29 November 2009

„Imagine walking into a darkened room. We put our hands in front of us, afraid we are going to bump into a piece of furniture or slip on a rug. We walk very slowly. This is very much what God calls us to on the journey of faith. It is not easy because we would wish the road in front of us to be lit. We want to know where we are heading and why. Faith, however, is our certitude in incertitude. Our trust in God does not lie in our cleverness. It is not about our wit, our planning, our personality, position, money.“ So I was hit by this text by Richard Rohr (Richard Rohr: Radical Grace) when I came here. It made me stop and it encouraged me at the same time. I feel that I am walking very slowly here but I am learning how to put my hands in front of me and walk slower than I would like to. Rohr accompanies me and many things he says seem to be written exactly for me. So I am learning to accept incertitude and not to be too clever (only a little clever).
One of the first sentences that Sister Vincent told me was: „Just don’t expect too much.“ and I am trying to remember that.
There is not a lot going on in Muhoroni. It is a classical peaceful village environment, by the way, with two factories (Sugar Factory and Agro Chemical & Food Company) and a football club (the last position in Kenya Premiere League). Muhoroni gives an impression of a rural area but it is larger and has more inhabitants because it includes the surroundings, too. There is a post office, market, several shops, pub, train station, schools, kindergarten and – as one might expect – there is some kind of a church at every corner. The hospital I work in is called St. Vincent De Paul Mission Hospital.
Morgue is part of the hospital and as it is the only one in the neighbourhood there are often funerals going on in here. They sing a lot of different songs, then they put the coffin on the truck, people hop on (as many as possible) and still singing they leave to bury the dead in their garden.
There are also a lot of deliveries in the maternity ward. The mothers typically stay in the hospital for a day, sometimes they wait only till the morning (if they gave birth during the night). Women of my age are usually experienced gravidas and they have experienced several deliveries.
I am in charge of antimalnutrition centre now. Mothers with children come, they are scaled, measured, fed. The mothers are different. Some communite more, some less. I try to speak with them in Swahili but sometimes it is hard to find out if they understand me... The children in the program are mostly too small to talk to. This Thursday they had a wee-wee day and so several of them weed on the scale, on the table, on the floor. Some don´t like scaling and measuring and so they cry a lot. After these procedures there is the education of mothers. They are obliged to participate in it. I also wanted to go in the terrain this week for some visits. There are some mothers whose children haven´t put on weight for several months so I would like to see them. But the social worker, that was supposed to go with me, got sick...
Many people here are HIV positive. I know about some that got it thanks to their life style, some because of the life style of their partners, some were born with it. We have children in the centre whose mothers are HIV positive but they are not and because of that they cannot be breastfed. And then we have some special cases and I don´t know if they have been scientifically researched. There is a patient in the hospital who is not HIV positive but his wife is. Although officially he is not HIV positive, his body reacts as if he was. In reality it means that he will probably die of AIDS although he will never be HIV positive. While his mother can take medication against HIV he cannot because he doesn´t have it... I don´t understand it really. They say there are a few couples like this in the area... or was.
Several days ago a 7-year-old girl, that was raped by one of her relatives, came to the hospital. She was here only for two days. Beautiful little girl. However, there is no system that would protect her... Supposedly she doesn´t live with the parents but with other relatives who are expecting a baby and she is destined to take care of it. It is not unusual here but who knows what it is really like. She told me she has 10 siblings and she is the youngest and she lives far away. And then she was drawing. I felt sorry that I couldn´t do more for her... All of these stories, life, death... I am here for three weeks now and I have heard so many unhappy stories from all sides that I am not able to perceive them. And when I write about them I realize how horrible they are. People probably have to have a different view of life and death from the one we have.
Yesterday I spent some time with a few HIV positive children. Sister Vincent is trying to organize some kind of playful Saturdays for them. I think it can be an opportunity for me too. In the morning two sisters were waiting for me and Sister Vincent only managed to whisper to me that they had just lost their mother. We played end-ball for a while. Then other three children joined us and so we moved to one room and continued playing there.


In the evenings I go to sit behind the church. It offers a beautiful sunset view. I also got to know children of a catechist that lives behind the church. I promised that I would come and visit them Saturday afternoon when they would dance. On the way I stopped at our neighbour´s (families of the hospital´s employees) and took two of their children with me. As three boys were playing football in the place where about 20 girls wanted to play end-ball and no one wanted to give way we played both sports on one ground. The result was that there was a football cage in the middle of end-ball playground. I found it very funny because there was enough of grass to play on elsewhere. On the other hand it was admirable that they were able to stay there and they didn´t get nervous about hindering each other. Especially the boys managed to be very calm about it. I have to think about more fairy-tales to tell because the ones about Little Red Riding Hood and Seven Little Goats are known to almost all of the children they I meet here now.
At half past four I came home and had some tea. I try to prepare different types of tea because I found out that I don´t like the taste of the rain water very much... (For the lovers of Masala Chai – they have a great Masala Chai for 50 cents here, and also the spice that can be added to black tea!)
I glimpsed about 5 minutes of some American TV show and I realized that I missed mzungu faces so I made some popocorn and watched one episode of The Office. I had a good laugh. It was the first time I watched something. I felt like having a bit of a different culture for a while.
Today is the first Advent Sunday and I couldn´t wait because I have one breviary and then thoughts for each day and both books start with the first Advent Sunday. The church starts at 7am and I decided that I would go there at 8am because I can´t understand anything and the service lasts till half past nine. In the morning I heard the ticking sound of the clock and it reminded me of grandma´s clock at Stara Tura. So I made myself Sunday breakfast that we used to eat when we were at her house – boiled egg and cocoa. When I think about what to do with the plastic trash that keeps gathering here I think of my great grandmother who would keep storing the youghurt containers and then use them for something else later.
In the morning when I woke up I was forced to kill yet another spider. I felt shiver down my spine when I imagined that there would be a whole family living here! He died by a very intelligent death – first choked by the spray against mosquitoes and then squashed by a shoe covered in a plastic bag (Oooh how fast he could run! Brrrr!).


I keep teaching the children from Muhoroni my name so that they would stop shouting „White“ at me when I pass by. There´s no point asking them to come closer when they call from afar so I shout back: „Africa!“ Last time about 20 children gathered around me and they wanted money, candies, whatever. I told them to ask for money from their parents and then I started to give out imaginary candies. Some children were not satisfied with one and wanted five. The great advantage of these candies is that I can give them out forever and I will still have enough. So I kept giving them out. Although they are demaning and beg a lot they can be satisfied by some game, too. And the game with candies showed me that they can play and they do not lack imagination. „Three Little Piggies“ was a good idea too. I don´t think that I will give them real candies because that way they would start learning that they should go to the white with hands stretched out waiting for whatever would fall in.
Well, let me close with another story from the world of insects. Yesterday I was successful in a battle with a mosquito that had been bothering me for two nights in a row in my room. It seems to me that mosquitoes are more cunning than cown – I don´t know if I can say smarter but they definitely are better at lying and hiding. I wish you a peaceful and disturbing Advent time.