Real Life

Life here in Chiredzi is so real, for lack of a better word.  Everyone sweats. Everyone’s skirt or pants double as a hand towel. You get a few seconds of AC in return. My hands are also utensils when we eat sadza. Ellie and I sit in the truck bed, hanging our arms out the side. No baptismal? No problem. We walk to the river nearby.  One day while we were out in the rural area with Cephas, a cow crossed the road in front of us to have a morning snack from the cornfield nearby. As we passed the cornfield owner’s house, Cephas honked the horn, “Beep, beep, beep!” Apparently this is the universal signal for “A cow is eating corn in your cornfield” because a young woman came flying out of the house, quickly gesturing “thank you” before proceeding to wave her arms above her head and shout at the cow to shoo her away.  The mission purchased a new (used) truck so the first day it arrived in the complex, Kufa drove home two staff members and invited the kids to ride in the truck bed.  I felt like I was in a parade.  As we headed out the gates, the kids started shouting, then singing, and Kufa began honking the horn.  We proceeded through the neighborhood, reveling in the new truck.  When the electricity is out or large groups of people need to be fed, cooking is moved outside and food cooked over a fire.  I discovered that I have a disease known as WWAS (white woman arm syndrome).  I couldn’t budge the sadza in the huge pot to stir it… so I volunteered to serve instead. These African women are amazing, carrying loads of firewood on their head with a baby strapped to their back.  Last night I dreamed that I carried a mattress on my head in platform shoes.  I think I am becoming enculturated.  But these are all light things compared to the reality of death here.  Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, I talk to has lost a loved one, mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter.  Again while we were out in the rural area, Cephas stopped to talk to a young man he knew.  The young man inquired after his mother, who had been sick, and Cephas had to tell him that she had passed.  It was a somber moment. It is often hard for me to wrap my mind around this and to reconcile it with our American life.  And Haiti, the poorest country in the world, awaits.