********Warning!! Please don’t read this next post if you are in the least bit sensitive as it is sad and a little disturbing********
Sometimes I cry here. It doesn’t happen a lot and its usually do to the fact that I’m a girl and if you give us six months we’re bound to cry at least once. Living far from home and seeing things around here that you can do nothing to help with makes it a little worse. Today a lot of us were crying.
Today we had the funeral for baby Francis.
They aren’t sure why he died but I think it could have been because the hospital he was born in wasn’t that great and didn’t take all the right precautions. He was alive for about two days and then when Mary woke up in the morning he wasn’t breathing.
Some of the older kids and most of the staff left today to bury him. They said not everyone could go since it was just the small bus so I immediately thought I'd stay behind since I didn’t think I could handle it. Irene convinced me otherwise and I’m still not sure if I made the right decision but tonight made me thankful that I went.
We had decided we would leave at 7 AM from Kamulu and be back home by about noon. Its funny that I still think things will actually work out as planned here. We didn’t leave until about 8:30. When we arrived at Eastleigh we had a flat tire that delayed us another two or three hours. From there we drove to the city morgue to pick up the baby and bring him with us to the cemetery. We had the tiny casket with us in the bus. The morgue is what took us so long and I really don’t want to get into the details but I geel like its necessary to understand this country and the corruption that people face here. After arriving at the morgue they arranged for us to park our large bus on the side where people come to pick up the deceased. There were a few other families there, which were slowly getting their loved ones delivered to them through this large door. Every so often you could hear women wailing in grief.
Jackton had been driving the bus and was giving me a few updates of what was going on. He said how the morgue used to be very corrupt under the old presidency and how people would steal clothing or jewelry from the bodies or would hide the bodies and expect a bribe before releasing them. Its nice that people think the government is changing and putting a stop to corruption but after today I don’t think that’s the truth. We arrived before noon and had to wait until 3 pm- when they close- after frantically debating and asking and searching for the baby before he was suddenly “found” and given to us. Part of the reason we thought it was taking so long was because they have so many babies that die then sometimes they get mixed up. So for a while we were under the impression that Francis was given to another family. Jackton, who’s always very chipper and enthusiastic, had to go an identify the body while they were “searching” for him. (Note that this is not necessary- they do have tags and id’s they use but pretend to have lost them). When Jackton came back, with no success, he looked very disturbed and didn’t say much for the next few hours. Finally a guy that worked somewhere in the back came by and gave us a tip as to who knew where the body was. He was too scared to lead us to the person so he just showed us the door and then quickly disappeared. Susan, one of the MITS staff, is from the Kikuyu tribe and talked with the man since he was also Kikuyu. He lead her along with Mary and Mama George (works with the girls at Eastleigh) through a back room that had bodies in it so they could again try to identify the baby. These were not bodies that were placed nicely on tables with sheets over them like we see in the movies. They saw everything. Some were in fridges and others were simply lying on the floor. Some still had their clothes on and others had the cuts and stitches from the processes that go on in the morgue. Susan is only 19 years old and Mary is 16 and just lost her child.
After identifying Francis, they put the clothes we brought on him and placed him the casket. We then drove another thirty minutes to the cemetery. The service was very nice and all in Swahili. Everyone took turns shoveling dirt onto the grave. I finally realized as we were leaving that there were onlty two people with us that I didn’t recognize. It was Mary’s mother and sister. Both of them stood a good distance from Mary and I didn’t see either give her a hug or hold her hand during the whole process (Perhaps they did when I wasn’t watching though). After everything was done Mary then came home with us to Kamulu where she wants to stay.
All of this probably could have been much quicker and less painful if we had just given the first guy at the morgue a bribe. But because we don’t contribute to paying bribes some of our members had to go through the disturbing process that the workers (who are all on drugs) put people through just for some extra cash.
There were times when I kept saying to myself- ‘why am I here?’. Everyone’s speaking Swahili, I don’t know what’s going on, its super hot and we haven’t eaten all day, I can’t contribute to the funeral at all, I feel like I’m taking up space in the nice front seat while others are standing on the bus, everyone keeps asking me if I’m doing okay and apologizing for the wait that they all have to endure too. Then later tonight Susan came over because she was too scared to sleep after what she saw today. After we talked for a long while she said before leaving “It’s so nice of you to go through all of that today and come to the burial. Not many people would wait with us like that. It means a lot.”
And then I wanted to cry for the fifth time today.
