that strikes very close to home this year. That kind of hunger, the kind that comes from no rain and shriveling crops, is expected. But it is certainly not invited. 

Chasing skirts/ a holy thirst

This morning I left my house before eight in the morning, determined, as on most other weekdays, to find someone useful (village government, health clinic staff) to ask questions to help garner information for the report I must prepare about my village. But as I made my usual loop passing offices, residences, and the health clinic, not a soul was to be found. Which seems, most unfortunately, to often be the case in this month of Ramadan. My hopes of an eventful morning were rapidly dwindling. 

So I went to my default destination of my old guesti sister's place. I found her cleaning sporadically and huddling inside her bedroom, telling me how cold it was this morning. I laugh and chat with her, and her friend from up the hill arrives too, while the electric crew file in and out and cast their typical joviality over the place. 

My ears perk up when my dada mentions that there is an mnada, or large traveling market, today at a village on the other side of the small mountain range. I have been searching for any excuse to take one of the many paths over the mountains to the other side, so I jump on this opportunity. The female urge to beautify ourselves sets in, and my dada dispatches me and my friend to our respective houses to put on our best clothes for our appearance on that side of the mountain. 

What seems to be about three hours after our first inkling of going, we finally depart. We take a gentle walk through a gradual incline, we pass two low creeks, up some more, sight the village's water tank at the peak, then start the steep and rocky descent to the village and plain below. Over a narrow tree-bridge over a dried gorge, down into a dried gorge of a riverbed, then flat going until we reach the mnada. It takes us about two hours to walk here. 

I don't actually need to buy anything, I've only come to satisfy my desire to cross the mountain range. However as always in these shopping situations, I question my ability to refrain from buying anything. I stop to greet the fabric vendors I recognize from our local mnada, as I consider it very important to maintain good relationships with this gang of people. The sun is brutally hot, and I definitely overdressed for the occasion - I tie my black jacket around my neck and adjust my "thick cotton" kitenge wrapped around my dress. (Though I secretly laugh at the concept of cotton keeping you warm in the cold - many women here tell me that I must keep warm by wearing the "heaviest" cotton possible, which is the wax kitenge that is not very heavy at all. In my opinion, cotton is not really the go-to fabric for warmth or insulation...)

I also question my ability to keep "closed" today - to continue my Ramadan fast. As the afternoon wears on my mouth and throat are going dry, and I feel my breath going stale for want of water. My few packets of koolaid at my house are occupying my thoughts intensely. 

At about three in the afternoon we depart, taking a more direct route this time over the mountain. We climb the rocky surface of the mountain, pausing once, then once again, to rest and to look back at our progress - through the trees you can see the blue tarps of the mnada, far down and far away below us. It is almost inconceivable how high and far we've climbed. 

Most of the way back I follow closely a woman who brandishes an eight-foot-long piece of sugarcane, a common thing to buy at the mnadas. She alternates between using it as a walking stick and holding it horizontally in her hand. Up the mountain I follow her steps closely, the only things in my vision being her flip flops and long skirt, a steep patch of trail about three feet long, and the blunt end of her sugarcane, which comes dangerously close to tapping me in the head on occasion. 

And it is the most natural thing in the world to be thirsty, and to be walking single file through the ups and downs of Africa. But I could be anywhere, as we enter the precious little microclimates of cool oxygen in the shadier parts of the forest. I could be anywhere with anyone and I am here.