Ellen Daniels-Howell, Executive Director of Global Interfaith Partnership
The more time I spend in Kenya the more aware I am of how little I really know. I may have a pretty good understanding of some “facts” and I may be getting a deeper understanding of some issues, but as a mzungu (a term with varied definitions…the one I prefer is “traveler”) I am aware that I will never completely understand this complex culture or the individual lives within it. I have to be content with “seeing through a glass darkly.”
While visiting a few months ago, I met Susana, an elderly grandmother living in a small mud home with an ill daughter-in-law and several grandchildren. I was told all Susana’s own children are “gone.” I was touched by the way Susana’s calm and dignified demeanor conveyed such strength in the midst of so much hardship and many losses. The grandchildren clearly recognized Susana’s central role in the household, hovering near her for protection and care. In fact, I was so affected by Susana’s presence, I came home and wrote a short piece about her so she would be cemented in my memory. In many ways, to me she represented the all-too-ordinary story of elderly women in Kenya who are caring for their orphaned grandchildren. I concluded my story by speculating about what would happen to all of those grandchildren if Susana should die while they are still young.
On May 23, Susana’s daughter-in-law found her lying peacefully on the dirt floor of the home they shared, her long life over just hours before an event to commemorate the anniversary of her husband’s death some years before. The “what if?” upon which I had speculated only a few months before was a reality.
A few days ago, when I learned of Susana’s death and was invited to the funeral, I was saddened in measure disproportionate to the depth of my relationship with this elderly woman. We only met once, exchanging greetings and a few pleasantries before our limited ability to speak the other’s language cut the conversation short. Most of what I learned about Susana and her circumstances I learned from the friends and community members who accompanied me to her home. However, in taking her picture and writing her story Susana had become real to me as a woman living with grace, seemingly against all odds. Coming from my privileged position as a white westerner, it seemed clear to me that there was something I needed to learn from this woman.
I went to Susana’s vigil – an all-night event preceding the funeral, in which her body lay in state in her home, with community and church friends filling the surrounding space with prayers, songs, and their witness to a God who loves them in the midst of grief and loss. The following day I attended Susana’s funeral and burial, an occasion that included hours of extemporaneous eulogizing about the many roles Susana played in her rural community. Even without understanding most of what was said, it was clear to me that, like most of us, Susana had a multi-dimensional life which intersected and affected the lives of many, many friends, neighbors and family.
In the course of the funeral, I learned some things that gave depth to my earlier understanding of Susana and her family. I learned that the daughter-in-law actually is a granddaughter-in-law, the grandchildren are great-grandchildren, and, thankfully, there is a daughter who survives and can be a resource to Susana’s other survivors. I also found out that, while Susana’s family has been affected deeply by AIDS, some of the family members who are “gone” are in prison, taken from the family not as victims of a disease but as consequence for personal choices. I learned that the great-grandchildren, who appeared so innocent in my camera lens, often are neighborhood troublemakers. Certainly, the simple little essay I wrote a few months ago does not begin to do justice to who this woman really was and what she meant to her family and community.
It is so tempting to paint flat pictures of the people with whom we work in Chulaimbo: “orphan,” “guardian,” “teacher,” “congregational leader,” etc. How much more difficult, yet how much more rewarding, it is for us to begin to understand all of the complexities of the Kenyan people and their culture.