June 19, 2006
I have a wrap that I wear here all the time. It's bright aqua blue with hints of green and small shells dangling from one side. When I wear it, so many kids come up to me, put there ears down by the shells hanging near my feet, and listen in the shells- they're trying to hear the ocean (nam in dholuo). They laugh and yell for their friends to come over and listen too; they're convinced they hear waves and it's such a treat to them! It's so sweet considering most- if not all- of the kids have never seen (and will never see) an ocean in their lifetimes.
So the past week in Lwala has been incredibly busy! Jars of Clay (a well known Christian band) just left a few days ago, and they were certainly given the star treatment in Lwala. The band was very nice (and stylish, I might add)- they loved meeting the people of the village, who, by the way were incredibly gracious and welcoming to the band members, as always. The four days they were in our village consisted of a full itinerary including lavish meals prepared by the hardworking hands of Flo, Dada and Olga, concerts for Lwala primary school, fetching water from the river (carrying it on their heads like the women do every morning), dancing and drumming, football (soccer) games, walking hours each day, playing with kids and meeting very sick patients... they were often moved to tears. They would share their experience with me each night, often echoing the same sentiments I feel every day in the incredible village. Jars of Clay is interested in forming relationships with the Lwala community and is considering sponsoring our clinic... which is so desperately needed at this moment.
While the band was here, we had the privilege of speaking to a woman who is openly HIV positive- something that is very rare in Lwala (even though 30-50% of the population is affected with HIV, people are incredibly secretive about it. There is a bad stigma associated with having the virus- one of immorality. This makes it very difficult to talk about the virus and address its effect on the community, something we realized during the health surveys). We actually had to cross the river to find someone who would be willing to talk about living with HIV- about a 35-minute walk away from Lwala. We arrived at this woman's house around dusk. The sun was setting and we spoke with her in her tiny hut, all of us surrounding a single kerosene lamp. This experience was one of the harder ones I've had since I've been in Lwala- I was so deeply moved by this woman's story. She began by saying that she didn't have much longer to live- she knew she was dying. This woman, an AIDS widow, had 7 children, 5 of her own and 2 that she took in from her sister and brother in law who both died with AIDS a year ago. She struggled every day to feed her children because she was too weak to work in the farm (just like the rest of the community, she lives on subsidence farming). Often, she relies on neighbors to give her family food. There was a single bed in the hut and no mosquito net- I had trouble imagining how so many children and their mother could fit in this small, bug-infested bed... Her children were so beautiful. Big eyes, big smiles, chocolate skin that glowed in the light of the kerosene lamp. One of the little girls (around 9 years old) carried the baby on her back, wrapped in a cloth and tied around her chest. The woman articulated how she worries every day what will happen to her children once she's gone. After saying goodbye to the family, the group departed and I stayed behind with Fred. I went over to the 2-year old boy of the family, who had a clubbed foot and couldn't walk very well, and scooped him up in my arms and hugged him. I was surprised at how tightly he hugged back- I wasn't expecting such a response on his part. He hugged my neck and held onto my hair and nuzzled his face into mine. I tried to set the little boy down, sensing that it was time for us to leave, but he wouldn't let go. He wrapped his legs tightly around my waist and hugged harder- and that's when the tears came for both of us. Usually I'm really good about composing myself in situations like this, but something about this little boy and his mother and their courage in this unbelievably tough time touched me in a way I can't explain. When the little boy finally let go, the mother came over and thanked me (holding my hand and touching my cheek- which didn't help the whole tear factor). I'm still slightly embarrassed that she was the one consoling me... Walking away from the house, Fred told me "it never gets any easier, no matter how many times you see something like that." I plan on visiting the house again as soon as possible to play with the kids while the mom rests.
I'm not quite sure how to phrase what I'm about to say, but since I've been in Africa I've been taken aback by how often people have to deal with mortality and death. Death is shockingly common here- I've heard the drums of funerals four times since I've been here (that' s one funeral each week), and that only includes areas within earshot. I was sitting in a room the other night (with about 25 other people, all surrounding a tiny tv hooked up to a generator and watching the World Cup- SUCH a big deal here and so fun to be involved in all the excitement) and I realized that 7 of the people, my friends, sitting near me had all lost their mothers to either AIDS or tuberculosis. 5 of them were orphans. It was a heartbreaking realization. Although death may be common in Lwala, it doesn't mean losing a friend or family member gets any easier.
I actually attended my first funeral the other day for a man who was extremely sick with HIV. He's the man in the pictures I sent out in the first email- the one Milton is treating (he was only 30 in the picture but appeared much older). He passed away 2 days after Fred gave him money to go to the hospital. When someone dies in Lwala, the women of the village go to the house of the deceased and wail... and when I say wail, I mean loudly- we can hear them at our homestead from far distances. The wailing rips at my chest and is like no other sound I've heard before. The wail is an uninhibited expression of raw human grief, coming from the gut, penetrating the ears and souls of everyone it reaches. I went to this man's house with Fred for the funeral and encountered many women of the village surrounding the hut wailing, some inside consoling the family. To me, a wailing woman seemed so exposed, so vulnerable that I avoided watching. It was such a personal act, like dressing or bathing, and I did my best to be respectful and give these grieving women their privacy. Fred's grandmother was also at the funeral dancing and chanting in the midst of the wailing women. She sang in a deep voice, the lines of her face etching a picture of her empathy. I'm not sure I took a deep breath during that entire funeral... I unconsciously held my breath so as to not disturb, intrude or interrupt the scene that was unfolding before my eyes.. I guess I didn't want my presence to be known, I felt so humbled to be a part of this difficult yet paradoxically beautiful experience with the family and tried my best to be a fly on the wall.
A few nights ago I had my first up close encounter with ndoo, these huge drums that only a few people of the village know how to play. To celebrate the visit from Jars of Clay, the entire village gathered for traditional singing and dancing- it was so amazing!! That night the stars and the moon were so bright, lighting the sky so that no lamps were necessary. People gathered together in our homestead, in the middle of all the Ochieng’ huts. The women all dressed in brightly colored headscarves and wraps. Everyone came ready to move. When the drums started to play, people erupted in dance... the drums were so big I could feel the vibrations in my heart... each beat pulsed throughout my body. It was incredible to watch: everyone around me, even the kids, danced with these rhythmic, guttural (is that a word?) movements. It was so fun and I did my best to dance with them. There was singing and chanting and yelling... something that sounded like a high-pitched "yayayayayayyaeoooooow!" that lasted for hours. I danced with Fred and his family (Flo in particular) all night long and woke up sore the next morning!
Ok so really briefly I'm going to try to describe a typical day... since a lot of people have told me that it's hard to visualize where I am and what I am doing exactly.
7-8:00 am I wake up under my mosquito net to the sound of roosters crowing. The sun shines in my window in the morning and a lot of the time there's this perfect breeze that makes the morning so enjoyable. Everyone wakes up early here- there's work to be done! People are milking their cows, boiling water for coffee in the "kitchen huts," and sometimes the women have started laundry in buckets (bent over all the way scrubbing and scrubbing!).
We have breakfast around 9 (after I wash my face and brush my teeth outside, using well water for my face and bottled water for my teeth), which usually consists of tea, bread and jam, and occasionally potatoes or chapatti (fried bread, kind of like a tortilla). We always eat meals together, and I rarely snack… so the meals are pretty big. Our bathrooms are basically out houses (ventilated rooms with holes in the ground, which are actually very clean and civilized). I have to walk about 2 minutes to get to the bathrooms.
After breakfast our daily schedule varies. Sometimes we go into Kisii, a bustling but small town with open markets (an hour and a half walk followed by a 25 minute matatu- a crowded van- ride) to buy vegetables, beans, eggs, bread, etc. During the health surveys we would walk around to villages interviewing mothers until about 2. Some days I just play with kids all morning, read under trees, or work on our data from the survey.
2:00 lunch (usually potatoes, eggs, cabbage, sometimes chicken, rice... it varies... followed by fresh pineapple or mango)
After lunch I sometimes go tutor/ teach at the primary school, or meet with people regarding the clinic. It varies. There's always playing with the kids, or going to the river, or going to play football.
7:00 it's sunset. We sit outside while kids play soccer, and the girls (Olga and Dada, both 13) begin to make dinner (which is usually a 2 hour process.. or more). I've learned to cook the cabbage, chapatti, mandazi (fried sweet Kenya bread), and kale... so i often help make dinner. I like to sit with the girls while they cook because they teach me Kenyan songs. I'll also shower around this time- which means I have to go fetch water from the well, carry the water about 100 yards to the "shower" and manage to get clean using one bucket of water.
9:00 dinner. I'm usually starving by this point and the food always tastes sooooo good.
After dinner we do homework with the kids (using kerosene lamps for light), play cards (we recently taught them the game "BS"), play chess, hang out and drink tea, and then go to bed around 10:30 or 11.
This is by no means an extensive list because every day is pretty much packed with activity...It's great. I love it here.
Ok this is a long email... I hope all is well in the states. It was so fun to cheer for USA playing Italy in the World Cup the other night. It's so strange to watch tv here- the generator is so loud we have to crank up the tv really loud just to hear the game. They don't use it all the time because fuel is pretty expensive (and because only 1 family has one). Rachel (the other Vandy student who has been here for 2 weeks- who I haven't talked about much, but she's great) and I sang the national anthem and laughed at how proud we were to be American.
Until next time!
Abbie
So the past week in Lwala has been incredibly busy! Jars of Clay (a well known Christian band) just left a few days ago, and they were certainly given the star treatment in Lwala. The band was very nice (and stylish, I might add)- they loved meeting the people of the village, who, by the way were incredibly gracious and welcoming to the band members, as always. The four days they were in our village consisted of a full itinerary including lavish meals prepared by the hardworking hands of Flo, Dada and Olga, concerts for Lwala primary school, fetching water from the river (carrying it on their heads like the women do every morning), dancing and drumming, football (soccer) games, walking hours each day, playing with kids and meeting very sick patients... they were often moved to tears. They would share their experience with me each night, often echoing the same sentiments I feel every day in the incredible village. Jars of Clay is interested in forming relationships with the Lwala community and is considering sponsoring our clinic... which is so desperately needed at this moment.
While the band was here, we had the privilege of speaking to a woman who is openly HIV positive- something that is very rare in Lwala (even though 30-50% of the population is affected with HIV, people are incredibly secretive about it. There is a bad stigma associated with having the virus- one of immorality. This makes it very difficult to talk about the virus and address its effect on the community, something we realized during the health surveys). We actually had to cross the river to find someone who would be willing to talk about living with HIV- about a 35-minute walk away from Lwala. We arrived at this woman's house around dusk. The sun was setting and we spoke with her in her tiny hut, all of us surrounding a single kerosene lamp. This experience was one of the harder ones I've had since I've been in Lwala- I was so deeply moved by this woman's story. She began by saying that she didn't have much longer to live- she knew she was dying. This woman, an AIDS widow, had 7 children, 5 of her own and 2 that she took in from her sister and brother in law who both died with AIDS a year ago. She struggled every day to feed her children because she was too weak to work in the farm (just like the rest of the community, she lives on subsidence farming). Often, she relies on neighbors to give her family food. There was a single bed in the hut and no mosquito net- I had trouble imagining how so many children and their mother could fit in this small, bug-infested bed... Her children were so beautiful. Big eyes, big smiles, chocolate skin that glowed in the light of the kerosene lamp. One of the little girls (around 9 years old) carried the baby on her back, wrapped in a cloth and tied around her chest. The woman articulated how she worries every day what will happen to her children once she's gone. After saying goodbye to the family, the group departed and I stayed behind with Fred. I went over to the 2-year old boy of the family, who had a clubbed foot and couldn't walk very well, and scooped him up in my arms and hugged him. I was surprised at how tightly he hugged back- I wasn't expecting such a response on his part. He hugged my neck and held onto my hair and nuzzled his face into mine. I tried to set the little boy down, sensing that it was time for us to leave, but he wouldn't let go. He wrapped his legs tightly around my waist and hugged harder- and that's when the tears came for both of us. Usually I'm really good about composing myself in situations like this, but something about this little boy and his mother and their courage in this unbelievably tough time touched me in a way I can't explain. When the little boy finally let go, the mother came over and thanked me (holding my hand and touching my cheek- which didn't help the whole tear factor). I'm still slightly embarrassed that she was the one consoling me... Walking away from the house, Fred told me "it never gets any easier, no matter how many times you see something like that." I plan on visiting the house again as soon as possible to play with the kids while the mom rests.
I'm not quite sure how to phrase what I'm about to say, but since I've been in Africa I've been taken aback by how often people have to deal with mortality and death. Death is shockingly common here- I've heard the drums of funerals four times since I've been here (that' s one funeral each week), and that only includes areas within earshot. I was sitting in a room the other night (with about 25 other people, all surrounding a tiny tv hooked up to a generator and watching the World Cup- SUCH a big deal here and so fun to be involved in all the excitement) and I realized that 7 of the people, my friends, sitting near me had all lost their mothers to either AIDS or tuberculosis. 5 of them were orphans. It was a heartbreaking realization. Although death may be common in Lwala, it doesn't mean losing a friend or family member gets any easier.
I actually attended my first funeral the other day for a man who was extremely sick with HIV. He's the man in the pictures I sent out in the first email- the one Milton is treating (he was only 30 in the picture but appeared much older). He passed away 2 days after Fred gave him money to go to the hospital. When someone dies in Lwala, the women of the village go to the house of the deceased and wail... and when I say wail, I mean loudly- we can hear them at our homestead from far distances. The wailing rips at my chest and is like no other sound I've heard before. The wail is an uninhibited expression of raw human grief, coming from the gut, penetrating the ears and souls of everyone it reaches. I went to this man's house with Fred for the funeral and encountered many women of the village surrounding the hut wailing, some inside consoling the family. To me, a wailing woman seemed so exposed, so vulnerable that I avoided watching. It was such a personal act, like dressing or bathing, and I did my best to be respectful and give these grieving women their privacy. Fred's grandmother was also at the funeral dancing and chanting in the midst of the wailing women. She sang in a deep voice, the lines of her face etching a picture of her empathy. I'm not sure I took a deep breath during that entire funeral... I unconsciously held my breath so as to not disturb, intrude or interrupt the scene that was unfolding before my eyes.. I guess I didn't want my presence to be known, I felt so humbled to be a part of this difficult yet paradoxically beautiful experience with the family and tried my best to be a fly on the wall.
A few nights ago I had my first up close encounter with ndoo, these huge drums that only a few people of the village know how to play. To celebrate the visit from Jars of Clay, the entire village gathered for traditional singing and dancing- it was so amazing!! That night the stars and the moon were so bright, lighting the sky so that no lamps were necessary. People gathered together in our homestead, in the middle of all the Ochieng’ huts. The women all dressed in brightly colored headscarves and wraps. Everyone came ready to move. When the drums started to play, people erupted in dance... the drums were so big I could feel the vibrations in my heart... each beat pulsed throughout my body. It was incredible to watch: everyone around me, even the kids, danced with these rhythmic, guttural (is that a word?) movements. It was so fun and I did my best to dance with them. There was singing and chanting and yelling... something that sounded like a high-pitched "yayayayayayyaeoooooow!" that lasted for hours. I danced with Fred and his family (Flo in particular) all night long and woke up sore the next morning!
Ok so really briefly I'm going to try to describe a typical day... since a lot of people have told me that it's hard to visualize where I am and what I am doing exactly.
7-8:00 am I wake up under my mosquito net to the sound of roosters crowing. The sun shines in my window in the morning and a lot of the time there's this perfect breeze that makes the morning so enjoyable. Everyone wakes up early here- there's work to be done! People are milking their cows, boiling water for coffee in the "kitchen huts," and sometimes the women have started laundry in buckets (bent over all the way scrubbing and scrubbing!).
We have breakfast around 9 (after I wash my face and brush my teeth outside, using well water for my face and bottled water for my teeth), which usually consists of tea, bread and jam, and occasionally potatoes or chapatti (fried bread, kind of like a tortilla). We always eat meals together, and I rarely snack… so the meals are pretty big. Our bathrooms are basically out houses (ventilated rooms with holes in the ground, which are actually very clean and civilized). I have to walk about 2 minutes to get to the bathrooms.
After breakfast our daily schedule varies. Sometimes we go into Kisii, a bustling but small town with open markets (an hour and a half walk followed by a 25 minute matatu- a crowded van- ride) to buy vegetables, beans, eggs, bread, etc. During the health surveys we would walk around to villages interviewing mothers until about 2. Some days I just play with kids all morning, read under trees, or work on our data from the survey.
2:00 lunch (usually potatoes, eggs, cabbage, sometimes chicken, rice... it varies... followed by fresh pineapple or mango)
After lunch I sometimes go tutor/ teach at the primary school, or meet with people regarding the clinic. It varies. There's always playing with the kids, or going to the river, or going to play football.
7:00 it's sunset. We sit outside while kids play soccer, and the girls (Olga and Dada, both 13) begin to make dinner (which is usually a 2 hour process.. or more). I've learned to cook the cabbage, chapatti, mandazi (fried sweet Kenya bread), and kale... so i often help make dinner. I like to sit with the girls while they cook because they teach me Kenyan songs. I'll also shower around this time- which means I have to go fetch water from the well, carry the water about 100 yards to the "shower" and manage to get clean using one bucket of water.
9:00 dinner. I'm usually starving by this point and the food always tastes sooooo good.
After dinner we do homework with the kids (using kerosene lamps for light), play cards (we recently taught them the game "BS"), play chess, hang out and drink tea, and then go to bed around 10:30 or 11.
This is by no means an extensive list because every day is pretty much packed with activity...It's great. I love it here.
Ok this is a long email... I hope all is well in the states. It was so fun to cheer for USA playing Italy in the World Cup the other night. It's so strange to watch tv here- the generator is so loud we have to crank up the tv really loud just to hear the game. They don't use it all the time because fuel is pretty expensive (and because only 1 family has one). Rachel (the other Vandy student who has been here for 2 weeks- who I haven't talked about much, but she's great) and I sang the national anthem and laughed at how proud we were to be American.
Until next time!
Abbie
posted by abbie at 11:45 AM
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