Sad Day

I don't have long to write as we are packing up to fly out of town for a week or two tomorrow. Being off our land by 6:30 every morning has become a royal pain so we are jumping on a cargo plane out in the morning (which should be interesting) and heading off to get some government paperwork done in another part of the country. Hopefully when we get home our land will be land-mine and UN free.
I had to write though to tell you about Jena. When we got home from dinner with friends last night our askari (night watch-man) began animatedly talking to us, though we were having a hard time following what he was saying. I had a sick feeling in my heart when we directed us into his hut and pointed under his bed. Jena was cowered in a corner with a badly broken body. Apparently, a stray dog had wandered in through the huge whole in our fence left by the UN and found her. The askari had brought her into his house to keep her safe until we got home. She didn't appear to be in much pain and still licked our hands when we held her but it was clear from the way she tried to drag herself to a hiding place that she knew she was dying. It was so, so awful.
We buried her by lamp-light in the corner of our yard and there was something oddly comforting in the familiarity of the scenario. I know that sounds weird, but I felt like a little girl again, which isn't always a bad thing. It made me think of the many tears over various puppies, water-bottle birds, field mice and who-knows-what-else buried in graves marked with pop-sickle stick crosses under the kunazi tree in our back-yard in Malindi (and the very patient men who helped us do it - thank you Papa and Bryan).
Over dinner last night several people there were telling horrific stories of their experiences during the war here, of the schools full of children they saw bombed and the people lying dead in a once-busy market. I think in some ways my flood of tears last night were for more than just Jena. Violence in any form is always heart-wrenching, and though I reserve some saddness for the death of a well-loved animal, I pray that most of my grief will be for the suffering of people. I don't know if I will ever seen the kind of suffering I heard about last night with my own eyes. Right now this place seems so beautiful and full of life that it is hard to imagine the stories I heard took place in the very recent lives of almost everyone around me. But witnessing death in even the smallest of ways last night turned my heart just a little bit closer to something I know I will never understand.
It's been a sad day.

Five Thousand Words

Thank goodness for Katadyn water filters, (I promise you'd never know that's how your drinking water started!)


What happens when you don't get a well-hydrated dik dik off your porch fast enough...



More crazy storms...


Bryan enjoying a watermelon.


Our host and hostess for an Eid meal.

Enjoying an Eid feast with friends.

Blessed Inconvenience

I had planned on writing earlier but the internet has been acting up and (like the rest of you I'm sure) we have been so busy. I wanted to describe the amazing food we have had over Eid meals with friends, how watermelon season is saving our lives in this heat and how fat and sweet Jena has gotten, but those things will have to wait for another day. Right now the only thing that we are thinking about is our new home. We (finally!) moved over to our new compound on Wednesday! It took two full days of hard work to get our monster tent up, water tanks filled and showers ready for use. But on Wednesday night, for the first time in almost three months we got to sleep in our own beds (which really just meant we took the plastic covers off of our mattresses and slept with Granny's quilt instead of in sleeping bags.) Yes, we are now cooking on a gas camp stove but we get to cook whatever we want with our own kitchen stuff! Yes, we are taking bucket baths but we have our own shower that we can leave our shampoo and soap in every night. Yes, we are sleeping in a tent but it isn't a haven for rats and you can see stars outside of the windows all around you at night before you fall asleep. I know the day is coming when I am going to get really sick of a lot of this stuff (though we are continuing to work on making everything even better for the long run), but right now, finally getting to set up our own home feels so very wonderful. As an old man who has become our friend said in his limited English: "I think maybe you can say that house is fabulous."
Our joy at finally getting to stop living out of a suitcase has been shortlived though. The UN guys came by yesterday to inform us that they had finally received orders to go ahead and sweep our plot for mines. This was a huge answer to prayer, however, it is a mixed blessing. What we didn't know is that this means they will have to cut a huge hole in our bamboo fence to work through and no one (absolutely no one) is allowed within one hundred meters of our compound between 6:30 am and 1pm while they work for two weeks! Holy cow. So "settlin in" has been delayed once again. We are still working out what this means for us. We have been needing to get officially registered with the government in another part of the country anyways, as well as work on getting our ATV up from our neighbors in the south, so we may leave again to get these things done while the UN works. It is discouraging though to have to hit the road again when we were just beginning to feel the roots sprout out of our toes. Nonetheless, we are grateful that they are keeping everyone safe (even if it's a month later than they said). When my American side kicks in and starts to complain about the inconvenience of so many aspects of life here, I have to bite my tongue. The forty year old man that sold us our broom yesterday was proud to tell us he is now in fifth grade, finishing his education cut short by the war years ago. Of the five women my age, or younger, who work next door, only one has a father still living. When our old friend saw our pile of "basic necessities" piled in trunks outside our tent as we moved in he asked wided-eyed, "What is all that stuff?" Inconvenience is something I have no right to talk about here.

Eid Shopping

Last night Jena fell asleep in our room after eating and I convinced Bryan to let her stay there for the night (I am so worried about stray dogs catching her outside!) She slept soundly until about three in the morning when we woke up to the sound of tiny hooves on the cement floor and dissatisfied baby grunts. Bryan got up and took her back out to her bush where she slept more comfortably the rest of the night. I have the best husband in the world! I am going to be spoiled when we have babies of our own.
We went into town today to get a few things for the construction on our plot (to which we will hopefully be moving in a few days) and found that the market was unusually busy. We realized with the coming of Eid on Sunday, everyone was out doing their holiday shopping. The good thing about living in a town with a dominant religion different than your own is that you get twice as many reasons to celebrate, so we joined in the fun and did a bit of shopping too. I found a skirt a little on the gaudy side that I love. We found a baby bottle for Jena that has made the whole feeding process SO much easier! We picked out a watermelon from the small mountain on the ground and that we ate so fast when we got home that my stomach still hurts. We were eyeing some fresh limes that were being rebundled for sale, but the vendor had so many dozens of bushels full of them that he just tossed us an armful for free. But my personal favorite Eid purchase are our new sunglasses. Bryan is now the proud owner of a pair of "Adidds" while I love my new "POLIOES." I kid you not. Polioes. Don't be jealous. Maybe we'll bring you back a designer pair. Happy Eid everyone!

Storms

Yesterday a huge storm blew through. I always thought I loved storms, but moving here has made me reconsider this position. Whether it's their sheer magnitude or merely sitting through one under a roof made of grass, something about the experience in this place has introduced an unease that, until now, was only the stuff of children's stories and patronized friends in my life. I had initially pulled a chair out onto the porch to watch the show, but within fifteen minutes, water was swirling an inch deep under my chair as rain washed horizontally through the door. Marbles sized hailstones (hailstones?!) were clattering off of the tin roof of the kitchen and wind was bowing saplings over to touch the ground. For a few minutes I looked like a character at the climax of a sappy Disney family adventure movie as I ran through the lightning flashes to get a shell-shocked baby dikdik out of the bushes and to haul her and several of our trunks of books and tools off of the porch and into the relative dryness of the hut. (It hit so quickly that Bryan was stuck in another hut further away.) It reminded me of the first night we were here, when a similar storm hit. I was so shocked by the intensity of that one that I messed around with trying to describe it the next day, just for my own amusement. You can never describe something like that, but this is a little what it felt like to me:

When our plane landed on the dirt airstrip outside of this town, the sky was wide and blindingly blue. The rocky green hills arched like cats under the empty sky, stretching taller than usual, enjoying the extra room. But last night was very different. Like the friend that forgot to come to the airport but tried to make up for it with an embarrassingly over-the-top surprise party, the storm rolled in with flashy extravagance. I was too tired to hear the rumbling whispers behind the door or to catch a glimpse of the "welcome home" banner briefly lighting up horizon. I was a good guest of honor in this regard. I didn't have to fake my surprise. It was the white brilliance of shattering stars burning through my closed eyelids that first jerked me roughly out of a dream. In the eternal heartbeat when everything becomes suddenly visible, the geckos on the mud walls and I shared a frozen wide-eyed gaze, like we were surprised to see each other, (though we weren't). But when the darkness had descended again, what fully woke me was the pain in my ribs as crumbling pieces of night sky plummeted to the earth and exploded into the muddy ground outside the hut. My senses ached with each new proof that they were inadequate to soak up the storm. Like dish-towels being used to mop up the ocean, my eyes and ears were drenched through and through yet the wet world outside was more full than I could feel. It was the first time in a very long time that I could remember being scared of a thunderstorm. It went on like this for the better part of an hour. From under the mosquito net I calculated distances to the laptop and the bag with our passports and shot records, trying to decide which one to grab when the roof was either torn off by the wind or burned off by the lighting. But eventually she wore herself out and stumbled slowly away to wherever storms go to sleep off their hangovers. In the morning, leaves were strewn about like green confetti. I almost expected to find shards of starlight still in the puddles.

Jena Bita Ana

Yesterday we went to church in town. It is a fairly big church made up of one of the dominant ethnic groups in this area (not the people group we will be doing language development with). We got to church a little late and when we walked into the front of the mud building, the closest seat I could find on the women's side was on the front bamboo bench row. It wasn't until I sat down that I noticed I was the only woman on the row who wasn't holding a baby under two weeks old. It turned out to be baby blessing day, and all the mothers and new babies were taken in front of the church, named, blessed and prayed for. The mothers were wrapped from head to toe in their beautiful tobes of bright reds, blues and yellows while the babies, most still pink and wrinkled themselves, were swaddled a shocking number of times in crocheted blankets. The pastor read Mark 10:13, and I was again amazed at how God asks us to become more like those precious sweating little bundles in their mother's arms.
As much as I love babies, and have felt early twinges of the baby bug since we have been here, I think those urges have been temporarily allayed by our new pet dikdik. We have named her Jena which literally means "little bird" in Arabic, but is used locally to mean "baby" (I was really pushing for "Spike" but Bryan insisted that Jena was much more suitable.) We realized she was even younger than we originally thought, and therefore probably not weaned, after we found a little umbelican cord still attatched to her the other day. So we have been feeding her milk with a syringe which she fights like mad with all four (sharp) little hooves for the first ten minutes every time, until she realizes she's hungry and it tastes good. The food then gives her enough energy to romp around making an incessant little cry somewhere between a goat's bleat and a bird's caw. If she wasn't so cute doing it it would be pretty annoying. She naps mostly during the day but then roams around all night fussy and curious. Sometimes she wanders back into our room but mostly she explores the yard and I'm terrified that a dog is going to catch her. But we've been told that baby dik diks don't have a smell until they are a month old so maybe that will keep her safe for a while (if she can learn to keep quiet!)
Last night she didn't come back to her favorite bush in the morning like usual and I was so worried, annoyed, guilty and relieved (which made me feel more guilty). I asked the night guard if he has seen her and he went off in a stream of Arabic that I couldn't follow but I caught "Jena bita dikdik" (the baby of the dikdik) and lots of exaggerated squwaks and loud sighs which I loosely translated as "she drove me crazy last night." I eventually found her wet and hungry and scared but even so, she complained loudly the whole way home.
Of course all the locals (and even the not-so-local I am married to) get a kick out of me trying to take care of her, but nontheless, people have been so sweet to try and help. Some guys working on the compoud looked under every bush trying to help me find her and another man is trying to track down some goat's milk which he thinks will be easier on her tummy. The women that wash the clothes laugh whenever they hear her squawk and they tell me, "Libby, your baby is crying." Yes, thank you, I'm sure she is.
I don't know how long this will work, for her or us. But just when I think she is about to send me over the edge she will walk in the door of our hut and nuzzle up to my hand and melt me right to the floor. Even Bryan likes her, though he has his moments too. Last night I leaned over to kiss him and he looked at me and said, "You smell like milk and dikdik." But when I asked him: "After three years of marriage, did you ever think we would be living in a hut in this country with a baby dikdik on our porch?" his answer made me happy. He said, "You know, I kinda did."

Oh Deer!

Today turned out to be a great day to go to the market! We went intending just to get some bread and fruit but found so many other surprises to put in our basket. We bought a big yellow squash which Bryan wants to boil and mash with salt and pepper for supper. We bought some Baobab fruits which supposedly are good cooked with sugar and water for a tangy drink. There were even some tiny melons that we were told are best eaten with salt and hot peppers (we'll let you know if that is true or not later). But the biggest surprise we brought home from our trip to the market was a baby dik dik! I must have "sucker for baby animals" written all over me because the man holding it walked straight up to us and asked if we wanted to buy it, and one look at my face must have told him to stick with his starting price. I am now thoroughly sunburned because I was too scared to carry her home on the motorcycle and walked her all the way back to the compound in my arms. Imagine peoples reactions to seeing the only white woman in town walking a baby deer home. (They think Bryan is a lucky man to have a wife that will cook him such delicacies!) She is the most precious thing you have ever seen! She has hid in the bushes most of the afternoon but is walking around the yard with Bryan now. She was terrified at first but has warmed up enough to lick my hand when I pet her now. I think she looks like a "Lilly" but Bryan wants to name her "Spike" so we need you creative people to help us come up with a good name. Any ideas?

P.S. - And just in case you were wondering no, we are NOT going to cook her!

Running

My dearly beloved has it in his head that we are going to climb Kili in December which has put the fear of the Lord in me. Whether or not we actually will, the hope/fear is strong enough that I got up early this morning and went for a run. I went just as the sun was coming up, hoping fewer people would see me, both for modesty reasons and personal pride (I haven't run in months!). The mountains to the East of us block the early morning sun well after it is up and everything was cool and hazy. The recently muddy roads have been baked into contorted ravines and potholes making even slow jogging a bit like working your way through an obstacle course. I greeted a couple of older men with hoes slung over their shoulders who were walking out to their farms. I had to stop once for a very upset donkey that barreled across the road in front of me, bawling his head off. But other than that everything was still sleepy and quiet.
Early morning running has always been the crazy past time of other women in my life - my mother, sister-in-law, roommates - not me. I thought about them this morning while I tiptoed through the stillness. Maybe they are on to something...

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity-Jog

We got back into town yesterday. We took the scenic route home as the DC-3 made five stops to off-load supplies all across the country (one of which was overnight) before we landed on our own dirt airstrip. I was nervous about how it would feel to be back after having been gone for a few weeks but everything was hot and green and almost as happy to see us as we were to see it. We even had a big "Welcome Home" thunder storm that evening.
It must have rained a lot while we were gone. The hill behind our plot now has grass taller than me growing all over it that makes it look like a fuzzy something right out of a Dr. Seuss book. The wind blows the grass all different directions so it wakes up with hair a little like Bryan's in the morning.
Our compound now has a cement latrine and shower built so we are hoping to be able to move over in the next few weeks. I can't tell you how ready I am to be on our own place! But, there is still plenty to be done before that will happen - you know bathroom doors, water storage, charcoal oven - just the luxuries really. (: It's probably good though because this gives us something to look forward to and work towards. I can't wait to get a home set up for some of you to come see! - L