Dave
and I opened our eyes the next morning and looked around our little room, aided
by a few glints of sunlight creeping in through rustic wooden shutters covering
a tiny window opening (no glass). Our room was small—I mean, dinky. Miniature.
(Later that day we measured our bedroom: seven feet square.)
But
my first order of business was to hurry to the choo and empty my bladder.
The Mwakodis had no running water or toilet, only a pit latrine in a stick-and-mud
enclosure some distance from their house. So, after slipping on a T-shirt,
skirt, socks, and boots, I grabbed my roll of toilet paper and headed out
across a clearing on the forested mountainside.
You
might recall that I was not a big fan of pit latrines. (Click on I could envision how men could aim for that hole in the ground, but what about women?)
Stepping
inside the Mwakodi’s pit latrine, I was overcome with fond, fond memories of .
. . not past pit latrines, but of the red plastic basin-turned-toilet-seat that
our friend Joy had made back in Maasai-land. Why hadn’t I thought to make one
of my own for this phase of our orientation??
Even
better would’ve been those outhouses with black toilet seats back at Naivasha. I should have appreciated them much more
back then. Compared to pit latrines, they were things of beauty.
Our
bed, three feet wide and five feet, seven inches long, had both a headboard and
footboard. My husband, Dave, stands over six feet tall so that bed posed a
problem, but he did what our orientation director, Brian, taught us—he
developed a coping mechanism. He put a suitcase along his side of the bed and
put one foot on it, and he spread-eagled the other foot across to the other
corner of the bed.
That
left me one corner in which to curl up.
That
miniature room also housed two large storage barrels, a suitcase that belonged
to Bwana and Mama Mwakodi, a chair with another of their suitcases, and our belongings—suitcases,
backpacks, and canteens.
Bwana
could speak Swahili and a little English, but Mama didn’t know English and
didn’t speak Swahili much either. Apparently, she and Bwana talked to each
other in the Taita language.
They
served us a piece of bread and cups of tea for breakfast, always smiling, acting
genuinely honored to have us in their home. What gracious folks they were!
And
then Bwana said, “We will leave soon for church.”
And
thus began the first day of our three-week stay with Bwana and Mama Mwakodi,
three weeks packed with altogether new experiences, a number of challenges, and
a chance to hang out with two of the nicest folks God ever created.
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