Beechers Serving in Kenya: January 2011

Mombasa:

Mombasa is way over on the other side of Kenya, on the Indian Ocean. Elder and Sister McBride serve there and are soon to go home (March 21). We had heard from another couple in the mission that she was an absolutely fabulous English teacher. We have several situations in our area where women are unable to be baptized because they can’t speak English and so can’t be taught because ours is an all-English speaking mission as far as teaching is concerned.

We felt such failures in the Philippines when we tried to teach English, that we have wanted ever since hearing this report, to go to Mombasa to have them show us what they do. We are so glad we made the trip. The McBrides are a wonderful couple from Roosevelt, Utah. He has served as a branch president in Mombasa (there are 3 branches there) for much of their mission. He was released the day before we arrived. His phone rang off the hook with people calling to ask him for food and money. He referred them to the new branch president. Nothing like breaking in someone new.

Mombasa is a very busy port city. Traffic is crazy, the streets are packed with people driving crazily, walking between cars, and loitering on the streets. The same vendor stalls we see everywhere in Africa are ubiquitous (Kevin). The big difference is the diversity of the people. We saw so many Muslim women completely wrapped in their black burkas with only their eyes showing. Sometimes the little crack of skin was covered with glasses. We saw many levels of traditionalism—with some Muslim women dressed less rigidly in beautiful flowing garments. Almost all of the women in the outskirts of town were wearing lessos and other traditional African dress.

Mosques were also ubiquitous (Kevin). We heard the call to prayer 6 times each day: 4-8-12-4-8-12. The mosques were prettier and cleaner looking than the ones here where we live. Mombasa has a huge Muslim population dating back clear to the times of Vasco DeGama who is said to have traded here. The majority of the men wear highly decorated fezes. So, we thrilled with the diversity we saw in Mombasa.

We just barely got off the airplane to stifling heat and humidity, when the McBrides stopped right outside the airport to take us to a workshop where craftsmen make many of the wooden objects which are for sale all over Africa. They, and hundreds of missionaries before them, have been given a special privilege to go back into the workshop itself to purchase the wooden objects.

We went with the McBrides to their English class, taught in the outskirts of the city where the people live more humbly. Their homes were mostly cement (ours are almost all mud). We went to English class with them. It was taught in a shack of tin pieces rusting and clumsily nailed together. The students (7-8 of them) were enthusiastic about the class even though they stood on a dirt floor and sat on rough-hewn benches. We were really impressed with the teaching they received and their eagerness to learn. Some were members and some not.

Afterward we met one of the students, a man probably in his 20s or 30s. He speaks little English and is a Masai warrior. He is not a member. He showed us the scars on his shoulders, face, and ears. He killed his first lion when he was 10 years old. To commemorate that event, he had a strip about 3 inches long burned onto his shoulders. Each strip had claw marks burned on either side of it. He also had circles burned onto his cheeks and the middle tooth of his bottom gum had been broken out as a sign of his courage. He also had holes in his ears. He killed the lion by propping his spear up in the dirt and the lion fell on it some way. We were unclear about that.

We saw quite a few of the Masai warriors turned actors when we were down by the beach. They make a beautiful statement in their red blankets (expensive tourist attractions) and beautiful beaded necklaces, bracelets, and ankle bands. We met one right on the beach selling his wares. He had killed his lion when he was 15. This is a mark of courage and rite of passage to manhood.

We went to the hospital/clinic with the McBrides on three different days to take a little 3 year old boy to have the scabs pulled off of a terrible burn he sustained around Christmas time. He pulled boiling water onto himself and burned him on his stomach, buttocks, and leg. It looks awful. He wore only a lesso part of the time and nothing most of the time. He whimpered when he saw the McBride’s car, knowing where he was being taken. The procedure was done without anesthetic and his screams were blood curdling. He just cried and cried as them scraped off the scabs and then put a very painful medicine on the raw wounds….He screamed all the way back to the car and cried and cried as we drove home with him. Finally, Sister McBride put the Primary new CD in, and stopped crying immediately. The next day the same thing occurred…as soon as she put in the CD, he stopped crying. We dropped them at their apartment and had prayer with the family and went on to visit several other members.

We visited one family of 10 who had not eaten in 3 days. Beautiful new convert family. It was wonderful to be with the McBrides and see what they are doing in their area. They have really impacted their branch and it is easy to see what a blessing them have been to the people there. One of the women (member) digs post holes in that hot sun for 150 shillings a day…that is about $2.

One of the little babies who comes to English class has pneumonia and has had it for a long time. IT made us sad to hear her wheeze. While we were in English class in the shack, a little 9 year old member boy, whose father took off one night and never returned, peeked in through the cracks in the broken tin walls to see what we were doing. Then he lay down on an old piece of wood and tin next to the wall to be close to us while he waited for his mother to return from work. It was about 4PM when he came. He told Neal his mother wouldn’t be back until 11 PM. He was lying in a garbage dump place.

Chickens run around here in Africa everywhere…in and out of houses, under your feet all the time. They are not penned up. There are a lot of snakes in the Mombasa area. The people try to keep chickens out of their houses there because if the chickens lay an egg in the house, it attracts snakes who come in to suck the eggs and eat the chicks.

Side note: One of our sweet sisters from our own area who lives way up in the hills, went to the temple in So Africa for her first and probably only time last week. She went with a missionary couple and group of members from Kisumu. They found her to be delightful because she was so excited---she had never even been to Kitale before far less, Nairobi, or Johannesburg. She was amazed at the plane, the faucets that turned hot and cold, the elevator, and the key card to open the door to her room. She said, “The temple is the Celestial Kingdom. This is love…this is God. “

Today after Church we took a young man (28) to Kitale to meet a friend. He has just returned (May) from serving a mission in Johannesburg mission. He was born in Burundi and left in 1988 with his mother because they were in the middle of a Civil War. They went to Rwanda from 1988-1994 and left because Rwanda was in the middle of a Civil War. Mom died from malaria. He then went to the Democratic Republic of Congo from 94-96 but had to leave because they were having a Civil War. He then went to the Congo Brazaville but only stayed 4-6 months because they were fighting a Civil War. He then went to Zambi for only 2 months, but they wouldn’t let him stay and gave him no refuge. He went toTanzania from 1998-2000 and then to Kenya. He joined the Church and went on a mission. He came to Kenya because he met a fellow student in high school who was one of 25 children of a man with 3 wives (very poor) who agreed to adopt him.So he has had a very interesting life. He wants to stay in Kenya because he likes it so much.