by Charity Simaldi

My name is Chanity Simaldi and I would like to share my story.  The sudden divorce of my parents left me wondering what objective to take in order to unite them.  This painful divorce began when my father was admitted to work in Kisii as a policeman.  As a policeman, his attitude towards his family began to change and he parted ways with God.  At first he gave a warm welcome to our firsborth and everything was peacefull.  Everything remained peaceful until he got involved with bad company and began to share their approach to life.

This was what happened.  Actually, the Greek’s were not insane to say that bad company ruins good morals.  My father was once fond of visiting us every Friday after his normal duties, but now he began coming home only once a month.  It was not until he came home a few times roaring drunk that we realized he had beome a drunkard.  This worried us for my mother was jobless and could not afford to buy our basic needs.

Since the Maasai traditions are at times strict, my father decided to marry a second wife.  My mother got this surprise one evening when he came home with a group of men and amongst them was a lady.  Curious, I asked who she was.  My questions awakend my mother’s spirit when she found the lady was a second wife.  She fell into a fresh flood of tears and as time went by, become more depressed.

She had to think twice of the idea she she didn’t know my father’s intentions.  We were living in a mud house, a small hut where we kept three goats.  I went to a nearby public school and by standard grade three I realized our life was not easy.  We had to toil and work and live in a hand-to-mouth situation.

When my father earned enough money he built us a better house and gave us some money.  OUt of jealousy, my step-mother burned the money, complaining is was unfair.  She was beaten and chase away and my father remined with my mother peacefully for a short time.  But it wasn’t long when he decided to change his mind.  By this time, our first born encouraged us to work hard.  She was very smart and screamed No, when father forced her to be circumsised.  This was what she hated most and tried to stand up for her rights.  By then I had five siblins and glory to God, our father decided to educate us all.  Really, life combines to make a collission of events both good and bad.

It was when he began abusing drugs that things changed again.  We aired our grievances to him and he gave a cold should and deaf ear.  My dream of becoming a lawyer was still embedded in my memory and I could not surrender.  The other village men came once more to ruin a man, who had decided for a moment to stand on his own principles.  They searched for a thrid wife.  My mother couldn’t tolerate that.  Now father changed.  He came home and would start quarreling at any moment and commanded my mother to lie down and receive a beating.  She had no other alternative but to obet the DDO (Daily Drinking Officer.)

Life was becoming more and more difficult.  He would arrive home and order drugs and cigarretes.  My mother not only trusted in God, but encouraged us to live by the “WORD.”  My younger siblings were not pleased and sat near their father in fear, for he become even more fierce.

After he had married another wife he was never seen at home.  If he came it was with the intention of taking away the few cows my mother had.  My mother was always shocked beyond words.  She left God to act on her behalf.  It was then that my mother got involved with politics.  She aimed at helping her community.  This hurt my father who became more and more fierce.  He planned to kill my mother and when she found out his aims she did not interfere with him any more.

By this time the other lady gave birth to another bouncing firstborn and my father was now commanding my mother to move from our home.  After a long quarrel, my mother decided she had to leave and care for her own children.  It was when my father was amused and came hom to threaten to kill my mother that she got in the habit of sleeping in the bushes.

All the things my mother did gave her a chance to be herself.  She was elected as a concillor.  After that my father became bitter and threatened to kill her for real.  He mocked her and called her a prostitute.  His aim was to destroy the life my mother had made for herself.  At times, he woudl order everybody, including our three year old brother to move from his compound.

Life is a matter of decisions and more so in this life it is a blessing to let someone dream about yu, but more blessing when you dream of yourself.  We were used to escaping and sleeping in the bushes, even duuring the rainy season.

It was then my mother decided to go back to her home.  She has thoroughly beaten, but escaped with only minor injuries.  We now live back in her home village.  WE went with our mother, but life has been hard to tackly.  “Lord”, change our family, your child is crying.

The lines from Gary Zukav’s “The Seat of the Soul”  come to mind tonight as I sit with Sr. Freda and her missionary guests.  “As you face your deepest struggles, you reach for your highest goal…This is the work of evolution.  It is the work that you were born to do.”

I can see that Sr. Freda is still struggling and grieving the loss of her husband, Richard.  His presence is always at the dining table where his chair sits empty.   As Sr. Freda says the evening prayer,  I am taken again by how young she is in spirit.  She has the faith of a child, who might at times feel lost, but knows her mother has her eye on her the whole time and knows where she is and just what she needs.  I’m surprised by the tears that spring to my eyes, for the truth is,  I’ve not been around a person who believes God  is  really alive in their soul for a long time.  My language and how I think is far from the simplicity of prayer.  I have evolved differently and yet, even though the language Sr. Freda prays is more traditional than how I pray today,  I sometimes miss my old self and way of being.  When Sister asks me what my religion is I answer that I was once Catholic, but I no longer believe in one religion.  I  believe all religions, as well Secular religion, Agnostic’s and Atheists have something I find true and magical.  She surprises me by laughing and giving me a high five.

Over the years I  find myself  judging Christians.  Sometimes even scornful of their simple belief that you just need to ask and it will be given to you. But as I sit with Sr. Freda and the missionaries that visit, I am able to see them with more acceptance, especially  the particular family  visiting this week.  I’m enjoying them for they are easy to be with and I enjoy watching how they behave with one another.  They have such respect for one another that I’m drawn to them.  They each tell me something about the path they have chosen and how they have created a life that gives them the time and energy  to do God’s work on earth.

Tonight, as they pray for a young girl with large eyes who has lost a mother to aids, their faces light up with love and they are happy in the knowledge that their prayers are heard.  Once in a while I catch their spark and try to be like everyone around me, wanting to be a part of the hymn singing and bible reading, even though I know I’m way off tune and have never read the bible.  Growing up Catholic, we were not allowed to read just any bible and were not allowed to read without the guidance of a priest, so I only heard Priests reading the new testament at Mass. I haven’t been to a Mass for thirty years, except for when my cousin Lori died.  I can’t bring myself to believe anymore in patriarchal institutions or forgive the Catholic church for its “old boys” loyalty in the face of incest and misogyny.  But tonight, in the presence of this loving family of a mother, father, sister and daughter, I let go of judgements and experience what I can only describe as a Divine presence.  It feels like smoke, still unseen, but moving throughout the room, waiting for me to find the small flame, still glowing beneath the pile of discarded beliefs.

by Baraka Jepchumba (This story has been slightly edited.)

No state is permanent in life!  There are trials and tribulations and confusion is sometimes everywhere.  We are living in a competive world and a cut-throat race.

I can vividly remember the fateful day as if it were yesterday.  This has always stressed my mind and I wonder why the Deity let me come to this world of hardships and disgust when he knew I would undergo bitter challenges.

That fateful morning I had come from the land of slumber as the flickering rays of the sun colored the eastern horizon a yellow orange.  I quickly woke, dashed to the frog’s kingdom, dressed in my best clothes and padded to the dining table.  I met a aroma that caught my happy nose and I hurried to eat a cup of porridge and slice of bread. That morning we were to go and visit my loving mother in the hospital.

We walked to the Matatus station and fortunately one of the small buses stopped and we boarded.  We arrived at the hospital and found my mother crawling in great agony.  She was coughing out spectrum with blood, complaining of chest pain and shivering and sweating and she was so thin, becoming thinner as the days passed.

Shortly after, my breadwinner took me one evening to see her and I knew it was a chance to bid her goodbye.  No sooner had I reached the ward that she began weeping distractedly and said, “My daughter, my time has come for me to leave you behind with your father.  The Almighty has mentioned my name and I must say bye, my little angel.”

Those are the words she told me.  She turned to my father and said, “My better half husband.  This is my last moment sharing with you.  My time has come.  Humbly take keen of my words.  My daughter is behold in your hands.  Please take great care of her.  Let her ways be smart.  Bye till we meet again.”

I felt my mountain erupt and my dream of being loved gone.  A learned friend broke down with the news of my mother’s death but encouraged me to have faith.  She said my mother had always remained strong and believed in the end I would make it.

After the burial, I moved swiftly to the graveyard and whispered, “My loving mother, rest in peace.  I particularly kiss you good bye until we me again.  Amen.”

My DDO father disappeared to date.  I have never known of his whereabouts.  Maybe in the streets?  I cannot tell.  He just left when I was on the brink of failing into abject poverty.  No one tells these stories.  Nobody talks!