Feelings change from want to must.

I do not recall the earliest point at which I dreamed about a hut in Africa. I ought to find the pictures Russell MacGregor drew of me in a “shack in Africa” from across Mr. Avila’s seventh grade History classroom. I think I still have one tucked in a drawer in Connecticut, drawn in red pen, where stick-figure me holds a playbill and smiles, posing in front of an African hut.

Imagining Russell’s artistry, I laughed nervously and placed my head in my hands as the truck turned off the main dirt road and began the 15 minute drive through the bush to my rural homestay. The driver rolled up the windows to keep snakes from coming in off the branches that hugged against the vehicle. Potbellied children could still be heard yelling, even through the closed windows, anticipating the tears I would soon receive from the two year old twins that became my niece and nephew, frightened at the anomaly of my white skin.

My life (thus far) felt as if it were culminating when I was suddenly ushered to my hut by Toto (Iteso for Mom). This clearing in the midst of African bush- a small compound of huts, a latrine, and several graves, was my home. Toto and Papa, a couple in their seventies, became yet another pair of parents. I was alone in my whiteness, and incredibly welcome in my self. And despite five days of diarrhea on a pit latrine, I crumbled when I rode back along those footpaths. Mercy and Opio had stopped crying at that point- stopped “fearing.” I cradled Mercy in my arms in the moments before leaving. Toto gave me millet flour we had pound and ground together. Ruth, my sister, gave me cookies I watched her fry earlier in the afternoon (they taste like fried shortbread cookies). Papa picked me a dozen oranges from the three trees that centered our compound. The taste of one lingers in my mouth now as I type.

It is difficult for me to summarize this experience. More difficult than any other portion of the semester has been. I arrived feeling as if it was about time I got there, and something inside me wondered what had taken so long. I left feeling, more than ever, the risk of forgetting. I cannot risk forgetting this place where my heart sat down and my arms stopped shaking. Where the lyrics Stevie gave me at the start of this semester inbreathed- “feelings change from want to must.” I must, even though I still do not quite know what.

I missed most of the jokes, but enjoyed the laughter. Most of my family spoke at least broken English, but when jesting, Iteso prevailed. I weeded cassava, dug potatoes and groundnuts, cleaned, roasted, and ground the groundnuts, ground millet, and carried water on my head from the boar hole. We ate everything with our hands, including beef, chicken, mud fish, silver fish, pork, and goat (which lead to the vomitous and diarrhea-ed proof that my stomach is actually having difficulty with digesting meat after two years and it’s not completely mental, as some have accused!). I visited a primary school and left wanting to build my own hut right there, teach at the school, and start a drama program for the girls to promote self-respect. We visited a neighboring compound, home to at least eleven orphan children, two of which are severely disabled. Every night after dinner, which we ate varying between 10 and 11:30 pm, we prayed and sang together. One song included the line “even militia bow before Him.”

I crumbled upon departure. Days later I continued to crumble, though less. And I will continue to pick up these pieces for a long time, but I hope I will not be able to gather them all. I do not want to recover from this. I feel as if I am on the decline to the semester- this rural departure was the beginning of the end, and I embrace that only in the promise that this semester will not end in me.

“Feelings change from want to must, so I push a meaning to it all.”

Glossary of Characters

Consistently present within the compound were:

Toto- Joyce is the mother of eleven children, eight of whom are still alive. The seven graves within our compound belong to her son, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren than have been lost to “extended illness,” which means HIV/AIDS. Atop the strenuous nature of life for an African woman, she also distributes anti-malarial medicine to children of their village, attempting to lessen the depressing rate of avoidable infant mortality. Papa paid 20 cows and 8 goats in dowry for her.

Papa- Moses is a retired Primary School headmaster of 36 years, still passionate about education. I learned this is full when he took me to a “local” primary school (about a 30 minute walk through the bush), and upon arrival I found out I was about to talk to a group of P7 girls about such. The school we visited has about 1,900 students and 22 teachers. The P1 classroom I was ushered into barely had enough room for me to stand. I peered through the window-less window to watch the 75-100 first graders, in a classroom comparable in size to my 30 student classrooms from elementary school, sing me a song. They sat on the floor, laughing and singing and climbing on top of each other. There are no textbooks.

Tata- Toto’s mother lives in a hut set apart from the rest. As Toto and Papa are in their seventies, I assume she is in her nineties. She is the picturesque, elderly, African woman. When not walking with her 6ft tall stick, she would crawl across the compound to greet me in the morning. She does not speak a syllable of English, but we still managed to have meager conversation. She was most typically seen peeling cassava, hand washing sheets, or slaughtering chickens.

Ruth- Toto and Papa’s “daughter in Christ,” a poor, single mother visiting to help farm, cook, and keep me company. Her husband left with her second daughter about a decade ago and she does not know where they are- she said she would not recognize her daughter. Her elder daughter, Juliet, is in P7 now though and Ruth continues to struggle to pay her school fees. Toto and Papa paid them while I was there as Ruth had no money, and without it Juliet would not continue. The fee was 5000 shillings, about $2.50.

Opio and Mercy- 2 year old twins; son and daughter of Betty, who is a teacher so she is often gone, even staying at the school overnight frequently. Betty was unwilling to allow their father to take a second wife, so he left them. Opio’s name is actually Emmanuel, but he is called the Iteso word for first born twin.

Check out new pictures through the facebook link.
Lovelove.