Details and Rain

Friday

The old man that had his hand stitched up on Thursday stumbled back into Silivia’s clinic to have it re-bandaged.  He sang to us as Silivia ripped white tape with her teeth.  He wore the same clothes as the day before, and was as chipper as ever. I walked him to the door of the clinic and he told me he was ‘majestically walking to his home’ as he strutted away. His wheezing laughter trailed behind him.  I cackled as he left.

I stepped outside as Silivia told me it was about to rain very hard.  I looked up at the sky to find a central patch of very dark, grey clouds directly above the grandies house. I have always loved big storms, and it is no different for me here, although life tends to slow down to a halt when the rain stumbles in.  I decided not to grab my jacket and walked over to Abba.  The rain started to fall as soon as we reached the clinic, and it came down in sheets.  I stood in the doorway of the clinic, bracing myself with both of my hands and looked out into walls of water.  The rain made bullet holes in the ground where it fell from the roof.

Saturday

I stood on the veranda of the guest house and watched a storm blow in.  The rain started as a slight drizzle, but quickly moved to a full on downpour.  The chickens hid under the stoop of the house.  A purple Nissan van went sloshing quickly down the road, looking like the back would flip over the front because it was moving so quickly over slick mud. Flashbacks of Jurassic Park rides at Disneyland where you’re driven into a dark tunnel and sprayed with water and sound filled my head as the rain droned on the iron sheet roof.

Sunday

We (Paul, Berend, Ursula and I) walked to the Lake from Abba for a boat ride.  The rain from the night before had left more water than land.  At first, we tried to pick our way from dry spot to dry spot, but quickly gave this up.  The water was warm from the sun, and my shoes made sucking sounds in the mud. We made it to the edge of the lake, to find many people seated on the grass.  The ground was sparkly from fish scales that women were removing, as whole fish lay out drying from the sun before being fried.  Lake Victoria is a murky brown color, and you cannot see anything below the surface, except for the green water hyacinth that crowds around the edges.

Monday

I took a seat in an unbalanced metal chair that was situated beneath the trees, and waited for other parents to join me. The chairs in front of me had OMSS painted in blue paint that had dripped before it was dry. It was prayer day for Form 4 pupils (high school seniors) that were taking the Kenya Secondary School Exams. The students that were seated behind me started singing gospel music that made the hairs on my arms stand up.  Two children ran up the hill chasing tires as big as they were and calling, ‘Rachel, how are you.’ The students and their parents crowded in circles around the pastor as he prayed for them to perform well on the exam.  Sun patches crept through the trees and warmed my feet.

Silivia took me to visit a man with diabetes tonight.  We entered into his house, and he was laying on the couch, and could barely sit up to greet us.  A white bandage wrapped from the back of his neck to his front, and his wife handed me cloudy insulin that was wet from the water it was being kept in.  I walked quickly home to get a spare meter, and returned to find him sitting up.  His whole body slumped downwards and the meter read 543 after he tested.  My mouth fell open.  His brother told me he had been on insulin since 1995, and I bit my lip as they explained that he was now on kidney dialysis. Location, privilege, and a bit of luck plagued my brain as I stumbled home in darkness.  An ocean and many miles of land separated me from being in this man’s shoes.

Tuesday

I sat on the stoop of the clinic in a green, plastic chair and let my feelings envelope my entire being. Nightmares from the previous night clutched my brain and wouldn’t let go.  I felt like I had swallowed glass and that it was cutting patterns into my stomach lining.  A lady passed and I smiled at her, feeling momentary relief.  I moved to sit on the bench in the warm sun with Che.  Her breathing became routine and her neck bounced as she fell asleep in my lap. I closed my eyes momentarily as Matron was counting how many tins of beans there were in a sack from another school.  She was bent parallel to the ground, and the sound of beans hitting plastic made the same sound as those rain makers we used to make in elementary school. 

Silivia and I visited an old man tonight.  We crept up behind him while he was closing the door to his house.  He nearly dropped his cane when he turned around and saw us, throwing his hands forward onto his knees as he laughed with a deep cackle.  He was missing most of his top teeth, and was wearing a baseball hat cocked to one side and resting high on his head.  He reminded me so much of my grandfather I had to restrain myself from consuming him in a giant bear hug.  The sky turned from yellow to purple to black with every color in between as the sun went down.  We promised to visit him again soon, and we walked to the edge of his compound with laughter that consumed all of us.

Wednesday

I visited Kisumu to extend my visa for three months.  The return trip home was in a large magenta matatu, with the man in charge wearing matching shades of maroon.  There is a ladder that goes to the roof, where they strap everything imaginable to the top.  The man in maroon swung from the ladder to the open door of the vehicle, with his shirt billowing in the wind and his flat top hair style unmoving. We zoomed past three ladies walking together, wearing differing shades of pink, and matching the red earth. I wondered if they had planned that.  We quickly caught up to the rain clouds gathering over the hills.  Ladies covered their hair with plastic bags as the conductor shoved them down the steps into the rain.  An entire wooden living room set was unloaded from the roof and placed on the wet tarmac, waiting patiently for visitors to sit and take tea.

It rained the hardest and longest it has since I’ve been here while we ate dinner. We couldn’t hear each other unless we yelled.  Silivia told me people would probably migrate from their houses towards dry land.  I pulled on gum boots (rain boots) that were two sizes too small for me and stepped into water that nearly reached my knee.  Silivia and I laughed the entire trip to Abba, as we stepped in holes and slipped over rocks that were covered with water. I could not tell where the road started or ended. The whole Abba compound was a swamp.  We tried saving squawking chickens, as I cried with laughter.  Silivia shined her flashlight into the water and asked me if I saw things moving. Snakes. We had a slumber party in the house with a couple whose home was filled with rain water.  I felt like a kid at summer camp as I crawled into the top bunk and tried not to move too much as I fell asleep to the sound of rain.