Taking the Offensive

Mid afternoon, waves of rain showers, interspersed with pulsating heat.  Pat and I on our bicycles, loose stones and red dirt of the road, hurtling down hill and panting up hill, calls of "mujungu" from children in tattered clothes.  My favorite:  a 4-ish year old boy in a neck to wrist to ankle one piece long underwear outfit, covering everything but his hands and feet and . . . the only personal area of his body clearly visible in a rent.  We reach the appointed place for a community meeting, a local primary school which consists of four tin roof shelters with dirt floors and no walls.  A half dozen men and about 20 women flow into one of the school "rooms", with another dozen or so children.  These are village women, wrapped in kitengis, women who have rarely sat on a school bench.  Four of the five young CSB graduates with whom I've been working this month are there, with visual aids and good ideas.  I notice one of the primary school teachers who drifts over from her class is a young woman I sponsored for a year at Christ School--she failed, but was ever so grateful for the chance, burns having left her disfigured and bereavement having left her in the care of a grandmother who subsists on selling alcohol.  I was pleasantly surprised to see her thriving (though a bit worried about her level of teaching ability).  My students unroll two posters they have commissioned to begin the discussion of the harmful practice of cutting "false teeth", bhino, out of the gums of babies with diarrhea.  One depicts a together-looking woman giving ORS to her baby out of a cup.  The other pictures the same mother holding her baby in front of another woman with a knife, who has evidently just cut out the teeth, as blood spurts and drips from the baby's mouth.  And just as the discussion begins, the dark wall of cloud that had been blowing towards us arrives.  Driving, hail-force rain, heavy drops amplified by the tin.  Everyone huddles centrally, away from the soaking of the open sides.  The leader shouts to be heard, and women strain to answer his questions audibly.  

We have taken the offensive here, drawn the line.  Many practices can be applauded, many others ignored, but this dual business of slicing gums and then cleaning out any swallowed blood by forceful and dehydrating enemas, this is killing our children and has to be confronted.  And so we do.  I say little, until the very end, merely watching the students engage and implore.  There is skepticism and active chatter, as the women consider the possibility that they are being duped by witch doctors out to make money (going rate in this village turns out to be 2,000/= or a dollar a tooth, and on average they are told that 4 to 6 teeth must be removed . . . which amounts to a week's worth of family living expenses, no small consideration).  Our offensive does not go unnoticed.  We have an Enemy who will send pounding deafening rain in order to drown out our teaching, in order to continue to devour the young.

We end with hearing the village's concerns, many of which center on disappointing experiences accessing health care.  Pat and I leave them with two ideas for addressing their concerns: PRAY, because God hears the prayers of the poor, the prayers of mothers for their children.  And then get politically active.  The people embezzling the money, the people paralyzing the delivery of health services, are the ones they elected.  Ask questions.  Demand answers.  Take responsibility.  Easier said than done, but if today merely raises questions in a few minds, we will have been successful.  If one mother hesitates to allow a procedure that can end in needless death, we are satisfied.  If one person goes home and pours out prayers for workers with integrity to be appointed, and workers who steal and abuse their position to be removed, then we know that God is on the move.

We ride back home, steep hills again, feet slipping off the muddy pedals post-rain.  An unlikely picture of a military offensive, two pale not-so-young-any-more women in skirts and rain coats, huffing on bikes, while four kids in T-shirts make their way on foot.  But we moved out into Enemy territory today.  Whether we conquered any small part of it remains to be seen.