Dear Lydia,
So, I don’t even think I mentioned all the water in my last
letter! Our compound is completed surrounded by hundreds of meters of water of
two sides. Behind the compound, the water is only a few feet from the back
fence, so close that I fear another hard rain and our latrine will slide off
into the lake! All day long, the clatter and shriek of children splashing in
the shallows wafts through the hot air, and the mere sound of water makes me
feel cooler, like some vicarious placebo. They dive in just at the spot we used
to take the kids in the late afternoons, where the tamarind tree stoops low
over the sand pit. Now those branches catapult naked boys into warm brown water
all day long.
Everyone says the rains were heavy and late this year. I was
comforted by this fact as people also say that fighting will start again as
soon as the rains dry up. We have had one good storm since we have been back
and I felt like water pouring out of the sky and into the millions of gallons
of water pressing around our home was like protective hands cupping us in its
hold. It spoke to me, maybe not of peace exactly but at least of delayed war,
which is almost as good, right? But it hasn’t rained at all in several days now.
And despite the torture of thunder on the horizon, the days are growing hotter
and hotter. When I wake up in the morning the water is still and greenish grey,
the exact same color as the trees. They look like they are standing in puddles
of their own melted reflection.
Just as we once feared, the high waters have brought the
snakes slithering up to high ground. The third night we were here the guards
came to get Bryan to help them kill a snake, which was terrifying enough on its
own. You know anytime night watchmen come to get the Khawaja to help
kill a snake it must be a monster. It was a six foot cobra that has slipped
into the guard hut to get one of the chickens. I didn’t see it from the safety
on my front stoop until I saw Bryan, Abdul and Bashir all armed with rocks and
sticks and running backwards in the dark while the bobbing circles cast from
their flashlights picked up something very long and fast flying out of the
guard house after them. Thankfully, Abdul is a crackshot and pegged the snake
with a rock. If my survival depended on me being able to hit a poisonous moving
object with a rock I would have been dead a long time ago.
Annabelle found the second snake. She hasn’t taken too
keenly to our return to the out-of-the-house latrine system and has had a few
accidents since we have been back. After one such accident I had rather
impatiently sat her down on the commode and when she threw a fit I said she
could sit on her own until her attitude improved. I sat just outside the door,
and when her stubborn silence turned to terrified wails I opened the door and
said something along the lines of, “What in the world are you freaking out
about? I am right here!” She then pried one little hand from the toilet
on which she was precariously perched and sniffling pitifully pointed up to the
window where a 4 or 5 foot yellow bellied who-knows-what kind of snake sat
pressed against the screen and said, “But Mama, I was just scared of that big snake
right there….” Oh yes, I get the mother of the year award. Needless to say the
little purple potty in her bedroom is now getting lots of use.
The snake may have been the cause of a bad dream Annabelle
had the night before Halloween. She woke up crying and I felt my way into the
girls’ room by moonlight and sat down beside their bed to soothe her back to
sleep. Right as I started into a lullaby I heard the distant sound of heavy
automatic gunfire perforated with the hallow boom of artillery. It was the heaviest
gunfire I have ever heard. I wasn’t aware of much fear, just sadness and weariness
laced with a single thread of excitement that I can never completely deny no
matter how serious the situation. I whispered loudly to Bryan in the other room
and was already running through my mental checklist of things to throw in a bag
when I noticed the gunfire – still very heavy – was overlaid with the distant
trills of women singing and the steady staccato of dozens of drums beating in
perfect unison. I tried to understand who in the world would be celebrating a
firefight, especially with drums, and went through every possibly scenario I
could think of to explain the bizarre and eerie combination of noises drifting
in on the breeze. Bryan returned from checking with the guys outside and over
the next few days their story was confirmed – a local traditional ceremony
called “The Throwing of the Fire” to chase off the old year and welcome in the
new. This happened just before dawn for three nights in a row, each time a
little bit closer, to the point I was shocked (and thankful) the girls slept
through it. Though I was relieved it wasn’t an actual conflict, the proof of
enough arms in the area to showcase a traditional ceremony (we never heard
anything like that last year did we?) was a bit unnerving.
Sorry for all the unpleasantries I started this letter with.
Maybe I am subconsciously wanting to help you not be too homesick. Whatever you
can say about life here, not one moment of it is ever boring!
We worshipped at the little church in the camp on Sunday.
Driving it in the ATV made me wonder how we ever did that on foot with all three
of our babies on our backs! Church was much like it usually is – long, good,
hot, happy. Both girls fell asleep mid-way through the teaching – Annabelle on
a kanga laid out on the dirt floor, Mikat in my arms. The woman nest to me took
her for a while when she saw I was in danger of falling off my log onto my numb
bum. Afterwards we walked to Hamed and Sabrine’s house and sat in the thorny
shade and talked. We drank warm, sweet juice from a white bucket stamped with
the letters UNHCR poured into tin cups. The girls walked around all day with
little orange mustaches. A handful of women you would recognize all crowded
around me and asked very specific questions about you and Rebekah. Word had
reached everyone that you are delayed because of her sickness but they had so
many questions. What kind of sickness does she have? Is there no medicine for
it? Is Lydia sick too? And of course they all wanted to know how big Josh is now
too. I answered their questions as best I could and even though I fumbled without
words like heartbeat, oxygen, brain, seizures, you are in a community of
mothers who understand unexplainable injury and loss and they nodded silently
with genuine comprehension. They are praying for healing and they are glad you
are near your people.
Other than a quick trip to the market and church on Sunday I
have been relatively homebound, which probably doesn’t surprise you. Though I
may be the talkative one, you were often the one who was good about actually
getting us out, even if you were quiet once we got there. (: Between chatting with guests under the baobab
I am mostly cleaning up the house, unpacking boxes, washing musty clothes, glancing
at the expiration dates on cans and bottles, wincing, then throwing them in the
pot for supper anyway. They are jobs you would understand. Picking pebbles out
of rice, sifting bugs out of flour, shaving my legs out of bucket on the back porch
in the warm quiet after lunch (okay, maybe I was the only one scandalous enough
to make a habit out of that), tossing leftover popcorn to the chickens, taking
clothes crisp with sunshine off the line and folding them into round basins.
These are things I never do anywhere else, things I even enjoy not doing
when I am somewhere else. But here they make sense somehow. They give shape to
the day and rhythm to the quiet moments.
The girls just woke up from their naps and are fussing for a
snack so I should go. But one last thing, tell Josh we have an orphaned black
baby goat for a pet now. Apparently, the guards gently tossed him out of our
gate a few days in a row and he always found his way back in so now they just
ignore him. No one has come to claim him. Sometimes he tiptoes into the house,
sometimes I feed him a little milk in a bowl, sometimes he nibbles on my skirt
to get my attention, usually he just sits in the shade somewhere. I call him
Babanoos.
Love to you all,
Libby
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