We screamed and braced ourselves

Dave was responsible to line up a bus to transport our orientation group out of the Taita Hills on November 29 at the end of the final three weeks of our training—the most challenging part.

 

So, a week in advance, we set out in the Pearl for Mombasa, a large seaport on the Indian Ocean, passing numerous baobab trees—which can be ancient.

Baobabs are known for their strange appearance. According to an old Arabic legend, "the devil plucked up the baobab, thrust its branches into the earth, and left its roots in the air."

Also known as the “Tree of Life,” each can hold over a thousand gallons of water, a real gift to both humans and wildlife during dry times. Baobabs also offer shelter as well as nutrition from its fruit and leaves.

 

The highway, the major link between the coast and the capital city, was scarred with the usual thousands of potholes so Dave drove just fast enough to skim over the high points, the way our orientation director, Brian, had taught him.

 

The highway was busy with enormous lorries (trucks) that belched out black exhaust while hauling their loads to or from the seaport. (Click on this link to watch a few seconds of lorries traveling to the coast along that same highway. Notice the lack of a good shoulder. Also notice that nowadays the lorries aren’t belching black exhaust! Hooray!)

 

At one point, Dave pulled out around one of those lorries and accelerated to pass it—or “overtake” it, as they say in Kenya—when before our eyes, hidden just beyond the crest of a slight rise, we spotted something much larger than a pothole.

 

At sixty miles an hour, we sped alongside that truck toward a gap where an entire section of pavement had gone missing from the centerline to the far side of the highway—maybe five or six feet across and more than a foot deep. 

And unmarked, mind you! No warning given to drivers!

 

Instinctively we knew we’d hit that hole within three or four seconds.

 

We both screamed and braced ourselves. (That time, I didn’t even have time to envision a newspaper headline to announce our deaths.)

 

But to our utter amazement, 

The Pearl soared right over that massive gap 

and sped on down the highway.

 

My heart still races when I relive those moments.

 

When we arrived in Mombasa and found the bus company, Dave stepped inside to make arrangements, but I stayed in the car park (parking lot) adjoining a junkyard full of wrecked buses.

 

When Dave finished inside, he walked back to The Pearl with a puzzled look on his face.

 

“I took care of the paperwork, but where are the buses?” he asked.

 

We looked around, but we could see only the wrecked ones in the junkyard.

 

The man who helped Dave must have overheard us because he stepped outside and told us that indeed those were the buses.

 

After he moved out of earshot, we sighed and shook our heads.

 

Dave moaned,

“That guy promises someone will show up

with a bus for us.”

We wondered if he would.

(From Chapter 3, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

My heart nearly stopped. Had The Pearl gasped her last breath?

The Pearl of Africa was a superb vehicle. That old Toyota Land Cruiser could drive through streams, slog through deep mud resembling greased peanut butter, cling to a steep rock face on a hillside, and somehow adhere to a tiny point of a mountaintop, preventing our certain deaths.

 

You’ll remember that on the first day Dave and I spent in our final segment of our three-month orientation, The Pearl wouldn’t start. Yet someone—we didn’t know who—had scheduled important appointments for Dave, as our group’s leader, with the District Commissioner, the Bishop, and the police. Brian, our orientation director, had explained that relating with those officials would assure them our group had no suspicious motives.

 

Brian impressed upon us that establishing a good relationship with them was of great importance.

 

But we couldn’t get The Pearl started! Aaaargh!

 

And we had no one nearby to help—we were in a remote, sparsely populated forest in steep mountains at about 6,000 feet.

 

We'd have to push to get her started.

Looking around, we were keenly aware that only thirty feet away we would come to a drop-off of nearly five hundred feet. It was going to be tricky. Mighty tricky.

 

Bwana Mwakodi and I pushed while Dave steered The Pearl and worked the clutch, but she wouldn’t start. We pushed again. That Toyota Land Cruiser was a sturdy, heavy vehicle!

 

Winded, we strained and shoved, but The Pearl still wouldn’t start. The nearest mechanic was probably dozens of kilometers away.

 

I looked at Dave. He looked as sick as I felt.

 

We had only one option: turn The Pearl around and face it downhill. However, whether we turned to the right or to the left, we had to push The Pearl uphill to turn it around.

 

If and when we got the back wheels up on the hill, we had to avoid yet another drop-off. Bwana and I tried and tried, but didn’t have enough muscle to push The Pearl uphill.

           

Then, as if by a miracle, a man stepped out of the forest. And then another, and another, all of them Bwana’s friends and neighbors. For an hour, we struggled and groaned and sweated and eventually managed to turn The Pearl around, facing downhill.

 

We pushed once again and that time it chugged and sputtered—and came to life! Oh, what a sublime sound!

 

From that day forward,

we always parked The Pearl facing downhill

so we could get her started by pushing.

 

Nevertheless, our adventures with The Pearl continued. One morning we climbed in and expected her to chug to life by compression after I pushed it wobbling down the hill—but it did not.

 

My heart nearly stopped. I looked over at Dave. He looked pale.

 

Had The Pearl gasped her last breath?

 

Dave looked around for a way to avoid pushing her uphill backward to try again. He scouted out a steep, forested trail beyond the Mwakodis’ house, one we’d never driven before.

 

It took travelers away from civilization, but it was a downhill slope, so the two of us pushed The Pearl that direction. Dave jumped in at the last moment and worked the clutch—but it didn’t start.

 

That left us stuck worse than ever before.

 

What should we do? We could push it further down into that unpopulated mountain valley and hope it would start, but if we had already tried twice without success, why should we expect The Pearl to come to life the third time?

 

If it still didn’t start, towing it out would be all the harder, if not impossible.

 

We were so stressed we felt sick. Faint-hearted.

 

We felt so alone, so isolated—and in fact, we were. No one was around to help this time.

 

After nervous deliberation, lots of sighing, and silent praying, we decided to push once more before we gave up—and . . .

 

. . . and The Pearl sputtered to life. Hooray! It’s hard to find words for the enormous relief we felt. Tears stung my eyes.

 

At that point, Dave faced another challenge: he had to back The Pearl up that narrow steep trail, up and up and up, until he got to the dirt road at the Mwakodis’ place.

 

“Ah,” Dave sighed, “the perils of The Pearl.”

 

My stomach still knots when I remember that day. I can feel again the light-headedness, the cold sweat.

 

But once again, we had witnessed that:

 

God had worked on our behalf,

confirming His promise

for those He sends to do His work:

 

“Do not be afraid or discouraged

for the Lord will personally go ahead of you.

He will be with you.

He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

(Deuteronomy 31:8)

 

(From Chapter 3, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

The Perils of the Pearl--again: “ We’re about to fall off the mountainside.”

 

While Dave and I lived with the Mwakodis, rain fell in the Taita Hills—a big blessing—but maneuvering The Pearl on roads afterward resembled driving through greased peanut butter.

 

Dave endured more than one anxious moment slipping and sliding up a steep hill through deep gunk. One day he wondered aloud, “Will we ever get to the top of this?”

 

Another day we got a punctured tire, and The Pearl broke down twice.

 

The roads were so bad that at the end of a long day, holding on for dear life, our bodies felt bruised.

 

On days like that, we had to fight through any number of challenges. It was easy to get discouraged.

 

But we couldn’t give up!

 

What we faced those days reminds me of Hebrews 12:1 which tells us to run with perseverance and endurance the race that God has placed before us—and never to give up.

 

There in the Taita Hills, if a family didn’t own a car (and my estimation is that most didn’t), they didn’t need a road so, in that case, Dave just pointed The Pearl in the right direction.

 

One day, with The Pearl chock full of people on our way to a trainee’s host’s home, we had to drive across the steep rock face of a hillside. To my amazement, even though The Pearl tipped at a steep angle, it clung to the rock. The Pearl’s stability and agility astounded me.

 

Eventually we reached the house, perched on a boulder-strewn peak. We dropped off our friend and then, there on that rocky little point, Dave began to turn The Pearl around.

 

I knew it wouldn’t be easy because I couldn’t see any flat ground and the land dropped off in every direction. I had turned to speak to a fellow passenger when suddenly Dave hollered, “Everyone sit perfectly still!”

 

I had never heard him yell like that. Something was wrong.

 

The Pearl faced downhill at a steep angle, toward a deep ravine, and Dave whispered to me,

 

“The Pearl’s about to fall off the mountainside.”

 

It was as if the cords of death surrounded us—sought to entangle us. Destruction overwhelmed us, the cords of the grave coiled around us. But in our distress, we cried out to God for help, and He heard us (Psalm 18:4-6).

 

I could hardly breathe, much less speak, but eventually I pulled myself together enough to ask Dave if we passengers should get out.

 

“No!” he yelled. “Everybody sit perfectly still!”

 

He told me he would put The Pearl in four-wheel drive. I didn’t know what that required, and maybe he didn’t either, but again he warned us not to move.

 

In fact, he himself sat perfectly still.

His face and neck glistened with sweat.

 

When I saw Dave petrified at the wheel,

I envisioned newspaper headlines in Kenya

and across the United States,

“Missionaries die when vehicle plunges off mountain.”

 

I felt faint. I couldn’t watch. I had to look down.

 

After a tense few moments,

by God’s grace and in His power,

Dave composed himself, planned what to do,

no doubt rehearsed in his mind

how to work the clutch,

and then he bravely took action.

 

Seconds later he backed The Pearl up and away from the drop-off in front of us, stopping before it backed too far toward the drop-off behind us.

 

He inched The Pearl back and forth, and kidogo, kidogo—little by little—he turned it around.

 

Our mighty, compassionate God had done for us what He did for David in Old Testament times:

 

He reached down from above,

pulled us away from that precarious,

pointy, mountain peak,

and He took us to a safe place.

He had made our feet, and The Pearl’s wheels,

like a deer that does not stumble;

He helped us stand secure on that steep mountain.

(Psalm 18:16-33)

 

No one said much for the rest of the trip, and it took a long time for my heartbeat to return to normal. (From Chapter 3, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

How precious are the words from Psalm 121:2-3, 8: 

The Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth . . .

will not let you fall. . . .

The Lord guards you as you come and go,

now and forever.

(God’s Word Translation)

 

Cross-cultural considerations: Underwear

 

“Heading west from Voi town

along the road to Taveta on the Tanzanian border,

east of Mount Kilimanjaro, you'd be forgiven for thinking

that the entirety of Taita-Taveta District . . .  

is merely flat and featureless scrubland,

dominated by dusty orange sand,

a few clumps of thorn trees, and not much else.

Yet if you turn right at Mwaktau, 25km west of Voi,

a switchback tarmac road to the district capital of Wundanyi

begins a rapid ascent into [the Taita Hills,]

a surprisingly fertile, . . . beautiful land, replete with

vertiginous cliffs, rushing rivulets and waterfalls.

Beautiful in its own right,

the contrast with the dreary semi-desertic plains below

is astonishing.” (Jens Finke)

 

The beautiful Taita Hills are more than hills—they’re mountains, some of which are close to 7,000 feet. During the final stage of our orientation course, Dave and I lived in a sparsely populated area high in those lush mountains.

 

And the day came when we needed to wash our laundry.

 

Bwana Mwakodi said he’d show us the nearest water source. We followed him down a steep, meandering path through the forest, descending about five hundred feet.

 

At the bottom, he led us through dense undergrowth to a spring. Clear, fresh water! What a treat after that stream in Maasai-land.

 

Bwana hiked back up the hill while we scrubbed, rinsed, and wrung out our laundry. My husband Dave’s participation no doubt caused gossip to echo back and forth among the hills. I could imagine the voices, “A man doing women’s work!”

 

Afterward, we began the hike back up the very steep hill with our heavy wet laundry and a couple of water jugs. Dave held one side of the basin and I held the other but, to our surprise, we really struggled. That basin was heavy and that hill seemed almost vertical. I suppose the elevation had something to do with our difficulty.

 

An elderly man and a couple of women hiked up behind us. They greeted us in Swahili and visited like Africans always do, and then they reached for our laundry basin and water jugs.

 

We objected, but they kindly insisted.

 

One of them, a petite woman, lifted the basin to the top of her head, balanced it perfectly, and, without effort, scurried up the hill. We were stunned at her strength.

 

Dave and I huffed and puffed up the path behind them.

 

When we arrived back at the Mwakodis’ place, sweaty and breathless, we gave our new friends a few shillings to thank them for their labor.

 

They would have carried our water and basin even without getting paid, but no doubt appreciated the money and we were grateful for their help—but even more, in them I glimpsed God Himself. In Psalm 68:19, David said that God bears our burdens, and those dear people came alongside us that day and, like God, helped us bear our heavy loads.

 

Once again, I was overwhelmed by people’s kindness—

over and over again, and

recalling how Bwana and Mama Mwakodi bought—for us—

groceries they couldn’t afford. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the Taita people’s generosity.

 

We strung a clothesline between The Pearl and a tree and soon we had clean, dry clothes. Sweet!

 

Only later did we learn

that hanging one’s underwear where everyone can see it

is a no-no in Kenyan culture.

 

Aaargh!

 

Oh, Lord, please help our immune systems to kick in

The Mwakodis’ cookhouse, a stick-and-mud building separate from the main house, measured about eight feet square.

 

Its lack of windows kept it dark except for the fire. Smoke filled the room and soot coated the walls and ceiling.

 

A small dome-shaped clay cook-stove, in the center of the dirt floor, had an opening in the bottom for firewood and two holes on top to hold suferias, aluminum pots. Mama sat on a low, hand-hewn bench while she cooked.

 

She seemed apologetic about her cookhouse, and Bwana told me, gently, that Mama didn’t want me to help her cook. Hakuna matata (no worries!) because the smoke made me choke.

 

One day, though, I offered to make pancakes for the four of us. Mama and Bwana giggled and whispered to each other while I cooked over the fire, and they were good sports about eating strange-tasting American food.

On the equator, the sun rises around six o’clock year-round and sets around six in the evening, and since Mwakodis had no electricity, they went to bed shortly after their evening meal. Mama placed the dirty dishes in a basin and covered them with a cloth to await washing outside the next morning, probably because wild animals roamed freely at night.

 

However, since we Americans like to brush our teeth before bed, each night I said, kupiga mswaki (I’m going to brush my teeth). Bwana always laughed when I said that. I’m not sure if he laughed at my Swahili or because I wanted to brush my teeth, but I took my toothbrush and canteen outside in the yard and scrubbed—all the while listening for wildlife.

 

I wondered—what kinds of wildlife

might be looking at me as they hid there in the dark?

Leopards? Lions? Elephants?

 

After we lived there a few days, I offered to wash dishes. I’d been looking for a way to help, but I also had another motive. I noticed that Mama used only water to wash the dishes—and in Africa, it’s rare to find water that won’t make people sick. We Americans were accustomed to boiling our water, or filtering it, or rinsing dishes in a bleach solution.

 

I also suspected the Mwakodis couldn’t afford soap. I often prayed sister-in-law Nancy’s prayer, Oh, Lord, please help our immune systems to kick in, but I still worried about my husband’s health.

 

At the first part of our orientation course at Lake Naivasha, and the second part in Maasai-land, Dave had fallen ill with vomiting, diarrhea, and fever—caused by the water.

 

After he’d suffered a few days in Maasai-land, by God’s grace someone had to drive back to Nairobi for supplies so our dear nurse, Jenny, sent Dave’s stool specimen along. When our friend returned the next day, he brought back powerful antibiotics. I didn’t want Dave to get sick again in super-remote Taita, so I hoped that if I used bleach in the dishwater, maybe I could keep him healthy.

 

Outside in the yard, I squatted down on the ground in front of a plastic basin and sprinkled in my powdered laundry detergent. After I washed the dishes, I rinsed them in bleach-water, all the while shooing away cantankerous chickens.

 

I dried the dishes and stepped inside to put them away in Mama’s dark, small storage room. I looked around. She owned a couple of rough plank shelves, but most items sat on the concrete floor.

 

I spotted a couple of aluminum pots, one tin bowl, and four glass bowls that we used for our dinner soup. Mama owned three teaspoons, four tablespoons, one fork, one knife, three cups and saucers, one mug, and one tin mug.

 

She also had a small supply of food: dried beans, salt, a small brick of lard, a tiny plastic sack of flour, and another of gray-brown sugar.

 

I was stunned by their poverty—or at least poverty as we Westerners define it.

 

(On the other hand, Africans were stunned at our poverty. When Africans learned Dave and I had two children, they expressed deep sadness. You see, they measure their wealth by the number of children they have.)

 

Mama and Bwana seemed content with the material possessions they had. They exhibited a joy and kindness that material possessions could not add to or detract from.

They make me think of what Jesus said: 

“. . . I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers [pagans], but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:25-33, New Living Translation).

Bwana and Mama Mwakodi lived according to Jesus’ teaching

every day, every year. They trusted God,

and what He gave them, they shared with us.

Dave and I were deeply blessed

by witnessing their faith and love and generosity.

(From Chapter 3, Grandma's Letters from Africa)

 

Overwhelmed by their generosity yet again

 

The Taita people grew fruit and vegetables on steep terraced hillsides, but the previous year’s scanty rainfall caused crops to fail and the people suffered terribly.

 

We were deeply touched because our host family, the Mwakodis, despite their poverty, were so generous with us.

 

Dave’s job during those three weeks was to check on our fellow orientees throughout the Taita Hills so, while we were out and about, we usually stopped at a marketplace and bought food to bring home to the Mwakodis.

 

But that was awkward—we sensed they thought we didn’t like their food, despite our assurances that we found Mama’s meals tasty.

 

When they saw Dave and me climb out of The Pearl

with food or supplies—papayas, bananas, dried beans,

cabbage, lard, paraffin (kerosene) for their lamp,

and sometimes meat—

would it be natural for them to conclude

we didn’t like their food?

 

We bought those supplies not because we didn’t like their food, but because we wanted to help feed two extra people during a year of crop failure.

 

One day Bwana asked what people eat in America. We thought he simply wanted to learn about our homeland, so we named some foods, only to discover later that he and Mama thought they needed to buy those foods for us.

 

Those dear folks nearly broke our hearts.

They had almost no money, yet they bought food for us

that they would never—could never—buy for themselves.

 

It seemed so wrong, so unnecessary: They had only pennies to live on, yet they spent it on special food for us.

 

Overwhelmed by their generosity yet again, I wanted to weep. (From Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 3.)

 

What a vivid example they were of showing hospitality to strangers (Hebrews 13:2, Romans 12:13).  

 

Jesus said “For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me into your home. . . .

 

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality?’ . . .

 

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’” (Matthew 25:35-40)