Vihiga, Chavakali, and an African funeral
Since my last post, a lot has happened.
On Tuesday the 21st of June, our team coordinator called us and told us some terrible news. His cousin Susan had been murdered 20 meters from her house at 7 pm, walking home from work. She was 25 years old, they don't know who did it, or why, but what they know is that it was a planned attack and was executed in a matter of minutes. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she later pasted away, only a few minutes before her father could get to her. My group and I were asked to attend her wake and funeral the following weekend, and that is what we did.
On Friday, I went to Pamoja, a partner school we are here working with, to do a photo shoot of the students for the website. I brought some team members along to help direct, the students were so kind and willing to help, but I could not stop thinking about the on coming events. I could not stop thinking about Susan. A girl five years my junior. Murdered. The word just hung there and I felt it crawling up my spin like a shiver. I was scared to see her family and friends, I was scared of the ceremony, of looking and feeling so out of place with my stark contrast next to that of her own blood relatives. Why was I invited to such an intimate gathering? Im a 'Mzungu' an outsider, a visitor, and they are 'asili' an ancestor, a native, why would they want me to be there?
Later that day we got on a bus to Kisumu county, and from there another bus, another hour to Chavakali, and from there a 'peki peki' or motorbike, to Vihiga to where some other members of our team are staying and working on health care systems. They live with the chief of the village, and his family. They are friendly and welcoming, and we ate dinner with them in their house, all 15 of us crammed at one table with mis matched cups and plates and silverware, and all of us happy to be together. We ate 'ugali' and sacuma salad, and meat. Beef. We don't get meat a lot at Kaguya where we stay, so we were excited about it. It was a good dinner, and then it was time to leave for the wake.
Nervous, I climb into the back of a pickup truck with a canvas cover pulled over it. All fifteen of us squished in, sitting on tires, small cushions, and on each other. The ride to the village of Kakamega took an hour and a half, stopping to buy sugar, as its tradition to bring the family bags of sugar when they loose someone, and continuing on to the family's house where the wake had already begun. We pulled up and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Hundreds and hundreds of people. Everywhere. Walking on the dirt roads, standing in the grass, sitting on chairs, sitting on blankets, dancing, eating, laughing, kids playing, singing, drinking, living in the presences of death. We walked in and it felt like time slowed a little as every face turned to see us walk in. I could hear some small children say "Mzungu! Mzungu!" until their mothers quieted them. They smiled and shook our hands, they laughed, they waved, they reach out to touch our shirts, or pants, or hair. They tell us "Karibu Karibu Welcome Welcome" and we walk in, over the mud and the grass to a tent, where inside there is Susan. Laying in such a small white box, in a white dress, with a white vail over her dark and still face. Her elders sitting next to her, no expression on their face. We are told to move in, so I walk around the other side and we all gather around her, packed inside the tent and the outside music and noise stops. A young man enters, he is her cousin too. He starts to sing in Kiswahili and slowly everyone joins him. It's the most beautiful choir of young and old and all the sounds of their ancient language. The call and response of it summons in the next verse in perfect harmony. It gives me chills and I start to cry. I cant help it. I'm so overwhelmed by it all, and frankly, I'm a cryer. Just how I am I guess. I have a lot of feelys and beautiful things just overwhelm me at the most inopportune times. She seems so small and her family so big, and the music is almost palpable. I'm numb but I can feel all of it.
After they finish their hymn, they usher us out into a circle of chairs in the yard where we sit with Susan's mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, uncles and cousins. They sit and look at us, smiling, and I don't know what to expect. A cousin stands and tells us how welcomed we are, how happy they are to see us, how lovely it is to meet us, how they know how far we traveled to be here, how the fact that we are mourning with them means we are more than just friends now, we are family too. We go around the circle and each one of us tells them our name, where we are from, and "Im so sorry about your daughter, your sister, your cousin, your grand daughter, your friend." We tell them how sorry we are, each of us individually. At the end of the circle sits Susan mother, quietly listening to each of us and nodding when we are finished. Looking into the face of a women who lost her 25 year old daughter to a murderer, and we tell her we are sorry, it just doesn't feel like enough. Now its her turn to speak, and the first thing she says is "Do not be sorry. Do not be sad. We are here to celebrate my daughter. We are here to be happy she lived." She is not angry, or sad, or unhappy. She is proud and she is happy we are here with her. Annddd Im crying again.
We spend some time with the family, and then we are told its time to eat. We get up and walk around the huge crowds of people dancing and singing and talking in big groups of chair circles in the field. We are led to a tent where we are given dinner and drinks. We celebrate all night, dancing and drinking and being told stories of Susan and asked questions about our home countries. I fall in love with the family and friends and the hundreds of people who all come out to celebrate Susan. All the surrounding villages who show their support, and even though so many pass away too young and too often, they give each one a celebration like nothing I had ever experienced. We leave around 4 am and the party has not stopped, and does not plan to stop until the next morning when they are to bury Susan in the yard.
We ride back in the truck to gain a few hours of rest at a friend Melvin's house, and then its back in the truck the next morning to attend the funeral. Its raining and our dress clothes get muddy and wrinkled, but I don't think any of us are concerned in our exhaustion. We arrive at the house to the same, if not larger group of guests. I cant see the end of the crowd when I look out into the fields. We are ushered to seats under tarps and tents, where we listen to an endless succession of speakers who loved our expired guest. I listen to a choir singing perfect Kiswahili hymns. I listen to instruments I've never heard before, shaking and beating to a rhythm I can't forget. Most of all, I hear the slow digging of a grave behind us in the rain. The sharp sound of spade entering earth, repeating itself to me, over and over again. A rhythm different than the one we are suppose to be listening to. I know Susan will be there soon, resting right where she was born, in the same field she grew up playing in, and it makes the hair on my arms straighten in response. She had an early but circular life, curling up at the end to touch the beginning.
There is something so unbearably beautiful about the lack of sadness at a funeral. This place seems to have a stronger, deeper, holding on to mother earth than me and my younger American roots. Living with the ever present knowledge of the end makes death less shocking, I guess. I think back to the funerals I have attended and how devastation sent me into a haze I don't think I've rid myself of, even now. Africa seems to live above this haze. They make me feel like they understand the circle so much better than I do. They don't seem to live avoiding it and when it comes, they celebrate it, dance with it, instead of let it cripple them.
When Susan's father, the last to speak, gets up and tells his story of her, all the sounds are still. Only his voice booming over a speaker to all the guests is heard. Even the rain stopped. He tells us of how she was so smart and humble. How she was not typical or petty. She was kind but stern, like him. She went to college and focused on her studies instead of taking a husband, though many had offered. She wanted to pave her own way, and I am inspired by her, and feel her path lateral with my own. Hers cut short and mine still given more pavement. He tells her story, and he thanks us for coming.
They bury Susan in the yard, one of our team members helps carry her casket with the other young men. We lay flowers on her and then we retreat back to our lives, thanking the family and climbing back into the truck. I feel mentally and physically exhausted, but just hopeful about what I've seen and learned. How all my fear was extinguished by the kindness of strangers, in a foreign land, on a vulnerable day. They reached out and held our hands, and offered us what little they have, and we knew not to refuse. I am constantly inspired by the willingness to give. This past weekend is one I won't soon forget, and it's left a mark on me that I hope helps me to be brave in the face of loss. I hope it helps me to understand life and death in a new way, and the difference between a loss and a gain.
I'm so thankful to have been given this experience, and thankful to my friends and family who helped me get here to have it. I hope this post helps to share that with you.
-&