Winter 2006

Blessings From God

Learning to accept the enormous generosity of strangers
Nairobi, Kenya

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I found their culture of hospitality delightful. I found their welcome especially comforting in times of sorrow. My host mother, whose family I had lived with for three months at the time, died in a car accident. I was included in the funeral planning almost as if I were a family member. Many times, when I asked for etiquette advice, the response began, “You were her daughter.” I spent almost two weeks with the bereaved family for the funeral, first in Nairobi for nightly prayer and a large funeral service and then in their hometown for the burial and five days of calling on the family.

During those days I learned what needed to be done for a funeral — cooking. Many people came from all over Kenya, and everyone from her hometown came. Two members of Parliament were there; the president sent a letter. Three thousand people attended the funeral, and many others called in the following days. It seemed like we used every pot in town to make tea.We peeled wheelbarrow loads of potatoes and made bathtub-sized pots of ugali, their corn-based staple, a solid cousin of Cream of Wheat.

I missed my Kenyan mother immensely. She had been my friend, guide, and mother in a foreign country. Just a week before her death, she had completed a master’s degree in special education for the blind and had watched her youngest child start to crawl. Everyone, from her three kids to her neighbors, missed her greatly. But no one was alone. And no one was hungry.

I also observed selfless generosity in the form of a little girl named Atot. After I finished the study abroad program, I joined an InterVarsity Global Project team to teach in a Kakuma refugee camp in northwest Kenya. One day, as we joined a caravan going out into the desert to distribute food and medical supplies, we met Atot. The growth of the desert in northwest Kenya has left tribes with practically nothing, and orphaned children are often left to die. Atot’s mother and father were gone; she was keeping her little brother alive with the five lunches a week that she got at school. The consequences of those daily decisions were evident and close to ending her life.We took Atot back to the base, and when I left, she was slowly regaining strength. The immensity of her daily, painful sacrifice for her brother stayed with me.

Even now, as I settle into a new apartment, I realize that my experiences with Kenyan hospitality changed the way that I live.My participation in the Kenyan funeral changed the way that I feel about saying goodbye. The communities I visited made me more grateful for my comforts and more eager to share.

An anthropology major at Wooster, Schneider now lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and works at Youngstown State University with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

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