When it rains...

Wednesday, May 23, 12:30 pm in The Coffee Hut. Where do I begin? Yesterday after going to the hospital to set up the process for doing interviews, Annie went to make copies to bring to the head sister at the hospital and I took my first boda ride alone. It was fine, especially since it was from a driver who had taken us both before. Got back to the house and it was locked. Just in case I have given the impression that the neighborhood of Laroo is idyllic, let me correct that. We are staying in Laroo "by the forest" and the forest is where it is said that many thieves live. So, when Daisy isn't around, the house is locked. The front and back doors are very, very heavy iron doors with two giant padlocks. But Daisy (young Daisy next door) came with the keys. When Mego Daisy returned she said that she had gone to a church to pray for a relative who has problems "in the head" or "has an evil spirit." The relative was not in the church but showed up soon after Daisy returned home. The relative is a woman who had a one-year old on her back, held up with a cloth tied at the front of the woman. She was clearly not alright and had some bizarre movements but I couldn't understand what she was saying to Daisy. The presence of this woman meant that Daisy couldn't accompany Santo, Annie, Robin (the driver) and me to Pece and Okwir. I was disappointed but off we went. We saw Santo's future home (the floor, ceiling and windows are still to be completed which is quite a bit bigger than their current home. And it is farther from town. Santo plans to will the Laroo home to Elizah and his three brothers (one mother) and the Pece home to his and Daisy's children. It was really hot yesterday afternoon and as we left Pece to go to Okwir, Annie said she wasn't feeling well and took a boda back to Laroo. That left Santo, Robin and me. Okwir is about 15 miles from Gulu on the Kampala (south) road. We turned off on a road to Okwir (when I say "road" I mean something different than our idea of it) and first went to see Santo's two heifers, one white and one black. Lots of jokes about that. They were kept near some huts belonging to a family and Santo said that we would have to travel about 1/2 mile to visit a family that had just lost the head of their clan. So there I was at a wake, rural Gulu style. Everyone was together and the body was in the ground with a covering of sewed together palm? leaves. The women sat on the ground on large mats and the men sat under a tarp/tent or in little groups. Needless to say, I was an unusual sight as I was as at the site of the family 1/2 mile down the road. Children, it seems to me, are the most fascinated and yet the most afraid. They stare until I interact with a smile or wave. Then they run like hell and come back. I was introduced to the elder and closest family members to the head of the clan and then Santo, Robin and I sat down. It was clear that we would be offered food and that I would have to figure out how to handle it. Sodas came and then a serving of posho (maize bread), goat and chicken. We didn't have what the others had which was beans and what looked like white yams. I felt I had to eat something and I took a drumstick and some posho (and soda, of course). I figured I had had both of these over the past week and it would be safe. (I'm feeling fine, by the way). We left and it was beginning to get dark (we started two hours later than Santo had promised... African time, of course). We got in the car and traveled to Santo's two acres out in the middle of nowhere. I was literally in the bush. The truck was no longer on a road but an overgrown footpath. We walked through tall grass to the acres in which Daisy has planted groundnut (peanut), casava, maize and beans. Santo is so attached to land and the cultivation of it. It clearly has a very deep meaning to him. But it was getting dark out there and we had not yet seen what we came to Okwir to see! The project called Echoing Good is located at a school. A large (many acres) garden has been planted so that children come to the school and receive food for their families. It is a completely community run project that receives donations from the U.S. It has been very successful and as a result of the donations, two small buildings have been erected to accommodate the teachers. By now, it was about 7:30 and dark. We returned to Laroo and found that everyone had eaten supper and the relative was still there and seemed no better. I know this is a long blog already but this next part I want to record, even if no one else reads it! I haven't discussed religion yet but it is very much a part of my experience with Santo, Daisy and their family. Last Sunday I attended church with Nancy, Janet and Eunice, partly because I was curious but also because Nancy invited me. It is a born again church that has no building. They worship under an open-air steel roof. There are four pastors, and everything is said in English and translated into Acholi. Again, I was an oddity. The service had hymns (some familiar), scripture reading, sermon, prayers, and healing. It was pretty similar to an African American pentecostal service in the U.S. I even went up to be healed because I was having some issues with my digestive tract (I'm going to say no more than that :-) ) and figured, why not? So, Nancy was the one who brought everybody else in the family to this church. I think they might have been Catholic before this. The service was interesting but that's all. However, religion arose in a big way last night. When we returned from Okwir, Santo left to pick up one of the pastors to bring him to the home to "cast Satan out" of Daisy's relative. In the meantime, one of the church women came over and began to pray over this woman. Annie made a quick exit to bed and I almost did but I was kind of curious about what would happen and Daisy said "we are going to pray now" and I felt like it might be a request to stay. It was an exorcism with the woman writhing, uttering gutteral sounds, jumping, hitting, fleeing, convulsing, etc. Jennifer, the "exorcist," was yelling, screaming, slapping, hitting the woman and placing a bible on the woman's stomach, chest, knees, and everywhere else. This continued when the pastor arrived and then he and Santo began to exorcise "Satan" as well. Samuel, Eunice, Janet and the woman's baby were there. Samuel eventually snuck off to bed in his hut and the girls clung to me as the whole thing got more intense. The baby cried on and off and Daisy, Janet and I passed her back and forth to try to quiet her. This kept on all night long. I went to bed around 11:30 and literally the commotion continued on and off all night. The rain began, with thunder and lightening, and it seemed like maybe God's promise to Noah was going to be revoked. God just might destroy the world by flood after all. Sometime during the night, the woman stormed into our bedroom. She was shirtless and perhaps nursing, I can't remember. After that, we locked our door :-). We learned this morning that the woman had fled the house about 5:00 am this morning without her baby or her blouse. She returned about 9:15 am with a sweatshirt with blood on it. She untied the baby from Daisy's back and left. I wanted to report rather than interpret this experience because I don't know what to do with it. I asked Santo this morning if perhaps a visit to the mental health hospital or clinic would be appropriate. As it turns out, Daisy told us this morning that the woman's 12 year-old son died in April after falling from a mango tree. This didn't seem to have any particularly strong connection with the woman's present state as far as Daisy and Santo go. Santo said the woman could go to the hospital and they would give her valium. That's all, according to him. I guess she has "treatment options." Exorcism or valium. Hmmm.... The exorcism didn't work.