February 3, 2011 I am going to write as fast as I can and try to put down images and thoughts and experiences we have had in the last month. I don’t have much time to do this—that is why we haven’t done it—so I apologize in advance for it being disjointed.
We have made a really concerted effort to try to train each Primary Presidency (usually only one sister or maybe two) in each of the four branches. These women are really valiant. I so admire their stamina and willingness to try. They lead such very difficult lives. I would feel despair I fear in their place. They work very hard, packing water each day, caring for their children, and almost always preparing the land for planting and tending the food supply for the family. Many times the men help in this task, but primarily it is the woman’s responsibility. This means, plowing or overturning the ground with crude hoes (they are wide-bladed like those pictured in Millet’s paintings.)
Most of them do not eat regularly, although I do feel they have more food than the people we served with in the Philippines. They walk everywhere they go—that is true of most of the people here. Women, however, carry all their needs, plus their babies, plus leading toddlers and other children along with them. So, to have all of those responsibilities as well as coming to Church long distances to handle Primary for two hours (almost always by themselves) is just more than I can even imagine. They have CD players to help them with the music, but without fail, they tell me their hardest challenge is Primary music—that is because almost all of the children speak only their native tongue—so they are learning songs in a foreign language.
It broke my heart last week when a Primary President responded to my question, “What are the challenges you are facing in Primary?” She said, “What is a Primary Sacrament Meeting Program? At first, I just thought she was talking generally and I answered her briefly. We went through our entire training, and were ready for closing prayer, and she brought it up again. “Tell me about the Sacrament Meeting Program? How does it work? Does the Branch President get up and talk about Primary? Does he have me talk about Primary? How long does it last? Is it about 10 minutes?“ This is a Primary President who has been in for several years. We went back to the handbook and talked at length about it. We just make assumptions. We think we understand, but we don’t so often.
MODERN COURTSHIP TRADITION: as told by our African house guests They were a delightful couple. Her father joined the Church in Scotland where he was on a scholarship to get his Master’s degree in Chemistry. He then returned to Kenya where she was raised. Then he and his wife went to USA for his Doctorate in Chemistry. He now teaches at a University in New Hampshire. Her sister has a doctorate in Chemistry and teaches at a University in El Paso. His brother teaches at a university in Georgia---teaching Economics. This couple is really sharp. He now works for the Church but left the business world as an executive to take his present position.
Over dinner they told us some of their marriage and courtship customs. They met at Church, and she told her parents she wanted to marry him. Her father invited him for dinner, and then took him into the living room where he interviewed the prospective groom for 4 hours….a real grilling.
Then sometime later, the groom to be came with some of his friends to formally talk with her parents and the clan to ask for her hand. The friends told the parents of the good qualities the groom was bringing to the marriage. Her parents and the clan then ate with the men again asking questions to see if he could provide for her.
Then the bride and her friends/sisters were called into the room. They all trooped in with lessos and blankets over their heads. The girls all walked and sat before the group. The groom had to tell which girl was the bride just by observing the bottom half of her. Every time he missed answering correctly, he had to fork over 500 shillings (about $6) to the bride’s family. (this custom is just for fun). He did not have to pay bride price because they are active Church members, but it is possible to have to pay a great deal.
If a woman runs away after she has been married, it is customary for her not to be able to return to her parents’ home for 10 years.
At the dinner that night, another returned missionary, married with 1child joined us. He explained that he had to pay 18 cows and many sheep plus gifts and money for his wife. Her bride price was 120,000 ksh or $1400 here. One cow today can be worth 30,000 ksh (about $375). He still owes a great deal on this, even though they allowed him to pay only part with the idea he must continue to pay until it is resolved. You can see what a burden this places on young people who feel often they can’t afford to marry.
They told us when an old woman dies, the clan will find a young girl from the group to replace her as a bride. It is strictly forbidden in some traditional communities now to marry someone from another tribe. If a young or middle-aged wife dies, the clan will provide the wife’s sister (if unmarried) to the man.
Kitale Adventure with Elders-native traditions
Yesterday we went to the Kitale Museum with the elders. They have mockups of several tribal villages. The first we visited was a dung home mockup of the homes the early Christian missionaries lived in.
Next we went into a compound of Lua (sp?) the tribe that lives here now. We first saw a tiny little house (like a doll house) where sacrifices were made to their gods. Then because they are polygamous (many still today), we went to the kraal of the first wife. It was the biggest, nicest house with multiple partitions for different family duties: sleeping, cooking, visiting etc. and partitions for the animals. It was about the size of a great room. To enter that home, one must bend down as a sign of respect. Then we went to the home replicating other wives—this was much smaller and much simpler in design. The other wives needed to beg the first wife for food and supplies the guard said.
At the tribal home of the Nandi Warriors, we were told that one must enter by one door and always exit by another. It is forbidden to ever walk around the house—especially by a visitor. Men must clear their throats before entering so that women may cover themselves and sit properly inside. That home was very interesting because every place in it was marked for a member of the family. There was a raised platform for the son-in-law, one for the father, the mother, etc…also each bed position on the cow dung floor was divided for a different person with a mud partition.
One tribal home for Sabot tribes had two front doors side by side. The house was divided into two distinct areas with a corridor between them: one for the teenagers and one for the parents.
Neal loves a particular tree here. It has twisty gnarly trunk and branches and then little sprigs all over it that stand straight up with clusters of bright red/orange flowers on them. It is called an Erythrina Abssinica Tree. We finally found out the name. It was worth it to go to the museum to find that out because everyone seems to have a different name for it. We’ve been told that when the red flowers drop off, the rains start again. We also have been told that if you have the mumps, you can run around the tree with a pile of wood on your head, and the mumps will leave you. I asked the museum guide if that was true, and he said, “Yes, it is.”
We’ve had some challenges helping people with the PEF loan because we’ve found sometimes the schools are not registered with the government and then they charge too much and don’t provide the degrees people have studied for to them when it is time to graduate. It is just very hard for people. We are trying to help them make sure they go someplace that the government approves.
We are responsible for Seminaries and Institutes. We have 35 classes for which we have direct responsibility. So, on Saturdays, we try to visit classes. This Saturday we went to two classes. No one showed up for the second class, so we went with the teacher out to visit each of the 9 students.
The first two are close relatives of the branch president—a sister and nephew living in the same compound. The next family we visited had two other students. In all four cases, the kids could not come to Seminary (held on Saturday because they go to school from 6AM to 5-6PM during the week) because school for them also includes Saturdays until 4:30-5PM. When they get to high school many of them go to school 7 days a week.
The next family we visited (two students) had had former couple missionaries build them a house. They are now completely inactive. The older son greeted us (19 years old) after much urging to get him to come out of his house. (Remember, once circumcised, boys and young men live in their own homes on the family compound).
He visited with us for a short while as Neal tried to encourage him to return to Church and prepare for a mission. Neal asked what could we do to help him return. He said, “You can pay my school fees.” We were a bit taken back by that especially since they had been given a house ($800) and then dropped out of sight. When we tried to encourage the younger sister (about 16) to return to seminary, she refused.
We then went to visit the last student—an orphan who works very hard in the home of her grandmother, who is in very poor health—in her late 80s or 90s. This girl works very long hours and is not able to come to seminary very often because of all she must do to earn her keep in the home.
We have just finished teaching the 6 Temple Preparation classes in each of the 4 branches. That has been a really neat experience for us. There are some really wonderful, sweet people here. We hope they have a better idea of what the temple really means. There are two or three families in each of the branches who are preparing to go to the temple. It is very, very difficult here to do that. It takes a long time to get a birth certificate and passport, plus it is very expensive for them. The Church helps them, but it is still very difficult. Neal has also been teaching Missionary Prep classes to several young men. We hope to start a Marriage Class in Sunday School in one of the branches. It is a huge need here.
We had a man call us yesterday to ask if we would come up next week and teach him how to be a professional counselor and to learn how to play the piano at the same time. We tried to explain that it took us many years to learn to do that.
We love our branch presidents. They sacrifice so much for the work they do. We have visited with the parents of three of them so far. We have been in the home of the BP’s parents in one branch several times. We were shocked yesterday to discover that the BP’s mother, whom we have visited is the 1st wife of 2 polygamous wives. It is just so common here that they never mention it. In that home the mother (a grandmother my exact age) was holding a 6 month old baby. She told us her son’s wife (the mother of the baby) had run away 2 months previously and left the baby behind. What a tragedy. Grandma is raising it.
The African couple who stayed with us (mentioned earlier) have been married 10 years and have been unable to have children. She suffers with endometriosis. They said it is impossible for Africans such as themselves to adopt children. They said foreigners are able to do so easily, but it is really hard for natives. I imagine part of that is because orphaned children are assimilated into extended families so well. We are so impressed with the generosity of African families to take in children or others who have no place.
One of the branch presidents lives in his family’s compound. The land has been subdivided so each of the siblings has a small farm, and they all work the land collectively. One of the siblings died leaving his wife pregnant. She had had 2 sets of twins previous to his death. On the birth of the third set of twins, the wife died. Now all three sets of twins live in the compound. They sleep wherever they happen to be at bedtime, but they are raised just like the others as part of the whole big family. Not many of us Americans would be so generous I would think.
We hardly ever have taken P days. We usually just get up and throw a batch of laundry in the washer and leave for the day or do it on our office days. Saturdays are our Seminary Visiting days. So, Monday morning when we were out on our walk, it was so beautiful, and Neal looked out over the huge valley and said for the 100th time, “Sometime we ought to go to Mt Elgon National Park”. It is about ½ hour from our home. So, I said, “OK, let’s do it—today….We’ve been here 6 months, let’s just do it!” So, we came home, threw in a wash, typed a bit of Seminary stuff, and piled into the car, and went.
When we got to the park, the ranger told us our passports were not in order, and it would cost us about $50 a piece. She found a place in the passport that said our work permit was only good for 6 months and expired a week ago. We were shocked as we only got them in November. We called Nairobe and asked while we stood at the gate, and Sister N. explained there was another place in the passport that said it was good for 2 years. Yay! So we got in for about $12. Mt. Elgon is the 2nd highest peak in Kenya.
We loved our afternoon riding through a small portion of the park. We didn’t see any other people the whole time. We rode through beautiful jungle with lots of Tarzan vines, caves, waterfalls, and at times, beautiful vistas. We didn’t see any elephants---darn…but lots of elephant droppings….we wondered if they had been scooped up from somewhere else and planted on the roads…just kidding! We saw an antelope, lots and lots of brown monkeys and a bunch of colombos monkeys..We loved them. They are absolutely gorgeous….Their bodies remind us of long-haired skunks…..then they have a long narrow tail with a long white horse tail that trails behind. They are so pretty and have such beautiful intelligent faces. So, we had a lovely time doing that…It was rejuvenating.
No comments:
Post a Comment