Lopie

Typically I am a morning person. I thrive on anticipation for what the day will hold, excitement for the people I may run into, and nervousness about not being quite prepared for it all. In Kotido it is no different; I find myself waking up with a smile on my face, bouncing through making the bed, and getting dressed. I enjoy eating Maria’s homemade rolls with honey from Romano’s bees, and hardboiled eggs from the chickens for breakfast. Peter, Anna, and Margret are typically at the breakfast table too and it is comforting to see them in their school uniforms tromping around grumpily because they have to leave for school. Comforting because it re-enforces for me the universality of yet another emotions: kids all over the world would rather stay at home and play than go sit in a desk all day.

                                                                                                                  

So one night I was slightly annoyed when I stood up to go to bed and Lopie said, “You should not go to bed so early, you should stay up and hear more stories.” In the dark I grimaced and sat back down, “Okay”, I said, “then you tell me a story.” Lopie is our shepherd boy, although the word “boy” is slightly misleading; Lopie is married with two sons. But, he does care for the animals so this makes him a shepherd boy. If you have been reading my other blogs Lopie is the person who always say, “Yes, Annali. Very good!” because his English is rather limited (Harvest Dance, October.)

There was a young man at our house that evening who had good English so I suggested that he translate as Lopie spoke. Lopie began this story:

“When I was a baby I drank too much milk so my parents abandon me to the bush so I would not be a burden on them. While I was laying there an elephant came up to me and almost ate me but someone found me and brought me to the animal corral. I was raised at the corral and began taking care of animals until one day, when I was about 10 years old, warriors from another tribe came and raided our corral. They had guns and one shot me.”

At this point he paused to take my hand and place it over the lump on his shoulder where the bullet had wounded him as a boy.

“After I was shot I lay on the ground and thought I am going to die. But in the morning Romano came and took me home with him. When Maria saw me she said, “This boy should now live with us.” From that day on I have lived here and been safe.”

Then instead of looking at the translator he looked at me and said, “Now you are a part of this family too, Annali and we will all remember you forever with joy in our hearts.”

 As the translator spoke those last few words of the story I felt myself growing very quiet. I looked around the courtyard, Adome and Adocto were sprawled out behind me, Peter and Anna were sitting quietly on either side of me, Margret was sitting on Maria’s lap sleeping, and Amol and Loperra were standing in the doorway listening.

I did not know what to say so I meekly thanked Lopie for the story and the translator for his work. In the quiet following Lopie’s story I was reminded of a passage from The Brothers Karamazov in which Father Zossima, an elderly priest, is sharing some of his thoughts with friends. He says, “I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft tender gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long happy life—and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!” (The Brothers Karamazov, 269)

I am still a morning person, but the urging of Lopie to, “sit a while longer”, and Father Zossima’s observations about evening persuades me to believe that I can perhaps live to also cherish the night. But, I think the more important lesson I learned was how intertwined my life can become with those around me. In this case it took a shepherd boy from Kotido to remind me that I will not be the only person impacted by the on-going year here in Kotido. It is a grave responsibility to be a part of a community; there are people to be accountable to, tasks to be completed, stories to be heard, and above all relationships to be valued.

Lopie and his wife 

Singing

Most evenings before we eat supper my host family and I gather in the courtyard. Everyone is present; we share stories about our day, play games, dance and mostly laugh. A few nights ago, just as the darkness of night was beginning to inch across the sky and stars began brightly piercing through, someone began singing. By the second measure of the song everyone had joined in, not only with their voices, but also with hands clapping and bodies swaying.

Music is a medium that moves me; sometimes it’s the words, sometimes it’s the tune of a song, and sometimes it’s the musicality of how a composer links music and words to more emphatically convey the message. Singing with my host family in Kotido was no different. Although their voices didn’t always blend and sometimes the songs dissolved into mass chaos; the tunes moved me beyond myself, and when the words were translated I was amazed at their simple yet obedient message of faithfulness to Jesus. One song translated:

How happy are the people

When they gather together

To pray in the house of the Lord.

That evening in my host family’s courtyard where we were gathered became a house of the Lord, and I’m sure that God heard our songs of praise.In my opinion the voices of my host family in Kotido sound bolder than I am used to in comparison with my Western perspective. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing; I find myself missing four-part-harmony as well, but I have appreciated a new way to engage with music, and have savored the moments of music I have experienced here in Kotido.

Okay, so this doesn't actually have anything to do with singing but, it is some of the happy music makers. I brought some books with me to Kotido, in this picture Margret, Anna, Peter and I are enjoying the last bit of natural light to look through the books

Kalokuruk

A forty minute walk from my host home, just outside Kotido is a rock called Kalokuruk, meaning: a place of the crows. The rock is sloped on one side so that it reaches the ground and you can walk all the way to the top where it abruptly drops off. At the base of the rock where you begin to walk up is a small pond of water, beginning half way up the incline and ending just above the pond is a smooth, slippery groove where hundreds of bodies have created a natural slide throughout the years. Kalokuruk isn’t very tall, perhaps a few hundred feet; but, the view is spectacular, and especially now as the dry season is approaching the wind is astonishingly strong.

The rock is not only home to the crows, but also a variety of song birds, hawks, and many lizards and snakes. The morning I walked out to the rock, warriors and women were bathing in the basin of Kalokuruk, birds were singing, and many crows were flying overhead. I reached the top of the rock and found a comfortable place to observe nature and rest for a while. I couldn’t help but think of the story from I Kings where the Lord appears to Elijah after he had fled to Horeb. In my NIV translation the story reads:

“Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

In Akron, Pa during orientation an outline of our emotions was charted out and projected on the wall for us to analyze. In that moment of preparation it was hard to feel anything but excitement for the coming year, but as I have grown accustom to Kotido I have remembered that chart and found myself to be a perfect model for the proposed emotions at this point of the year. Perhaps a bit of discouragement regarding how slow things seem to be moving in my service assignment, and a lot of asking myself the exact same question God asked of Elijah, “What are you doing here?”

I had to re-evaluate my own attitude about being in Kotido on Kalokuruk, I needed to step back and realize that not everything moves at the speed I would like it to, and above all I needed to realize that God is in the gentle whispers of life not necessarily life shattering explosions. Currently I am reading The Brothers Karamazov one character, Ivan, is a man searching ardently for life’s meaning and purpose. In one conversation he has with one of his brothers, Alyosha, he states that our human minds were created to understand three-dimensional information. We will not, and cannot ever hope to understand God. I completely agree with Ivan, I can never hope to understand God’s mystery but in moments when I embrace my human fallibility and look to God for strength I disagree with Ivan because there is one thing I am sure of about: God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good.

One view from the top of the rock

A low flying Kite (hawk) was looking for breakfast

If you look carefully there's a lizard in this picture