day 3
our third day in tanzania was such a good one. kabalo took us over to the primary school to see the kids. we needed this. it was that boost of comfort that we were desperately craving.
the kids loved having us there. we played games with them, sang songs, taught them dances and got some much needed hugs. i loved those kids. they invited us to eat lunch with them where we got our first experience with ugali. we obviously tried different foods in africa & let's just say, some were better than others. ugali was on the 'avoid at all costs' list. it looks sort of like mashed potatoes and i don't even remember what it exactly is, except for lotsss of protein. it's super cheap and because there is so much protein in it, it helps to add some weight on to the kids. it's rude to not finish your plate of food there and i definitely gagged a few times trying to down all the ugali they gave us. i just laugh thinking about that lunch with alexis and lockee. we all were laughing about it. but despite the bad lunch, we left that day feeling so jazzed on life. those cute kids made everything better.
that night after dinner, adina (kabalo's wife) came in to our room with one of the twins, king. since the first day of being in tanzania, king had had a cold and she told us she was leaving to go to the hospital to see about getting some medicine or something. so we gave king a kiss & a wave goodbye and later went to bed.
day 4
we woke up that next morning to reginia in our room.. she broke the news to us that sweet baby king had died that night at the hospital.
apparently, he had pneumonia and it was too late to get him the medicine he needed. it was pretty shocking for everyone. i mean we had just seen him a few hours earlier and now that sweet boy was gone. that day was rough for everyone. kabalo and adina were gone the entire day and alexis and i just sat in our room reading scriptures, writing in our journals, and talking.
that night all of kabalo's male friends came over to the house. they gathered outside in a circle where we were invited to join. ben and a preacher from their church led the evening. i guess this is what you do when it's time to plan a funeral there. everyone sits in the circle, the preacher says some words, and then they estimate an amount of money that they need to cover the funeral costs. then, ben goes around the circle and one by one he calls out a person, says who they are and asks them to give money. i'm definitely not explaining it correctly, but it was 100% awkward. we were asked to give money, which we did, and the whole thing lasted about 2 hours.
day 5, the funeral
we woke up to a very rainy day. everything in karatu is dirt, so when it rains... you get a lot of mud. tons of people came over to the house. tons of people crammed into our little room. (alexis and i hiding our stuff the best we could ha). we hung out with lockee and then met 3 dutch girls that had apparently been volunteers with kabalo before. we immediately thought about the dutch girl who got her finger chopped off and checked to make sure they had all 10, they did ha. there were 2 girls that we kept in touch with a good amount during our stay there, a mom and a daughter. they had spent a lot of time with the twins because they used to live at kabalo's. they were pretty angry that he died. which i understand, i mean everyone deals with grief differently, but they were really angry at kabalo specifically. lockee was angry too. they said that they weren't being the best parents and should have done more to help king. alexis and i only knew king for 2 days really and we just thought he had a cold.
it was just a really different environment and culturally, we didn't understand how we were supposed to act. some people were really sad, some people were pissed, some people acted like it was just a regular day. but no one, besides adina and kabalo were crying. i thought that was really weird. alexis and i just didn't know what to do. in america, you bring flowers, food, cards; you tell them how sorry you are, you give hugs, you provide service, etc. we just didn't know what we were supposed to do because it was so different culturally. alexis and i decided we had to do something because it was driving us nuts to sit around all day. we decided to make a card for adina and wrote a short message. we went into her room and read it to her. i don't think she understood anything we said, but as she was crying she embraced us and thanked us. as it was time for the funeral regina came and got alexis, lockee and i and told us to come into the house. we sat in a room with adina and kabalo and adina's parents. everyone was sitting outside near king's casket. we then all moved outside and they had the service. it was all in swahili so we didn't understand it. but then at the end they had everyone stand up and one by one, come walk by king's casket to see him for the last time before they buried him.
we then all walked over to the cemetery. this is bad to say, but it was kind of an amusing walk because it was so muddy that everyone was slipping and sliding everywhere to get there. we had about 4 inches of mud stuck to the bottom of our shoes, making every step really tough. we got to the sight and there were i believe 4 wreathes that had been made. ben said a few words (half in swahili, half in english for us which was kind of him) and then the first wreath was given to adina to put on the cross that was standing on king's grave. adina was so distrought. she could hardly walk and she was just wailing a lot. the next wreath was given to kabalo to put on the cross. the 3rd wreath was given to a few other family memebers. and then the final wreath was given to ben, alexis, lockee and i to put on the cross. this is a moment i'll never forget. it just amazed me that we had known them all for not even a week and they acted as if we were apart of their family. to this day i still can't believe it. it was such a surreal moment.
after the funeral we went back to the house and ate some food and everyone just sort of hung out and talked while they played music. as it got late, alexis and i went to bed but everyone was up till like 4am. so we did not sleep that night. we had people coming in and out of our room, turning the light on, and talking and yelling all night. it was another rough night for sleep.
the thing that we started to learn about death and tanzania/africa was that it happens so frequently there that it's not as sad of a thing as it is in america. i mean i know that i am not one to judge and say 'this is how they were feeling' but from what regina and ben explained to us, it really isn't a super sad thing there. which in itself, is really sad. but people die so often because of a lack of medicine, knowledge, water, food, etc that it's common and therefore, people are just used to it. where as in the united states, you don't hear about someone's baby passing away from pneumonia, dysentery or malaria that often.
this will probably sound selfish but i'm going to write it down anyways. at this point, i really wanted to go home. my dad had just died and now here i was, 5 months later, and at another funeral. i was hoping africa would be a good place for me to get some healing done that i desperately needed. and then instead, i was being thrown back into a huge grieving environment. not to mention that my cousin scott died when he was 3 months old and the whole day just brought back tons of flashbacks for me. it was just tough and i really didn't want to feel those emotions and remember some of the memories that were coming up. selfish, i know, but the truth.
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