I'm walking down a dirt path with Dan, Mama Jaielle (sp), and another woman from the village. We are trying to get to the third house on our list of house visits today. Mama J tells us that she has been informed that she will be unable to make it to the house, but she still wants to give it a shot.
Sometimes it is hard to understand what Mama J is talking about. Not because she doesn't speak English. Her English is perfect after being a school teacher for most of her life. It is hard to understand her because she is unlike any 69 year old woman I have ever met.
The other day we were doing house visits. Mama J shows us around and interprets for us. We get to a house and there is only one step to get into the door. The only thing is that the step is over the height of my knee.
Did I mention that she walks with a cane? Also, she is blind in one eye.
Anyways, I ask her is she needs a hand getting up the big step. She doesn't even look at me. She lifts her leg and places it on the step. With her other leg she hoists herself up the rest of the way. I look at Dan. We both trip over our jaws on the ground as we follow her.
So today we are told that she may not be able to make it to the house. I'm starting to wonder what it will take to stop this woman. Eventually we get to a ravine. We are standing on a cliff that is about 70ft high looking at a house that is on the other side (the opposing cliff is probably 80ft). And so, these two woman start to look for a possible way across. First we would have to climb down the first cliff, then we would have to walk across the river, and finish it up by climbing up a "staircase" that is cut into the cliff (this is basically a ladder cut into the mud).
I turn to Mama J and tell her what we need to do is make a rope swing. I would hold onto the rope, and she would jump on my back. "We could swing across." My plan is obviously rejected, but as we start walking back I notice that she is looking at the trees by the edge of the cliff. "Is she actually considering a rope swing?"
As we are walking back to the house I ask Mama J to ask the other woman how old she is. I can tell that she is older than Mama J, but in Kenya people age differently. It is as if people don't age at all until they're 50. Mama J asks her and the woman starts laughing. Mama J tells us that she isn't sure how old she is; "Maybe I'm 80 or 90" she says.
80 or 90!? She must be mistaken. To be 80 she would have been around during the Great Depression. To be 90--I don't even want to think about it.
These two woman are leading us over bridges made of logs and branches; they're hopping over streams; they're climbing up hills that are at an angle of over 50 degrees. And the woman who doesn't know how old she is is barefoot.
Day after day I am blown away by these people. They know what it's like to work. They understand that if they don't work they won't eat. They know that it comes down to their perseverance. But, they also know it comes down to prayer.
We got to talk with the old woman before we went on the journey to the ravine. We told her that we saw how much joy was in her family; that lives in a house with a leaking roof, whose husband is crippled, who lives with her daughter, whose granddaughter is deaf, and who doesn't know where supper is going to come from.
We saw joy.
She told us that it is only because of prayer and faith in God that they have anything.
That gave me quite a lot to think about.
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