Installment 17

Installment 17
Just a quick update. Eliud and I went back to town. The girls at English Lady’s had some clothes for Sarah. That crew there have been fantastic. They cared for Sarah like she was their sister, even tho they had never known her before….but then they tend to do that kind of thing….and in that ‘hospital’ too. I think God said something about caring for widows, orphans and strangers. So we got the clothes and got to make another visit to the morgue, drop off the clothes and haggle about how much it cost to wash Sarah and get her dressed….I think they won that round, but at that point, I was just wanting to get her and get out of there. While the morgue took care of those things, Eliud and I went down the ‘street’ and paid for the coffin and picked it up to take it back to the morgue……you know, just like we do it in America. For some reason the ‘officials’ at the morgue made me sign for Sarah, and we loaded the coffin and finally was able to leave. That is a good place to leave! Meanwhile, Jeff and Carla had brought the Pastor that works with the kids and his wife and Emmanuel, and two of English Lady’s girls and we all went out to the Maze field…ahh I mean cemetery. The men from yesterday were there, with a couple of additions… most notably a man and a girl that was about 10 or 11. He said she was one of Sarah’s kids….but the name didn’t match any that we had. Something wasn’t right, but we went on with the service. Pastor Sam did a great job, and it only took about 2 hrs in the sun to get the service finished, as everyone had something to say. I found it interesting that I began to grumble inside about the length and the heat etc…until I took time to remember that this was a small price to pay, considering that Sarah had given all for Emmanuel. As the service finished, the men lowered the coffin into the hole and the family threw some dirt in….then the men filled the hole.
We talked some and then it was done. We still don’t know about the man and the girl, but have our suspissions…. And they aren’t necessarily good., as he seem to have motives. J & C handled it well and we were on our way.
Just and interesting note, all over the hospital written on the walls and papers and everywhere it said in Swahili: “Good Service is Your Right” Sitting there for hours as the staff ignored us and hassled us I wondered if they ever actually read the walls. Oh yeah, and the ‘road’ into the cemetery…it was lined with large amounts of garbage…seemed fitting as they seem to throw away their people too….and one more thing…the place we buried Sarah had last years maize stubble….hmmm I wonder if they accidentally made a mistake….or maybe some payola.
As I heard yesterday….Kenya is a land of CONTRAST!