On Thanksgiving Day were were excited about the purchase of 30 jembes (hoes with axe handles) and 8 machetes. That afternoon, word spread that there were tools for working in the small household shambas (farms) and the day was filled with planting! I text friends to tell them how the Village had become alive after the first rains. Everyone planted, young, old, girls and boys. The place was unmistakably more active. The tools were purchased with some money from friends at IHM, my old school in Kentucky. The activity turned to fear as word spread that some boys had walked to the sand dam, newly filled with water from the rains. They went swimming. Rumor had it that one boy got stuck in the silt and sand, another went in to save him and both were trapped. "Bring torches, ropes and come!" I grabbed my boots, flashlights and some sweatshirts, for I knew they would be cold when freed from the water. I raced with Zac, a Kenyan volunteer, to the large shamba to the water. We passed crying children and grandmothers who had obviously been told to return home. They were to count their children in the households. There was talk that two drowned but they weren't sure if that was all. George and Steve met us to say that two boys could not be saved and their bodies remained. They had been submerged for over an hour. The police had been called and it was now a recovery effort, and it may be started again at daylight. It was too dark to see the water, let along see deep below. Some waited at the dam, I headed to the children in the household clusters. I walked through the village and at each washing center, in the middle of the four-house clusters, children sat, quiet. "Did you hear Eddie? Our dear friends . . . " "Eddie, I am not feeling very much OK. " The kids were in disbelief and they were alone in their questioning and despair. It was Mutisia and Mutombuki (Muki) two boys from the 6th and 7th GRade. Both great boys, athletic, one a goalie for the football team. All of the Village's grandmothers went to console the two grieving grandmothers. One was Monica, nearly 100 years old, though no one knows for sure.
And here is where my discomfort begins. Stay with me as I journey into my own feelings of life and death.
I was unfamiliar with the African culture when it comes to grieving and death. It is a strong Kamba tradition at the Village in Kitui. After the news spread, I was amazed to see children who lived in one of the two houses of the boys, out finishing washing their school clothes for the next day! Even Wmbua, little brother to Muki, was outside - not understanding what was going on. There are no adults to explain, comfort, communicate. I walked round and round the Village - just asking - "Are you ok? After about ten in the evening I went back tot he Guesthouse, my house and met some of the other staff and volunteers. It was late. They were exhausted but they found it difficult to go home. They talked about the sad recovery - two thin, naked boys, covered in mud. I was uncomfortable, not wanting to know more or discuss it. They talked and I listened to Kenyans talking about their own childhood experiences of death and tragedies at young ages.
The next morning, I left the house determined to be the first adult the children would see at school. You need to understand that on a normal day, the children begin arriving around 6:45 carrying firewood for the day. There are usually no teachers until around 8:00, while students wait for a student leader with keys and begin to wash the rooms and prepare the school for the day. Today was no different. The students were quiet and reserved. At around 8:00 a student rang a bell and they began their own assembly, a time where they usually sing, raise the flag and say a prayer. A young girl handed me an English Bible and asked me to read for the school. We stood outside around the flag pole in classroom order, in lines with smallest in the front, older students in the back. I spoke to them as much as my language skills permitted, told them not to be afraid and about a world that was without end. I told them we prayed with the two boys and with their parents who had died. We said the Our Father and I read from the Psalms, "The Lord is my shepherd . . . " The teachers arrived but did not address the students at all. They did not enter the classrooms all day. They went to the staff room and began grading the student end of year exams. Mariah and I spent the day going back and forth between the 6th and 7th Grade classrooms, quietly being present and available. At around 10:00 a.m. Sr. Mary came from Karen (Nairobi) and went to each class, talking openly about their death, what the children remembered about them, where they sat. She did the normal things I would have done in a school of children who were afraid and did not know what was happening. I asked one of the teachers what I should do when the older boys were crying uncontrollably. "You must act as if they are not crying. If you console them, others will join and they will not stop." Some of these boys were at the water when the boys died. Some were feeling tremendous sadness and guilt. Cold, hard, what seemed like repression of emotions. They have done it probably since the death of their parents. As I was told, the Village brought these children from a painful life to a place of peace and joy and safety. These deaths have introduced pain, once again, into their lives.
As you move back through these entries, you may understand how I have come to be "ok" and at peace with the harshness of how these deaths were handled. I so wanted to save the children from the pain, from the truth that LIFE IS HARD. YOU WILL DIE. (More to come.)
