Life and Death

Unfortunately, Sunday’s sister died the other day. It’s very sad – she was in the hospital for a few weeks, but they seemed to treat her, and then discharged her and sent her home. She died a few days later. The girl was just small, about 6 or 7 years old.

So this afternoon, Vicky took Jackie and me to visit the family. We got quite a lot of attention as we drove through the neighborhood – I don’t think they’ve ever seen white women driving a truck down that road ever!

We reached the compound which is a collection of 5 or 6 mud and thatch tukels. It’s quite a large compound for this area, actually. The whol compound was full of chairs and people sitting around chatting, and even playing games like dominos. There must have been 50 people sitting in the compound! We were greeted by one of the women who works in one of the houses on our compound – she is also Sunday’s relative somehow. Sunday’s father came and greeted us first thing. His English was not bad, and he started to explain to us all about what actually happened. Seems the girl got sick again at home after she left he hospital, but he was told not to bring her back to the hospital – they discharged her once, what more could they do? So he ewnt to the pharmacy and got different kinds of medicines, gave her various injections of different things… I didn’t quite follow all that he was saying. But I was wishing that the girl could have seen a proper doctor. I have so little faith in most of the doctors that around here. If you are a proper doctor, please, won't you consider coming to serve the people in this place?! They are dying unnecessarily.

The father wanted to show us where the girl was buried… and so we walked about 50 feet further into the compound to the mound of dirt next to one of the tukels. Seems she is buried right next to her brother who died a few years ago.

We were then ushered into the little tukel where Sunday and her other sister sleep. It was so nice – I was quite impressed. The walls were all covered in posters of everything from 50 Cent (um, yeah, that would be the hip hop “artist” 50 Cent – he’s HUGE here), to Ethiopian dancers, to Jesus. Quite an interesting décor, but it was all very nice and neat! The beds were so nicely made and the everything put away in its place. No wonder Sunday thinks Grace and I are pigs!!

It was very nice ot be able to sit inside and away from all the curious onlookers as to why these khawaija were sitting around in the compound. Sunday seated us with her two sisters, and we chatted a bit. Of course, we were served Cokes and bottled water, which was very nice, but makes me wonder how anyone can afford to water and feed so many guests during these funerals. Seems to put such a burden on the families when they already have burden enough. But I guess that’s also why you bring gifts. We went with a half Western and half African way of expressing our condolences – we had a nice card which we wrote to Sunday and her family, but tucked a little something into the card to use towards the funeral arrangements.

We did end up having a nice visit with Sunday and her sisters, even though they don’t speak much English at all. But it’s in visiting like that where I learn more Arabic. I wish that I could do it more often. Now that I know where they live, perhaps I’ll be able to go and visit again, since there are a lot of sisters there who I could sit and chat with for a while.

We didn’t stay too long – just long enough to drink our Cokes. The sky was looking rather threatening, and we didn’t want to be stuck on those “roads” through the neighborhood if it truly did start to pour, so we used that as an excuse to take our leave. I don’t think we left too soon – we were there for about an hour. At least Sunday and the family know that we cared enough to stop by…

We did find out that Sunday’s father actually has 4 wives – two are living here in town, and two are outside town! Each one has their own tukel on the compound. I still wonder how all of that works… it’s so common here.

If you think of it, please pray for Sunday and her family. I’m not sure where they all stand in their faith, though they say they are Christians. While I didn’t completely understand all that he was saying, I sort of got from the father that somehow he thought it wasn’t a completely medical reason that the daughter died. It did sound like he was somehow blaming some sort of spirit that took her. Even in the church, these traditional beliefs about curses and witchdoctors etc. are still very much alive and well here. So please pray that Sunday and her family would know Christ and would know his comfort. Please also pray for Jackie and me as we get to know Sunday and also show Christ’s love to her.