Funeral

Today I had to go to a funeral for a little baby. It was somehow happy and depressing but at the same time.
Every time I go visit the lady with the blind kids her sister comes over. Her sister, Nancy, had a little baby who was always sick. He was 8 months old but looked about 3 months. A friend of mine bought them formula for a while but he never grew or got healthy. We never could figure out what he was sick with, I'm not sure if they also didn't know what it was or if we just never understood what they were telling us. Either way, he's been sick since he was born.

In local medicine they will cut or burn people thinking that it will help the disease leave their body. This little baby had scars all over his stomach and arms and legs, I felt so bad for him. I really don't understand how if that didn't work after a few months they still kept on doing it and didn't take the baby to the doctor. Really there are a lot of things that I will never understand.

A normal funeral around here lasts 3 days and all kinds of people come and drop by but the family is responsible for feeding all their guests and for giving them tea and coffee. It's a huge financial burden, especially for refugees living in camps who already can't handle a normal day's expenses. The guests bring sugar or random small things but the family really bears the brunt of it. Today while I was there we drank tea, then coffee, then tea again, then ate lunch, then had tea once more and there were still quite a few people around when I left.

I had come straight from the office and I had my computer in my purse, I hate it when that happens. I've been here a long time but I don't think I will ever get used to the fact that I always have more money or valuables in my purse than they will ever own in their entire life. Today I had my camera, cell phone, computer, and quite a bit of cash on me...We're talking over $2,000 worth of things just in my purse. Probably not the best idea to be carrying all that around with me, but still, that's how it works out sometimes. Anyways, the entire expense of that 3 day funeral was probably no more than $75...A huge burden for the family and yet I could have paid for it out of my wallet and not even miss the money.

This week I heard a statement that really hit me. More of a question...'have you ever truly needed something that you didn't get?' And I ask myself, 'have I ever even wanted something that I didn't get?' Here I am experiencing extreme poverty every day and yet in my entire life have I ever actually gone without something I needed? I don't know if any of what I just said makes sense but if it does I encourage you to think on that for a while.

Here we are eating lunch. That green slime stuff is one of my favorite dishes. It looks like snot and the texture is pretty much just like that except for that it tastes exactly like fried okra and it's sooo good. You just have to get over the fact that when you lift your bread you have to flip your wrist around to get the stringy stuff to not make a mess.
Anyways, the most depressing thing for me about this funeral is that they weren't sad. The lady already has 7 kids that she can't provide for and this one was sick anyways. It's like he was just a statistic. I don't know if I've posted or not about how children dying here seems like such a normal thing. When you ask a woman how many kids she has she will tell you '5 but one died' and it's just such a matter of fact, totally unemotional kind of thing. I guess this is just my personal experience with a high infant mortality rate.

So today there was lots of laughter and gossip going on and I'm just not certain how I feel about that.