Village Life

Village Life

A view of the village from the outside.

My ladies remembered me.  They smiled and said, ‘Nacap!’  I respond proudly in the local language, ‘Yes, I return.’  This time, the village looks different.  Many compounds are abandoned and there are so many people out and about today.  I wonder what is going on.  The village is a maze with corridors dividing the compounds – even my guide friend gets lost finding the right compound.

Aerial view of villages in my region

My local friend and guide find my first friend, Teresa.  She is home with her daughter and granddaughter.  She is happy to see me but sadness is still creeps out of her eyes.  She welcomes me back and has one of the children in the compound go inside the hut to bring out a goat skin for me to sit on.  I take the goat skin and she takes a wobbly wooden bench.  I feel a bit awkward sitting below here but there is no power play here.  It is an honour to sit on the skin and not the bench.  In many ways she is just as I remembered her – worn, tired, deep black skin with facial beauty marks – dotted skin around her eyes and cheeks that was burned on her face a long time ago to make her beautiful.  Her hands are strong, tough and dirty – all signs of the dedication and back breaking work of building and keeping tidy her compound.  She has three grass huts on the compound which is enclosed by a thick and seemingly impenetrable stick fence.

Village entrance

Today she is cooking something – a welcome relief to me as so many in this difficult, dry season are going hungry.  The hungry, frail and weak line up to see the priest each morning just outside of school.  The stench of malnutrition and sickness infest the missionary dispensary.  Swollen bellies are found on children at the area pre-school and throughout the village. 

 

The last time I visited the compound when Teresa had no food.

Last time I saw Teresa, she had no food and spoke about a fear of not finding any food.  The last time, all she had was an empty tin can with an American flag and USAID label on it.  “From the American people” these cans proclaim.  I wonder how many more hunger deaths can be prevented if my president’s budget is approved – one that slashes State Department funds and foreign aid.

Remnants of the last food distribution by the World Food Programme and USAID from my previous visit.

Our interaction begins a big rocky. I have been practicing my language so that I might actually speak to her directly.  I’ve practiced many sentences.  ‘Remember, I am from America. I study at university in the UK.  Now, I teach at the secondary school.  I do research.  I am happy to be here.  My home is well.  How are you?  I brought you a small gift.’

 

As soon as I begin, my dear friend and guide interrupts to tell me that America and UK mean nothing to her.  She knows I am from abroad and I should just say that I am from ‘abroad’.  So much for an entire language class dedicated to explaining where I come from!

 

Even with the interruption which terribly ruined my language flow, things feel comfortable, relaxed.  She is not showing me everything in her compound the way she did last time.  Last time, she graciously taught me how she brews beer, how she crawls into her hut through the tiniest of openings, how she would cook if she had food.  There is nothing to show because this time, she is not on stage.  This time, we are simply friends sitting together, in the small bit of shade the stick fence behind us provides.

 
Teresa is more comfortable too.  She and my guide friend are talking more quickly and more intensely than I can understand.  At times, she looks at me when speaking, letting me know I am in this conversation too.  Other iitimes, she stops and demands that my guide friend translate so I know what is going on.  This time, she takes out a tiny plastic bag of tobacco and sniffs it up her nose.  She invites me to join; I graciously decline. 

The winnower has at least two uses:  as a door to close each hut and
as a bean and seed separator used in the brewing process.

When there is little or no food, many people resort to sniffing tobacco because it shakes the hunger away.  That or they brew sorghum beer.  Sorghum is plentiful when all else isn’t and the cooking leaves a residue which can be fed to children if all else fails.  When they drink, they sure get drunk.  But before you judge, what would you do?  What would you do if you didn’t have any other food to feed your child?  There’s no food to steal; there’s nothing but beer to brew.

Teresa demonstrating how she begins to make the brew.

Teresa looks like she is holding back tears talking to my guide friend.  I find out that her co-wife, a lovely woman named Elizabeth whom I met the last time, had lost her compound – her entire village was burned to the ground the previous night.  That explains why people are all about – they’re trying to figure out what was going on. 

Elizabeth used to live in the compound next to Teresa but she and many others from this village picked up and made a new village, closer to fresh land for their animals to graze.  There had been an ongoing dispute between the pastoralists like Elizabeth’s family and another tribe mate who claims that he didn’t want them grazing on that land.  Teresa says that land is for anyone and doesn’t belong to anyone.  But the man from the pastoralist tribe who has now settled (just one sign of many that the culture and lifestyle of this tribe is changing) didn’t want them there. 

Elizabeth in her old compound before moving. 

After a few weeks of quarreling, Elizabeth and the newly relocated members of the village awoke to a group of men who came in the dark of night and burned their village to the ground. Now they have nothing, literally nothing. I’m told no one died but they have nothing.

Imagine how horrible it would be if you lost everything.  For anyone anywhere, it would be devastating.  But here it is worse than devastating. In fact, I don’t even have a word to describe the despair and loss these people must feel, particularly the women. 

I say the women because the women built that village and struggled to make those compounds their home.  These women walk hours for more days than you can imagine with a machete in their hand out to the forest where they cut down wood and carry it miles back to the village on their heads in the oppressive heat.  They build their homes one mud brick at a time, tying together one stick at a time, one grass straw at a time to make huts, fences and roofs.  They dig, plant and farm in the heat knowing that if they don’t work, they don’t eat.  They do this to survive.  They do this to please their husband.  They do this to make him want to stay with them and not one of his other wives. 

 

Now it is all gone, vanished in the night.  Every last kernel of maize in the granary is gone, every last bit of their fences are now ash.  All Elizabeth has now is the air she breathes, the black and silver beaded wedding necklaces that drape down her chest and lost hope of a fresh start in a new village.

Teresa is devastated for Elizabeth.  Although my feelings about it really don’t matter, I always really liked knowing that these two co-wives got along well together. They didn’t fight, quarrel or bewitch the other like so many co-wives.  I know this bit here sounds a bit romanticized but when I saw them together, they at least really liked and cared for each other. But how much does Teresa even have to help when there is so little?

Before heading out to see some of the other village women, I gave Teresa her gift: two small boxes of matches for the fire and a bag of salt.  My guide recommended I bring tobacco so the ladies talk longer with me, but I just can’t.  Teresa appreciated the matches and salt.

We took a photo together after I showed her the photo we took together last time.  On my next visit, I will bring the photos printed out as she asked for a copy.  In my view, this is a better present than sniffing tobacco.