Month: September 2017

Posted on

Tradition Speaks

My eyebrows furrowed.

Thanksgiving. . . Tomorrow?

Staring at the American calendar in my hand, I blurted the discovery.

“Ann, take a look at this calendar. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

“Really? You sure?”

For two months Swahili studies had taken most of my time. Noun classes – prefixes – infixes – suffixes – vocabulary. . . my Okie tongue wrestling non-stop with a host of Bantu sounds.

Language classes this Wednesday had wrapped up like any other.  Leaving the school’s Anglican compound I returned to our apartment. It was there I noticed the calendar that had come with us from the U.S. Lying open to the current month. November.

The surprise arrival of Thanksgiving Eve stirred emotion. I felt mildly indignant that such a great holiday should count as just another pair of digits on a calendar page. An irrational feeling for one living in another country, but a feeling all the same.

Thanksgiving’s tomorrow but so are Swahili classes. Well. . .

The contest inside my head was brief.

“Honey, I’m cutting classes tomorrow. How about a picnic?”

Thanksgiving Day of 1972 arrived gorgeous.  Only months earlier Kentucky Fried Chicken had launched their finger-lickin’ enterprise here in Nairobi itself.  What figure better reflects American tradition than Colonel Sanders?

Ann bundled our four-month-old in a colorful blanket. The aroma of fried chicken filled our Volkswagen beetle as we set out for City Park.

A garden of jacaranda and bougainvillea surrounded us under sunny skies. A light breeze stirred as I laid out the blanket.

We sat cross-legged, casually reviewing Thanksgivings of our past. The memories stirred gratitude.

Our infant Julie gurgled. I took in the garden environment and voiced our thanks to him who made it all. For bringing us to this beautiful, hurting land. For one another here, out under the open sky. For family back home.

Turning to Ann, I voiced my request with care, applying the polite form,

“Kuku, tafadhali (Some chicken please?)”

We laughed at my language exercise for the day.

It would have to do.

©2017 Jerry Lout

Posted on

In A Manner Of Speaking

“La!”

The roundish, baldish, gruffish language tutor prided himself in his home area’s version of the Swahili language. After all, his was the Coast Swahili variety. Only Kenya’s neighbor to the south, Tanzania, could compete with the gold standard Swahili spoken along the teacher’s Indian Ocean region. His voice was raspy, making him seem harsher than he really was. His sudden “La!” (No!) was instantly followed by a terse scold, “Up-country Swahili!” With little patience for poorly-spoken words, the aging gent spat out the phrase as if evicting a live wasp from his mouth.

It was through this mwalimu mzee (elder instructor) I first caught the need to communicate well in another culture. This was further driven home once our stay in the Capital ended. Through a much-loved missionary headmistress whose wrinkle-teased eyes constantly twinkled and whose tongue offered up wisdom and wit by the kilo. . . “I believe I understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure that what I said is what you thought I meant.” A sampling of Elizabeth Ridenour’s way of making the point.

Some places are not the best for a native English-speaker to learn the Swahili language. Nairobi was one of them. A recommended, though challenging way, to master a new language is through a method called immersion learning. Learning by immersion happens when everybody around the student understands and speaks the desired language, but do not speak the student’s language. A sink or swim approach.

By the time most Nairobi kids reached adolescence they were fluent in two or more languages. And with English the nation’s official language – in government-sponsored places like post office, secondary schools and parliament – young people thirsted to know English. During my language school months, the moment I tried bumbling through half a sentence of Swahili in the company of a teenager, the youngster was already responding in crisp, fluent English.

Meaningful practice of the African dialect outside the classroom was rare.

I was dead set on communicating well – as Mwalimu Mzee insisted. With proper ‘textbook grammar’, exact pronunciation. . . Coast–like. That was my aim. And I must not yield to the great linguistic sin – any use of upcountry Swahili.

Months passed. Classes ended. The Mission assigned us to a remote station hundreds of miles further inland from the Coast. How would my textbook Swahili do. . . there in the place we were to live and serve?

Upcountry.

©2017 Jerry Lout

Posted on

A Sound Of Drums

“Do you hear something, Hon?”

The drum-beat rhythms seemed distant and ill-defined – more like a dream than real. Indeed, for a moment I thought the sound was a dream. But it grew in strength and as we lay wide-eyed in our fully-darkened sleeping quarters, our senses were strained. Time passed slowly.

“They’re coming nearer.”

Taranganya occupied a tiny dot on the rare Kenya map that found the outpost worthy of any space at all. The village’s claim to fame included a butcher shop. Flies gathered there to hike around on suspended beef portions well before customers took their cuts home to savor them for themselves. Pressure cookers were prized items in any missionary dwelling.

Two government schools roughly book-ended the butchery, one for elementary kids, the other, high-schoolers.  Beyond these, the one evidence that Taranganya village existed was Bukuria Mission.

Bukuria. Our first upcountry home. The place an outdoor hired hand pummeled a seven-foot spitting cobra after she raised her head just yards away and shot venomous spray my direction.

Bukuria – where a tornado ripped the metal roof off our neighbor’s house to hurl it across the compound, pretzelizing it in the branches of several trees on the way out.

Bukuria was a kind of place that stirs nostalgia. Past residents recall images of smoke clouds wafting over distant Maasai plains – evidence of herdsmen purging brown grasslands before the onset of welcome March rains.

A night watchman, Nyamahanga, was a fixed security presence on the station, greeting us at our first arrival. His armor consisted of a homemade bow with a handful of arrows (razor sharp). We had heard that tribal skirmishes may flare up in the area now and then. One wouldn’t want to be caught in the cross-fire, or worse yet, become the direct target of an angry archer.

“Lord, thanks for watching over us, over this place.”

The mission station rested on the uppermost slope of a gradually-ascending hill. Its entrance-point marked the head of a sweeping curve of the narrow, unpaved road passing before it. Our new home was in a remote sector of Kenya just five miles north of Tanzania’s unpatrolled border. The massive waters of Lake Victoria glistened from her banks 40 miles to our west.

We, the newbie missionaries, had just moved more than two hundred miles to this place, having received little orientation. We had no actual history with anyone of the Kuria Tribe.

The drumming volume intensified. Chanting sounds in a local dialect unknown to us fueled our anxiety.

Had we pondered more the impact of faith since the arrival of outsiders bearing the Jesus-news three decades earlier, our jitters would have lessened.

Our night of fitful sleep finally passed and we asked the obvious question.

The midnight drum-beats and chanting voices had stirred old film images of painted warriors, pith helmets and boiling pots. But we traced our Saturday night of sleeplessness to a little band of Kuria believers. En route to a prayer meeting.

©2017 Jerry Lout

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Sensibilities

Green – Naïve – Novice – Ignorant. String them together and you had my name tag.

The rambling house that my wife, myself and our bundle of Julie settled into had been built by missionaries who pioneered the work three decades ahead of our coming. The pioneers had fashioned the dwelling from local soil – rust-tinted bricks fired in a home-built kiln.

A day or two after our Bukuria arrival, a chorus of male voices took us by surprise. Not a musical chorus but a mix of busy voices growing loud, fading back, then loud again.

Are they angry. . . enthused. . . something other. . .which? Their language was neither English nor Swahili. Kikuria, no doubt. Unsure of their disposition and ignorant of who they were, I touched the screen door. And moved to the open veranda where the dozen or so African men had assembled.

I was twenty-seven, my wife twenty-three. It was clear most of the men out-seasoned me – their skin weathered from years beneath an equatorial sun.

The group of strangers – all male – coming unannounced, still left me uneasy.

Do we invite them in? If so, what do we do next?

Are these gents all friendly to the Mission. . . We have a six-month-old girl.

Whatever else Ann and I knew, one thing was certain. We were out of our element. These were waters we’d never swum.

One of the older men – their spokesman? – moved closer. His English was broken, his accent challenging but I could make it out easily enough.

“We come to greet. We come to welcome you here to this place.”

I drew near.

“Hello”, nodding. “Hello”, smiling. “Hello”, I greeted, shaking each extended hand one by one. Though I felt more at ease and was touched by their welcoming us to Kuria-land, I was still conflicted how to respond. Only to offer repeatedly. “Thank you, Thank you, sir. Thank you . .”

I searched awkwardly for some cultural bridge to temper the situation. Answers eluded me. The visitors glanced toward one another, voiced some quiet, mysterious words. And eventually, slowly, went their way.

It was months before I learned I had made a marked impression that awkward day. By then word had got around. It took a while to redeem our name. . . “They did not even welcome us in for tea.”

The new resident-missionary – come to live and serve among the Wakuria people – successfully offended a welcoming delegation of church elders.

Like the snaking road leading past the Mission, another bend in the way lay clearly ahead – our Taranganya learning curve.

©2017 Jerry Lout

 

 

Posted on

A Kuria Welcome

Most people the world over forgive offenses made by newcomers – especially when the error is done in ignorance.

We found the statement true, at least among the Kuria. Our failure as green missionaries to extend basic “please-enter-for-a-cup-of-tea” hospitality, drew no further mention from the slighted delegation of  elders.

”Hello, I am Reverend Joseph Muhingira.”

I drew comfort being courteously received by the local Overseer.

Muhingira welcomed us to his cement-plastered, tin-roofed home where his wife, Esther greeted us warmly one evening. Entering the grounds we noted several range cows – brought in from their day of grazing – jostling, mooing in the tight corral outside, just beyond the dining room. The holding pen was a weave of rough-hewn poles fashioned from skinny felled trees. Such trees dotted the rolling terrain of the area.

Esther and their eldest daughter, Robi, served my family up our first Kuria meal – roast chicken, a local spinach-like green called Sukumawiki, a cup of broth served in a modest tin bowl. And Ugali.

Ugali – a kind of corn-meal mush, was brought to the table hot – baked firm, molded in a half-moon-shaped metal bowl. Esther deftly inverted the bowl, planting it top-down on a round serving plate. She lifted the metal bowl, leaving the spherical hill of ugali steaming before us. The ugali had no odor. We did catch the fragrance of a kerosene flame. It shone from the single lantern perched atop a seasoned chest-of-drawers at the edge of the tight dining area.

A staticky short-wave radio, powered by D-size batteries, rested on the same furniture piece. From it there rang a distinct mix of African tones – high-pitched, electric guitar-plinking blended with smooth Swahili vocalists. Passing hole-in-the-wall cafes months before along Nairobi city streets I had wondered if more than one song had found its way from a composer’s pen. By now, I had started making peace with the style’s apparent monotony.

The lantern’s glow thrust eerie shadows jittering and waltzing in irregular moves along a wall, reflecting mother and daughter motion as they tended to the servings. We ate our fill and washed the remnants down with hot chai – cooked with sugar and milk thrown in together.

“Mungu awabariki.” Our first dining experience in Kuria-land had ended as pleasantly as it had begun.

Thanking our hosts with the Swahili “God bless you”, we stepped from the humble dwelling. Overseer Muhingira led us on the foot-path to our little VW. Light from the vivid Kenya moon played on Julie’s upturned eyes and across the soft blanket encircling her face, giving the blanket a magical look.

The evening had gone well – Muhingira, gracious, gentleman-like. Esther’s warm personality had fit naturally with her talent at food preparation.

I turned the engine and we followed the dirt track home to the mission. In the quiet and calm of the Africa night, it seemed we had moved to a peaceful wonderland.

Meeting our neighbor, Grace – learning her story – would challenge such a notion to the core.

©2017 Jerry Lout

Posted on

Omens

(*Note. Due to the nature of some of this narrative’s content, some may opt to forego its reading. .Watch for Tuesday’s entry. .)

“They put my crying newborn there. Outside there. For the wild dogs or the hyenas to do as they would do.”

Sometimes messages – especially messages suggesting the worst kind of thing, the unthinkable – simply get rejected by the listener’s mind. Expelled from the world of thought before added information can follow. Perhaps this is a built-in reflex to shield the human soul being overly sullied by the unspeakable.

The poised African woman re-living her account was in her forties. She sat nearly immobile – her thoughts, even her body, seemingly lost in another time – years in the past where some things might be better left forgotten. To a place just a stone’s throw distance from where several had now gathered, huddled outside our mission home.

Grace shared how she had come to live in this area, separated by several bus rides from her own people. She had been brought here, far from her family’s region to the north, an outsider bride to a local tribesman. Her native clan followed their own practices, some good, others less so. What her own people did not practice – in her lifetime at least – was infanticide.

“The clan here into which I married had beliefs about child-bearing. Superstitions, I think.” Grace’s words fell from her lips, quiet, with little evident emotion. The days of jagged pain tearing at her mother heart had long past. But the memory lived fresh.

“If twins were born to a home, it was a bad sign, a bad omen.”

One of the two babies would be let go, Grace told us. There, outside the hut, once night has fallen. Outside, where hungry creatures scavenge for dinner.

“And, too, when the time for a baby like mine should come. It, too, must be let go.”

Can this be real? I had heard of pagan practices in far off places. Am I truly now living in such a place?

The African woman spoke of the occasional baby, like her firstborn, whose only wrong was failing to make her arrival to the world head-first. A breach presentation.

For Grace those years ago one night, her labor pains had reached what seemed their limit. She strained a final time.  Moments passed. A wave of relief came. Cries of a newborn – vibrant, healthy-sounding cries.

But not cries, after all, to be celebrated.

The new mother helplessly agonized her own horror as her mother-in-law moved the baby out of reach, then beyond the dwelling’s entrance way, out into the night.

As my wife and I learned the story we were taken by the nearness of it all.

In the instance of this young mother, the loss of her newborn had happened just a few years prior to our arrival to Kuria-land.

Mercifully for Grace, another pregnancy followed and, later on, another still. Each pregnancy heralding entries into the world of children lucky enough to arrive in acceptable fashion.

Does the presence of foreign missionaries matter? Does our coming really make a difference?

A young Maasai, slender and tall, had an answer for me. Years afterward. In Tanzania.

© 2017 Jerry Lout

Posted on

Above African Plains

“Disgraceful.”

The female passenger, strapped securely in her seat in the Cessna 206 high above Tanzania’s plains, continued her vent.

“Missionary groups should just stay away. Stop meddling. Stop interfering with beautiful, ancient traditions of cultures not their own.  They have no right.”

My missionary pilot friend, Denny, had been recounting to me in his distinct French accent a short conversation. One he had witnessed while ferrying a businesswoman to an East Africa destination.  Mission aviation groups sometimes assist non-religious personnel in their travels. Denny’s passenger spoke a German accent. She was on a roll.

“Why do they feel they must meddle? Why not leave the tribal groups alone, to their own rich customs? The arrogance of it! Pedaling their Christian message where it is not needed. . .”

In one of the Cessna’s rear seats, just back of the complainant, sat an African pastor, a mentor to fellow Maasai evangelists of a local denomination.  Daniel listened to the woman. Silent. Attentive. When he sensed her comments were done, he spoke.

“Mm, I am sorry, madam, may I offer a question?”

She tilted her head his direction.

Daniel’s respectful tone continued. “Please help me with this. I have been hearing your complaint. My thought is to do with my people here in East Africa.

“When missionaries came they found us with many problems. We suffered diseases which shortened our lives. Our people had not known what brought some of the sicknesses or how to correct them.

“Also, our people of an earlier time lacked knowledge of other things. We could not read books. Our understanding stayed small.

“Then visitors began arriving, coming to us from Europe, from America. With them they brought things like medicines. They started clinics and began showing us about our sicknesses, their causes. Our condition began improving.

“These people seemed to care about us. Books came. Teachers brought literacy to my people. Schools were built. Our lives were changing more and more.

The aircraft continued her path through the skies. Daniel kept his voice strong, competing with the engine’s steady hum.

“And, madam, we were a fearful people. We have always felt there is a spirit world – invisible among the people and our tribes, but real. And that this fear we had, came from dark kinds of forces. We feared death, especially. The visitors, these missionaries, brought to us another message. They showed us about God.

“My question is this one, please. Are you saying that those missionary people should not have left their places and come to us. With their medicines and their schools and the news to help us with our fear?”

Daniel had spoken in a voice steady, strong, reasoning. He and the pilot awaited the visitor’s response.

An airstrip came into view.

The plane began its descent. In silence.

©2017 Jerry Lout    ‘Disciples of Flight’ image. attribution.

Posted on

Extra Descriptive

Denny tilted sideways in the aircraft seat just enough that I could catch his voice above the engine hum. His message brought sweat to my palms.

The missionary pilot had directed the aircraft westward, above East Africa’s plains. The Cessna was a baby fly at the foreground of the continent’s most stunning monument, Mt. Kilimanjaro. Massive. Majestic.

We had lifted off from Moshi’s small airport and were bound for remote preaching outposts. Five of them. Each outpost was marked by a small gathering of Maasai huddled under one or two trees or beneath a shiny tin roof indicating a village schoolroom.

Denny’s passengers also numbered five, meaning the Cessna 206 was at her half-dozen capacity.

“Every three weeks or so I fly young evangelists to these outposts, leaving them one by one at each preaching point”, Denny had said when inviting me along. “They share with any locals gathered who want to learn about God.  I myself offer a short teaching at the final spot on the circuit. Afterwards I retur home, retracing the earlier route, collecting the young men once again on the way.”

Denny said travelling by air cut the travel time for such a venture by days.

By now, we had touched down and taken off a couple times.

We departed the most recent dirt strip where we had left the third preacher-trainee. It was near this time my French pilot friend began cluing me in on particulars of our next landing site.

“So, now we will be coming, in about fifteen minutes to an unusual landing place. It is among that range of peaks there.” The landscape ahead was varied, featuring moderate elevations merging with steep green slopes revealing spherical volcanic outlines. Nothing of the terrain hinted at flatness.

As we flew, several distinct bumps alerted us to updrafts. We were passing within near range of one of Africa’s towering escarpment cliffs.

The missionary’s accented monologue resumed. “We approach soon the most difficult landing strip I visit in all the region.”

It was here that my palms began moistening. This, despite Denny’s steady, undramatic, near-casual manner.  What does ‘most difficult landing strip’ actually mean? For Denny. For me. Today?

He seemed in a mood to describe something of our coming destination. In more detail than I would prefer.

“First, the terrain near this village has few suitable places for landing a plane, so the length of the strip is quite short.

“Then the landing/take-off space lies slanted a bit – uneven, not quite flat – resting at the edge of a greater slope. . .”

The aircraft brought us nearer the village and, in the distance the ribbon of runway came into view. . .

My instinct here was to wave a friendly hand – further moistened by now – to signal satisfaction with the amount of info he had supplied.  I did not.

“And, finally”, Denny went on, “there is the wind. Up here it is seldom moving the direction best suited for landing and takeoff.”

Our descent was well underway. Apart from the queasy feeling brought on by the data just delivered me, I relished taking in the wonder of the volcanic mountain landscape rising to meet us.

With a talent common to seasoned bush pilots alone, the Frenchman brought the airplane safely in. A smooth, entirely glitch-free landing.

Denny’s performance, in my estimation, confirmed the viewpoint of a person whose opinion should count for something. . .

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.   – Wilbur Wright

© 2017 Jerry Lout