It’s been another busy week here at the Mission.

Last Sunday we attended the 7 am Mass here at Gekano and it started only eleven minutes late.  Total time was one hour and fifteen minutes which is close to another record for us here at Gekano.  Even one of the Sisters made a remark as to how fast the Mass was and we had to agree!

The weather here has been very mild with most days in the mid-70’s, the nights in the mid to upper 50’s and chances of rain every day.  This past week we received 2.55 inches of rain with 2 inches coming in one afternoon.  With the rain and thunderstorms, the chance of having no electricity is very high.  In fact, in the past three weeks it seems the electricity has been off more than it has been on and we’ve become so used to power outages that it is not as big of a deal anymore!  We have gradually learned to accept that being without power is a fact of life here in Kenya…we just wish it didn’t have to happen so often! 

On Wednesday, we had a Water with Blessings follow-up at Nyanturago with two groups of women.  Lilian, our WWB coordinator, was not able to come with us because her Granny passed away last week; therefore we, along with Emma took care of the WWB events this week.  The women at Nyanturago were coloring away in their books and having a conversation with each other in Ekegusii which we didn’t understand.  At one point, Kathy heard one of the women say the letters U and S (meaning the United States) and some of the women started laughing.  Shortly after that, one of the women turned to Wes and in English said, “you take me to your place” to which Wes responded, “to Gekano?” and they all burst out laughing.  Wes knew she meant United States but he couldn’t resist.  Almost immediately the woman said, “No! No! No!  You take me to America - I take care of parents”.  Wes let her know that his parents have both passed away so she then told him she would take care of the watoto (children).  Kathy explained the children are adults but the woman, being very persistent, asked Kathy if her parents were still alive and when Kathy said they were, she offered to take care of them.  We are pretty sure she would take very good care of them.  She made the comment that her husband has died and she is “tired of picking tea”.  On a daily basis, we see how hard the women work on the shamba to provide for their families:  plucking tea under the hot sun for a minimal amount of money or out in the shamba digging with their jembe to either prepare the soil for planting or to hoe the weeds, selling their vegetables at the market, as well as their other jobs that go with being a mother.  We have no doubt they are tired – we get tired just watching them.  After we were finished at Nyanturago, we drove to Kenyerere to give blankets away to the women who had come to five of the six WWB follow-up sessions.  The women were excited to get a blanket.  When giving the blankets out, Emma would call their name and Kathy would take a picture as Wes handed them the blanket.  Several of the women, as they came to get their blanket, would ululate which is a high-pitched sound made to express joy or sorrow but, in this case, it was joy!  At one point when a lady came up to receive her blanket and made the high-pitched sound, Wes decided to try and do the same and the women just started laughing…his sound was not nearly as good as theirs but they appreciated the attempt!   While sitting around the dinner table that evening, we relayed these two instances to Fr. David about the women laughing and conversing with one another and we all agreed that these women enjoy this time to sit and color in their books and visit with one another – a brief rest during their day.  It was truly a fun and entertaining day with the women. 

With pictures of the new shamba being posted with our blogs, we’ve had a few questions about the building process and the bricks used in the construction so we will try to answer them in future blogs.  As for the bricks, there is no Hebron Brick Factory here!  The bricks are made by the locals on their shambas.  The process of making the bricks is very labor intensive as they are made one-by-one:  an appropriate clay-type of soil must be dug up (by hand), mixed with water, and then allowed to ferment.  After a period of time, the fermented soil is mixed with water and put into forms and once settled, the bricks are left to dry before being placed in a home-made kiln.  Per Rogers, the cost of one brick is 10 Bob which in US currency is about 8 cents.  He estimated that 3000 bricks will be used to build the barn and approximately 4000 bricks were used to build the caretaker’s house. 

On Friday of this past week, we attended a matanga (funeral) for Lilian’s granny, Jerusha, who was 78 years old.  Granny was like a mother to Lilian since Lilian lost her own mother when she was a young girl.  Funerals here have some similarities and as well as some differences from what we are used to.  Once a loved one has passed away, there is about a week of mourning where people (relatives, friends, and neighbors) come to the home of the one who has died to pay their respects to the family.  The family is expected to feed the visitors and this is usually done by the women of the village who pitch in to make food every day along with cleanup.  The women do this so the family is able to receive their guests and visit with them instead of cooking for them.  If someone comes in the morning, they most likely prepare chai and bread. If they come around noon time, they make lunch or if later in the evening, then dinner.  We came to pay our respects around 2 pm; therefore, we were served lunch which consisted of rice, gram greens (vegetable that looks much like a small pea) and cooked cabbage.  It was very tasty.  Lillian, knowing that we can’t eat the amount of food they like to pile on our plates, said she would fill our plates for us and we were grateful. Her aunt and uncle felt that we were only getting a “snack” but we assured them we had plenty.  We sat outside under a tent along with about thirty other people who came to pay their respects.  Once we finished with the meal, we went inside to spend time with Lilian.  All the while we were there, music was playing over a large speaker – music which could be heard up and down the mountain side since Granny lived near the top of the mountain.  Lilian mentioned the music is played during the night as well.  Just as women of the village took turns to cook and clean, the men of the village will take turns sitting outside the house around a fire all through the night so the family is able to rest.  When we went to pay our respects, Emma came with us and told us that it is expected to bring something to the family and so we stopped at the duka (shop) in Magombo along the way and purchased 3 kg of sugar, 4 loaves of bread and a bag of lollipops for the young ones.  The day before the funeral, the family, relatives, and neighbors will gather at the mortuary to bring their loved one back to their home with a vigil kept throughout the night.  Granny’s funeral service, which lasted around four hours, was held under a grove of eucalyptus trees and following the service, her body was carried back up the hill to her shamba and buried there in the yard.  Here, people are usually buried on their shamba, not a cemetery as we are used to.  Something that was very different to us was the calling forward of different groups of people – not just the family members – and the taking of pictures of all these different groups during the service.  Groups such as the village chief, politician(s), members of the business community, etc. All of us from the Mission attended the service so we were asked to stand with Lilian as her family and therefore, a picture was taken of us as well.  Soon after the pictures were taken, guys would come around with the developed photos and try to sell you the pictures that were taken.  We had two guys (competitors) come to us during the service to try and sell us a photo or two and one of the guys was trying to tell us his was a better photo than the other!  Fr. David said this picture taking is at Catholic funerals as well but it is not part of the Mass or service and probably happens before.  It was a sad day for Lilian and her family as Granny was their rock and source of strength as many women here are.  May Jerusha rest in peace. 

We went for a walk almost every day this past week. We started taking them after breakfast since it is still cool out, the sun is not as intense, and it most likely won’t be raining as it tends to rain in the early to late afternoon.  On one of the days as we were walking up the mountain side, a rickety van painted yellow, to look like a school bus, was transporting primary age students to school.  As the van passed by, the children, who were packed in like sardines, hung their heads out of the windows and shouted “mzungu, mzungu” and waved as the van continued forward ahead of us.  All of a sudden, the van stopped and started to back down the hill to where we were at and the children were all shouting “how are you?”  The driver told us the children wanted to greet us.  We greeted them in Swahili and said, “soma kwa bidii na utafanikiwa” which means “study hard and you will succeed” and they then continued on to school.  On this same day we decided to take some large lollipops and walk by the shamba of the little boy who used to be very scared of us.  When he saw us, he got so excited and shouted “mzungu, mzungu” which surprised us because he has never called us that before.  The only words he ever spoke to us was whatever his word was for lollipop – a word we don’t understand though we know what he wants.  We didn’t want to give him a lollipop that was as big as his mouth but we had no other ones to give.  We did try again this past week to buy some of the smaller lollipops at the grocery store but were unsuccessful.  We got to the checkout and the bags wouldn’t scan so we went through the same routine as last week with someone trying to find a code and price which they never did.  This time, after five to six minutes, someone gave the cashier a code which she entered but it was charging us for a triple sized bag and we only had a single (they didn’t even have any triple size bags on the shelf).  We definitely weren’t going to pay KSh 545 ($5.45) for a small bag of lollipops so we left the store without the lollipops, again.  We would have bought a different brand but they had only one brand.  We shall try again next week!

On Saturday, we had Mission Saturday at Ichuni and here at Gekano.  We have not seen the orphans at Ichuni since the beginning of July so it was good to see them.  Ichuni is where Faith goes to boarding school.  Faith is the 5^th grader who we have taken to the doctor numerous times and a week ago we had uji at her house (Oct 2 blog).  She was doing well and excited that she will soon be a sixth grader!  At the Ichuni church complex, they are doing some renovating where we normally held Mission Saturday and thus had to move to a new spot.  The bad thing was that it was the area where the milk cows are kept so we had to dodge a few cow pies here and there!  After Ichuni, we drove back to Gekano and had Mission Saturday there.  What a gift for these children to be able to receive the maize and small stipend on a monthly basis which is only possible because of the generosity of the people back in ND.   

Please know that we keep you in our prayers and ask that you keep us and the mission in yours.  Mungu Akubariki!

See photos from this week in the album section: 

https://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-10-9-22