Tom asked me to take a turn as “guest blogger” and talk a bit about what is it like being back in Lugulu after thirteen years away. The last time I was here was 1997, the year we pulled Matt and Nathan out of school for two months and all four of us returned. Since then Tom has been back several times, but I have not.
So much is exactly as I left it – most notably our house. The pictures I cut out of Mary Azarian’s A Farmer’s Alphabet are still on the wall above our bed. Most of the furniture and dishes are exactly the same, down to the brown teapot I used (and am using still) to make tea. Because no one lives here full-time, there aren’t as many books and other things, so it doesn’t feel quite as homey as it used to, but I know where all the light switches are and feel completely comfortable. There is water in the taps right now, but there wasn’t when I arrived and I don’t think it will last. Someone installed a shower in the bathroom - but of course parts are missing and it doesn’t work. Bathing is still in a black plastic tub, the warm water heated in an electric kettle in the kitchen, very much the same.
Grace, our housekeeper all those years ago, is still here and taking care of us. Today is laundry day and she is washing our clothes by hand; they’ll dry in the sun on the clothesline in our yard. She is doing well, despite many challenges. Several years ago her husband Daniel passed away, so she is a widow raising her family on her own. She works at the hospital in the kitchen preparing meals for the private pay patients – she is an excellent cook. She also has a small business making mango juice, which she sells to anyone who wants to buy. Her youngest, Elizabeth (named for me), is now in Form 1 in secondary school; the oldest, Catherine, is married and expecting her first child. Her mother-in-law lives with her - she is in poor health and probably has alzheimers. In many ways her life is like my own – working and caring for and worrying about children and parents. In most other ways it is so very different. She is struggling to put up a new house – the roof in her present house leaks badly; the mud walls are crumbling. She still gets her water from a dug well in her compound, still doesn’t know month-to-month whether or not she will have the income she needs to survive. Yet she is someone who greets each day with gladness.
A huge change is the fact that just about everyone (Grace included) has a cell phone. There was never the infrastructure here for people to have landlines and many people do not have electricity, so they have moved directly to cell phone technology. There are kiosks everywhere advertising “charging services”, so it is easy to get your phone charged. No one has a cell phone “plan”, you simply buy minutes at a kiosk if you need them. One of our friends explained m-Pesa, to us, a way to send money securely via cell phone to anyone you like. In the past, if you needed to get money to someone, say your mother, you had to travel to her home and hand-deliver the funds. Now you pay money into your m-Pesa account then “flash” the funds to your mother’s phone and she can collect at her local m-Pesa kiosk. Amazing.
Public transport seems a bit safer – the matatus are no longer small pick-up trucks with covered cabs where passengers ride squashed inside or hanging onto the back. Now the matatus are mostly mini-buses with regular seats for all the passengers. My trip from Kisumu to Lugulu involved three matatus, and they were reasonably comfortable. (On one leg of the trip, I was seated next to a woman carrying a briefcase and a live chicken - no question that I was in Kenya!) The roads have deteriorated badly, though, so the ride is very rough. For shorter trips, it’s fun to ride the boda-bodas – bicycle taxis. I have not tried the motorcycle taxis – there is a limit to the risks I’m willing to take! Bicycles still ply the road carrying amazing loads – huge bags of potatoes, cans full of water, stems of bananas. Much of the economy still runs on human muscle power.
It’s the people who touch me the most. Some of the hospital staff members we knew and loved are still here and it is a joy to see them, to hear how their families have grown and flourished, to share a meal with them. The staff who are new to us are also welcoming and friendly, so I don’t feel like a stranger.
What is very different for me is not having Matthew and Nathan here – I feel a bit lost without them. A huge part of my role and day-to-day life in the 90's was caring for them and teaching them at home – I’m not quite sure where I fit now. I’ve made my own way and life in Lancaster; bookbinding doesn’t really fit here. Everyone has made it clear they wish I could stay longer – a lot longer – but I just don’t know what I would do or how I would fit. Even so, I’m glad to me here, glad to reconnect.
Liz
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