Tag: Luo

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In The Name Of A Friend

The young pastor strained under the weight of the bleeding man he supported. “He is my brother.”

He labored to keep the wounded man upright. The machete blade had gone deep.

“How did it happen?”, I asked, as my nurse-wife entered from a side room and approached to lend aid.

“My brother has a friend. The friend sent my brother to collect money owed him by another man.”

I took in the unfolding story as we all helped the wounded brother out of his coat, it’s back soaked through in red.

“The man owing money was drinking beer and got angry when my brother told him why he came. My brother decided to leave and come back another time. But the man had taken up a panga (machete). When my brother turned to go out, it was then he was slashed, before he could reach to the outside.”

Ann had brought out a sizable roll of gauze. By now his shirt had been removed and, with strips of old sheets and tape, she bound his bare torso. The panga had opened a V-trench some eight inches long – vertically, between spine and shoulder blade. She wrapped the material about his torso several times, in hopes it might slow the blood, buying us time to get him to the clinic where they could sew him up.

The government-sponsored clinic, a thinly-equipped medical outpost established to serve the Wakuria clans, sat at the edge of the village nearest us, five miles to the north.

Life was hard for the tribal people, often heartbreaking. It was a rare home that had not lost at least one child to malaria.

And there were the skirmishes.

With cultures of the region given to decades-old feuds – mostly to do with livestock – violence could erupt in a heartbeat. Kuria country lay bordering other cattle-tending families – the Maasai, the Luo, the Kipsigis. Bands of spear-wielding parties of either tribe, trekking by foot in their stated quest to take back rustled livestock, had become a common image.

I grew to slow the bug down on our dusty road and roll gently past the occasional vigilante parties. We couldn’t guess when a band might come into view on the twenty mile drive to our mail box (we checked for letters once, sometimes twice, weekly). Though as a missionary family we did not feel directly threatened, our verbal charge to the back seat passengers came with regularity, “Roll your windows up, kids.”

The task at hand just now was to get a terribly wounded young Kuria to a place for treatment.

I hope the doctor is in.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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Staring Down the Elements

Had I known that my dirt bike could well have landed at the bottom of a river before day’s end, I might have stayed in bed.

Rains had been falling off and on for several days around Suna Mission, punctuated from time to time with pummeling downpours. My piki-piki slipped and slithered beneath me for miles along the muddy roadway, finally bringing me to a bridge. Submerged beneath a torrent of waters.

It was the bridge I had planned to cross on the road taking me to Lake Victoria’s shoreline ten miles further on. I was slated to preach the Sunday service in a fishing village.

Great volumes of murky brown raced along – a steady, turbulent surge – passing both under and above the concrete bridge. Slowing the bike to a halt I let my feet find the muddy road surface. I sat some moments just taking in the scene. A young Luo man approached as I dismounted.

Smiling cheerily, he wasted no time offering me a proposition once the customary greetings were out of the way.

“Would you like to go over to the other side?” He hardly took a breath before adding, “I can get you there. . .” The youth quickly surveyed the Suzuki and waved an open palm toward it before concluding, “and you’re piki-piki, too!”

Shy of any strong conviction to leap at his offer, I questioned what he had in mind.

“Come. Just come.”

I clambered behind him up a muddy hill, a rise from which we could now take in more of the river upstream. I wasn’t quite ready for the view.

There at the water’s edge lay a home-built canoe – long and narrow. It had been wrestled to shore and held in place by it’s two captains.  First into the into the canoe was lifted a hefty bag of maize, probably a good 70 pounds worth. What most caught my eye, though, was an animal being drawn, much against its will, down the steep bank to the water, and the canoe.

“Kuja! Kuja! (Come! Come!)”, shouted the man leveraging the donkey’s makeshift harness, as his comrade energetically shoved from the animal’s backside. The poor creature’s resistance proved futile as it skidded nearer and nearer its watery destination.

The donkey’s handler passed the harness rope to the nearest boats-man who made sure the animal went into the water alongside the vessel rather than into it.

Once the craft was loaded, off they rowed, the donkey swimming nervously alongside – it’s jaw held taut by the keeper now on-board – bumping now and then against the canoe side.

Whatever was true about the action-laced drama, the mariner’s labors convinced me. To – reluctantly at least – entrust my old dirt bike to them. With one condition, however.

“Not a single scratch must be added to the bike until it’s safely across and sitting on the opposite bank.”

If this feat were met satisfactorily I would add an extra two Kenya shillings on the agreed fare. Naturally, I wasn’t so concerned about added dings on the already-scarred machine. I simply wished to make the strong point that neither the Suzuki nor myself landed at the bottom of the river.

Two additional canoes – freed of  goods they’d just delivered to the far bank – made their way to our shore. The boats found me struggling some to keep my balance on the steep, sloshy terrain.

Twenty minutes later and a good way further downstream, both my piki-piki and me alighted intact on the opposite shore. Balancing in the canoe carrying me across, I had snapped a picture of the bike, it’s 250 cc frame held perfectly upright the whole distance in the second boat by two strapping Luo youth. The photo appeared later in our newsletter update with a caption beneath advising,

“Watch and Pray”.

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

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Culture Leap

It wasn’t long and an opportunity to dismiss a house guest came my way.

Another visit to our home by Pastor Tom. Again, discussing church matters.

Twenty minutes or so into our chat – the second round of our respective tea cups nearing empty – we  each knew our time to wrap up the visit had arrived.

Though I had it on good counsel my next move was called for, this would be my first time to tell a visitor to leave my house. Taking in a slow breath I rose from the chair, and smiling broadly, took a couple steps toward him, extending my hand.

“Pastor Tom. . . it’s been good seeing you.”

Before the phrase had left my lips, I caught a look in his eyes that signaled all would be well – that sending my visitor to the door was not an act of rudeness, rejection or idiocy.

Tom’s smile flashed warmly, his gleaming eyes conveying pleasure – and likely, I gathered –  relief. I felt I could almost read his thoughts: Ah, the missionary from America finally gets it!

Taking up residence in another culture, whether across town or across the globe, brings with it mystery. Hurdles. Discomfort. Yet. . . Once sincere attempts are made to adapt, occasional doors to astonishing surprises fling open.

                               ***

“Pastor Jerry, please may we welcome you and Sister Ann. Our new child has come! Meet us at our home for tea.”

Ten months earlier the South Nyanza woman had stepped forward for prayer in our little Migori church. She and her husband wanted to grow a family but were unable to conceive. Her eyes were pleading.

“Please pray.”

We bowed. Petition went heavenward in Jesus’s name. Time moved on. Months passed, and I had all but forgotten the moment.

We got to the home mid-afternoon. The new parents, overtaken with joy, brought out folding chairs to the modest courtyard, receiving us in celebration of their newborn.

We and our hosts sipped sweet chai, helping ourselves to servings of toasty, deep-fried mandazis.

Then came the introduction – their “miracle baby” – a boy. Special expressions of honor are sometimes assigned a person deemed helpful on the occasion of a child being born. A namesake.

Common surnames among the Luo people begin with the letter ‘O’.

“Thank you, Pastor Jerry, for praying that day.” The mother paused. She and her husband smiled,

“Meet Jerry Lout Okech.” 

On any marathon journey of a missionary, special moments emerge unlike any other. Humbling. Sacred. Joyous. The mid-1970’s tea visit in Luo-land marked such a time.

© 2017 Jerry Lout