. . . Dave and I bent down—the doorway opening was miniature—and stooped inside
the home of our Maasai guard, John.
Suddenly blackness enveloped me, and I
caught my breath. Outside, we had stood in intense equatorial sunshine, but
when I ducked through that little door, the sheer darkness shocked me.
Immediately I received another
surprise: in front of me, within about two feet of the doorway, I came face to
face with a wall.
I jerked backward, ever so slightly,
back toward the light. . . . (Click on My heart still races when I remember those moments.)
I must have gasped because Dave took
my hand and led me to the right. We felt our way down a short hallway and
entered a small room, also dark except for a tiny hole in the roof—about four
inches across—to let smoke escape.
Little sunlight entered through that
hole.
Everything appeared dark—mud-colored
dung walls, dirt floor, and smoke-covered ceiling. (I realized then that’s why
the Maasai, their possessions, and artifacts always smell of smoke).
Gradually my eyes adjusted to the dark
and I could see that the room measured about nine feet square. Some of our
fellow orientees sat on beds—wooden frames attached to two walls, with loosely
woven strips of cowhide for mattresses. I joined others who sat on a low,
rough-hewn bench attached to John’s
dung-mud-and-stick wall. We
had entered the heart of that Maasai family’s world.
A small pile of coals burned on the
floor in a fire pit made of three stones. In the shadows, I noticed a couple of
children and one of John’s three wives. He had children by all of his wives,
and each family unit lived in its own hut within the compound. Apparently, John
took turns living in each hut.
Our Maasai hosts had invited us for tea,
and John’s wife squatted on the dirt
floor over the fire where, in a large metal pot, she boiled milk, water, tea, and sugar together—that’s what they
called chai.
Two things worried me about their chai,
though, because they made it with water from the same dirty little brook that
flowed beside our campsite—where animals waded, where people bathed and did
laundry.
Second, I worried because I heard that
Maasai clean their pots with cow urine and charcoal. This germ-phobic woman
found the situation stressful. The
primitive setting, the dwelling, the smoke-filled room, the furnishings—everything
seemed alien. My nerves were on edge.
But
then. . . . But then. . . .
When
the chai was ready,
John
prayed for us, in
English and, to my surprise,
he prayed only for us. On and on he
prayed,
asking God to shower His blessings
upon us.
Only a man well acquainted with God
could pray the way John did.
His prayer brought tears to my eyes.
John’s wife poured the chai through a
strainer into a metal teapot, and then John took over. First, he poured the chai
into a metal cup and then into other metal cups—the kind with a rolled rim—and began
to pass them around to his guests.
Our orientation leader, Brian, had
warned us about those cups. Washed in water from the stream, the rolled rims
could trap that filthy water. Since we couldn’t know how clean the cups were,
Brian coached us ahead of time to pour some chai over the rim—as inconspicuously
as possible—and hope it was hot enough to kill germs where we put our lips.
So, there in the dark, each of us
reached down and dumped chai on the ground. I wonder if our hosts noticed—they
probably did—and I wonder what they must have thought about us.
The room had no cross-ventilation and
sweat ran down my back and neck. We visited for about an hour—John and Brian
apparently conducted introductions and made speeches in Swahili—and then we
hiked back to camp.
Along the way, I pondered how John and
his family
lived in what Westerners would
consider poverty,
and yet they were rich in hospitality,
dignity, and the love of God.
I had worried about manure, soot,
cow urine, and contaminated water,
but in reality, I had stood on holy ground.
God lived in that place.
(From Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter
2)
Now
I look back and realize that John and his family were part of the “hundred
times as much” God provided in answer to Karen’s prayer (click on When Jesus’words are difficult, sharp, and real.)
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| Our shallow little stream in the desert |
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