BIRTHING, AFRICAN STYLE
Today, December 30, 2010 we went to visit a sweet woman who has not been to Church for several months. We went with her branch president (who we do not understand very well—a visa versa, and two African elders. We walked around and through many people, sitting, standing, cooking in the dirt (chapatis, very good tasting African fry bread/pancakes…kind of a cross).
As we entered her mud house, we were immediately engulfed in darkness as is usually the case. She rose to greet us very warmly, holding her heavily bundled baby tightly in her arms. There was not enough room for all of us to sit, so we doubled up and began to visit.
We were shocked to learn that the baby is only 2 days old, the 6th child of this mother, and further shocked as she explained that on the day of the birth, she was having some significant labor and had been told that this baby was going to be a difficult delivery, and she should go to the hospital rather than having it at home. She could not find any transport—no matatus or buses out there, and especially not during the holiday season, so she got on a motorcycle, traveled to the hospital, about 15 minute ride on terrible roads to deliver her breech birth baby (feet first) within 2 hours of arriving at the hospital.
She had her at 6PM and returned home the next morning. She said, “They had no pain medicine at the hospital and no trained people, only beginning students.” I can’t believe what these people endure here, stoically….there are no other options for them. I felt so sorry for her. Most of the women have no underclothing, so the milk just flows, and here she has company…I would be lying flat on my back complaining in her condition, but they just accept it as their lot.
The baby is absolutely beautiful with lots of long curly black hair, beautiful curly eyelashes, and long fingers. We told momma how beautiful the baby was, and she said, “Oh she’s as black as me.” The baby had on an undershirt (first I’ve seen), a pretty dress, a heavy brown towel, and a blue baby blanket. I was plenty hot with none of that. It is very common for babies to be heavily wrapped.
EXPECTATIONS, EXPECTATIONS:
One of the most difficult adjustments we are making, is to face the CONSTANT expectations required of us, of which we have not the slightest understanding. We were driving home from a very long day of teaching…we had had several visiting appointments, and then three classes in our most distant branch, about an hour away on very hard roads. As we neared Sikhendu (one of our branches ½ hour away from home) at the close of this day, about 4:30 PM, we received a phone call.
“Elder Beecher, you are coming to my house to take photos of all of my family and friends.” “We Are?” “Yes, right now! We are all waiting for you.” “You are? What is this for?” “You know, it is my son’s graduation from his circumcision 4 months ago. Everyone is here, my neighbors, and my family, and you must come. You come now!” We have learned from past experience that sometimes people invite us kind of like a trophy. They feel it adds to their prestige in the community if they have a muzungu attend their function. It has nothing to do with friendship or personal connection, but everything to do with their status in the community. As you will see under the next topic, in other cases, having a muzungu in your home has just the opposite effect as well.
We have to be so careful that we do not set a precedent in the actions we take. To agree to take family photos of one large community event for one family could lead to bad feelings as people compare and then have further expectations of what we should do. We have really had a difficult time meeting expectations which have been set before we came.
So, we were quite nervous as we changed directions and proceeded to the home of this family. When we arrived, the father stood out in the overgrown path to show us the direction to his compound. He gestured us in through the undergrowth to his house—a sod home. There were people everywhere, sitting on the ground, crowding around the truck, filling the three houses in the enclosure, circling the fires, and sitting in large and small groups talking and eating. They had been at this event all day long since early morning, and some had been there the night before.
We arrived at the end of the festivities for many, although many others would stay much longer. The husband pulled us from one group to another introducing us to all. He took us into one house where probably 9 men and 2 women sat in a circle eating rice, ugalli, and meat. He introduced us to many of his brothers (this is a polygamous home—in his father’s generation). One brother was the village elder, another was the circumciser, another was the oldest man in the village, and another a sub-chief of the tribe.
We met the boy guest of honor, dressed in his best…but his clothing was all smeared with food—a tradition in which his peers honor him by smearing his new clothes with their food.
We were asked for money twice in the 20 minutes or ½ hour we were there. The father took us to the spring that provides water for this large extended family and community. LDS Charities had put it in 10 years ago. It was still doing well, but the platform surrounding it was caving in, and the pipe had rotted away, and had been replaced by a plastic pipe, which was now broken. He wanted us to replace it.
On the way back from walking to the spring, three teenage girls kept giving Neal a paper, but he couldn’t understand what they were asking him. Finally, he realized they wanted money from us. This is so common. We are almost always asked for money or help of some kind no matter where we go.
PRE-CHRISTMAS FESTIITIES with the other 11 couples
We traveled to Lake Nakuru, famous for the thousands of beautiful flamingoes who frequent it. There are many lodges there—beautiful places which overlook the lake. We spent two and a half days driving through the game reserve. We saw baboons, water buffalo, lions, gazelles and impalas, rhinoceros’s , warthogs. It is a very large park, and the animals, of course, run wild. We did not hire safari vans, but just drove through with our cars. The animals were great, but our favorite part was being with the couples. We miss that association very much.
CHRISTMAS with the ELDERS: We spent Christmas Day with the 6 elders in our district. We did service at an orphanage run by members of the Church. The elders and Neal built up the sod bank of a tilapia pond) while I worked with the teenaged girls preparing African food for lunch for the children. There are usually 85 kids there, but this day we had about 30. We had purchased some balls for them to keep, so after the work, they played ball.
They elders ate ugalli, chicken and greens before we left to return home where we planned to have a big turkey dinner. They were full by then, so we postponed the dinner and played games like Christmas concentration, open the candy bar with gloves, etc….(we played games for about 2 hours—they loved that) Then they opened a DVD the mission had prepared with all of their pictures, ate our dinner, then they opened several gifts from us, then had a spiritual program with scriptures, music and candlelight, followed by a testimony meeting and “Finding Faith in Christ” video. Two of the elders wrote letters to us later, both saying it was the best Christmas of their lives, that they had never had a “family” kind of fun and spiritual Christmas. That was a bittersweet experience…sweet because they were so kind, but sad, too, that they have never had that. Many of them never receive any mail of any kind, so Christmas is just hard…particularly when there are muzungus in the district who get lots from the USA
Seminary and Institute Inservice
As you can tell, life has been a bit crazy with all this stuff going on. We just finished our second inservice meeting introducing the Doctrine & Covenants study for next year. I’ve learned so much just preparing for these meetings. Those D&C training materials are really comprehensive. We did a big overview of the D&C giving the history of the Church in brief and then presenting a detailed lesson on the Plan of Happiness so they have some ideas about how to present these things. We also handed out all of the manuals we could to the new teachers.. This next week will be spent trying to get all of their names entered into the internet Seminary/Institute Program to track their attendance for next year.
Possible change in the wind
We presently have 12 couples in the mission, including the president and wife. Every month for the next six months, we will have another couple leave and no one to replace them. This will make it very difficult to keep the programs going. We presently work with two couples: one in Eldoret and another in Kisumu. They do a lot to keep the Seminary and Institutes going and the Perpetual Education Fund functioning. The Eldoret couple will move to Nairobe Jan 28, and the Kisumu couple goes home at the end of spring. We will have to assume their responsibilities when they leave. We are unsure how we will do that because they live 2 hours rough road to Eldoret and then another 2-3 hours on to Kisumu. So, it should be interesting to see how that works out.
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