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.