Braiding, Bullets, Gnuts, and Pumpkins

Meet Äpi.  Son of Kenyata.  Grandson of Mama Viviana. This week as we were back in Viviana's garden picking the balance of her ground nuts, he informed us that he was going to marry Christine (my roommate who had come to take our photos last time we were in the garden.) "But where's your house, and your job?" the other women asked. "I'm going to school," he replied, satisfied that he was on the right track. ha!

I spend a fair amount of my time with Äpi, Asante, and Mami, the three young children living with Mama Viviana. They're my little helpers.  My little language teachers.  My little entertainers.  We have our little games that we play. We all scrape chunks of linya (polenta/grit - like starchy food) from the same tray with our three fingers for dinner every night. We all tickle each other and laugh. We all sip our tea around the little table out in the yard in the early mornings. We all get our water in the evenings and pour it into our basins and bathe under the star spangled Sudanese night sky. We all trudge down the road together to the garden and back to pick ground nuts. We all sit and sing a quiet song together before Mama Viviana or I pray at bedtime.

It's hard to believe that two weeks have flown by already! I left my blogging until too late today. It's 2:02 pm, and I'm hot.  The flies are landing on me and driving me bonkers. And I'm hot. Did I mention that it's hot? Michael always tells us not to underestimate the effect of the equatorial sun on productivity. . . or something like that. My brain feels a bit fuzzy so I could be remembering it wrong. Anyhow, I'll give this my best shot!

A new first for the week: learning how to braid hair. Well, not exactly. But in part at least. On Friday morning (Joseline's day off from the church office where she works as an accountant), she took her daughter Asante and I to her saloon. That's where you go when you want to have your hair done. Joseline, Viviana's second to last born child, opened her saloon this year to supplement her small income from the church, in order to pay school fees for her first daughter who schools in Uganda, help the family, build a better house, and generally get ahead in life. She opened up shop for the day, swept it out, made Asante and I juice, had her morning tea, and then set off to teach me how to first take out braids, and then learn how to twist yarn into Asante's hair and make twisted locks. 

I wondered if I'd actually be able to do it. Much to my amazement (and everyone else's) I could. There was a constant stream of people that would stop and stare in awe that a khawaja (white person) was in a saloon braiding an African's hair - ha! It took forever. And I marveled that Asante could sit through more than five minutes of it. During the course of our feat, she sat for an hour or more, then fussed for ten minutes until she fell fast asleep against my legs, and slept for the next hour or two and I continued to braid, until she woke up and sat for another half hour until her head was finally done.  (!!)

Here's the final product, sprayed, and captured before we headed off to the market to pick up some tomatoes and onions for lunch, and then head home again.

These days we set out our ground nuts on a mat in the sun to dry. One day, Viviana came home to find that the sack of gnuts was far more empty than it should have been. Apparently as people came by during the day, they felt they could reach down and help themselves to a handful or two. And she caught wind that a neighbor had actually come into the store and taken a few. "At time of planting, when you want to plant the seeds, you cannot find any person who will dig for you. But when gnuts are ready, everyone can eat them" she explained in resigned frustration, clicking her tongue, and saying the characteristic "hwa!" that I love.

Now that we have our own ground nuts from the garden, there is no more purchasing paste from the market.  Instead, it's Mami's afternoon job to roast them, peel them, then roast again and remove the skins, and finally, to grind them into paste that we can then mix with greens and liquid for the evening's meal.

In between the work of roasting and peeling, and sifting and grinding, we find time to sing songs together, play games using limes and game boards scratched into the ground with our fingers - and of course pose for more pictures in the compound.

On Sunday, Mama Viviana was invited to visit a church other than her regular one, so she set off early in the morning. I got ready to leave for Miṛi-Kalanga, but that doesn't start until 11, so when I happened to emerge from my room around 10:30 I saw Mami, Äpi, and Asante crossing the yard in the buff from the bathing area. Mami was hoisting Asante in her arms so her feet wouldn't touch the ground. And then she proceeded to get them all dressed in Viviana's tukul. When I came in and sat with them, Äpi (around 6 years old) was pulling on an ironed (though ripped) shirt, and Mami (around 10 years old) was washing Asante's nice shoes after hoisting a clean shirt over her newly washed head. Imagine entrusting your three kids - all 10 years old and under, to get themselves bathed, dressed, and off to church on time on a Sunday morning! Yet another BIG difference between Moru and American cultures.

At church, the sermon was about giving of the firstfruits of your harvest. Taken from the story of Cain and Abel, and Leviticus (can't recall where). The graphic image of the day was ladies with big beautiful pumpkins on their heads, and another with a small, dented pumpkin in her hands. What does it tell you about your heart when you bring the puny, dented pumpkin? What does it say about your heart when you bring the beautiful one? The message was met with many eagerly nodding heads, and so many spontaneous breakings into song that I managed to spear myself with my newly sharpened pencil in my rush to get up and dance with everyone.  

Church was followed by a harvest celebration lunch - fresh cooked pumpkin and a sorghum/bean mixture of some kind. All of us gathered in the church "kitchen" under the mango trees to chow down together. So fun!

I was so hot on my way back from church, I stopped to get a whole carton of cold mango juice from one of the Ethiopian traders in town. And apart from one cup that I poured for Margaret when I got back, I drank the WHOLE thing!  HA!

 Sunday night was the highlight of my week, by far. On August 23, 2002 Mama Viviana and several of her children, and even more grandchildren were living on the same compound in Kotobi. Kotobi is the town everyone from Mundri ran to when the fighting here was really bad. 

That day in August, gunships came. So close that they could see the people in the planes. And they razed her compound for half an hour without stopping. Every hut was burned to the ground. Their grain store, full of the year's food was burned. Every piece of green vegetable growing on their compound was shot and burned to pieces. The fire burned so hot that even their knives melted. The two big mango trees had barely a leaf left on them. And the children were screaming, "it's enough! It's ENOUGH!" from the dug hole that they were hiding in. Viviana told me with her earnest eyes, "it was a day, when you saw it, you can never forget it for the rest of your life." That day, she said, she knew that God loved her. In the next compound, two people had been killed, and nine more were injured. In her compound, not a person was touched. It was a miracle. And she vowed that every year for the rest of her life she would remember that day and thank God for sparing their lives. And so she has, every year since. This year, I got to remember with her and her neighbors, Rev. Yona's family (my good friend from the market). It was simple and short. We sang a few songs, she retold the story (I wish the video would load from here) sounding out the machine guns, we prayed, and then we all drank tea and juice we prepared with mandazi (local fried donuts).  

I feel moved to tears when I think of the gift and privilege of living with this woman. Such a dear, faithful, spunky soul she is. With so much to teach me about faith, and love. She has taken me in as if I were one of her children. Quite literally. I feel sad that my time with them may be half over (unless I happen to stay a little longer...which may just happen).

Thank you for your many notes of encouragement (fb & email).  I sense all of your prayers strongly - in the form of real freedom to be myself and different, yet not feel like an odd ball; greater patience, love, and mercy towards people; joy in all I'm doing; great connections with people; and lots of learning - about language, culture, and faith.

Please keep praying - especially that I will be WIDE AWAKE to God and people (as friend David put it in a recent request); that I would continue to be a blessing to Viviana and ALL of her family in every way possible (tonight I'm cooking an Indian curry dinner for them and hosting a viewing of Human Planet for the compound - that'll be VERY new and different for all of them!); for true bonds of love to grow in all my relationships; and that I would continue to press into learning and growing - in the books I'm reading, the language I'm studying, the culture I'm learning about as I sit and talk with people about things that come up in daily life, and the deeper riches of faith and love.  Thank you so much dear ones!  I couldn't do this without you!