Day 463: Blessings on Baraka

By Lara, lara@trippingonwords.com

 

Our casual retreat home, the Baraka house, built here by the illustrious Dr. Eve to accommodate the almost finished clinic, is our home for the last time tonight. We are obviously usually among the hustle and bustle of the kids, but we occasionally disappear for a night for some much needed relief from the constant noise and knocking.

 

Now the only sound we hear is all the lovely American voices, the sound of American cooking, and the occasional watchmen who likes to say “sure” (or as he says it “shoo-uh”) to everything. And right now the sound of rain, as it downpours and thunderstorms on our laundry for the fifth night in a row. No clean clothes for us.

 

But this is our last night here since the other volunteers who have been staying here are moving back to the US, and we have so much to do at home our heads are spinning. It’s starting to get down to counts of lasts, and it’s all horribly depressing. The kids are also starting to freak out a little bit, and in the grand psychological tradition of avoiding missing people by fighting with them before you leave, there have been quite a few uprisings lately. The twelve year old girls are not speaking to Claire or to me (depends on which girl and which day) , and Edwin has been beating us more than usual lately. Just yesterday, instead of greeting me as the Kenyans normally do with a friendly handshake (they’re big on handshaking and thumb cradling here…it’s a bizarre and difficult habit to break) Edwin decided to slap my hand as hard as he could repeatedly.

 

He then collapsed into me making whimpering noises.

 

I asked him what was wrong:

 

“It is beating me” he said pointing at my hand. “It is beating.” He looked up at me with his big urphan eyes and big urphan belly, both of which had suddenly morphed in their demeanor from cute to surprisingly accusatory.

 

I then asked him—just to be sure—if he was mad at me because he had hurt his hand while beating me.

 

He whimpered some more, fell face first into my stomach, and proceeded to beg for sympathy and comfort. It turned out he just wanted me to pet his head and tell him I was “just so so sorry that you hurt your hand while beating me.”

 

He kept nodding pathetically before holding out said hurt hand for candy.

 

1 comment:

Rae! said...

It must be hard to leave after bing being there for so long.It sounds like you will be missed too.

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