Diversions

In Kenya, road detours are called diversions (just as they are in Britain). Doesn't a diversion seem more pleasant than a detour? After leaving the new Nakumatt Mall, where I bought a long distance discount calling card (to call my children and my mother!!!), I decide to walk along Ring Road. It's a less congested way to get home even though it's the front line of Nyalenda slums A and B. There are a couple of diversions along the way. I'm first stopped by Samwell Rojoro, a reverend currently living in Nairobi who wants to work in Kisumu where his family lives. He asks if I have any jobs in the church for him. Actually, no, but we never know who we might meet, I tell him, and take his name and mobile number and move along. I pass row after row after row of wood kiosks/shacks. I pass sewing shops with colorful cloth draped on open doors and ladies sitting behind Singer sewing machines, pumping with their feet to move the needles up and down. Butcheries pop up occasionally with huge meat chunks hanging in the day's heat. Beauty salons are frequent, as are video stores with movie dialogue blaring from a back room. People call out “hello,” “How are you?,” “Hi Madam” and “Hey white lady.”

One very large man, who could be a bouncer in a nightclub, calls to me saying, “Madam, will you greet me?” So I step off the side walk to shake his hand. There are several other men standing nearby, watching me closely. My new friend has a white cap fitting snugly on his head. He tells me they are gathered here for a funeral. I turn to look around and notice the truck parked on the side walk, ready to receive the casket, to take the dead woman to her family's burial place 12 kms from Kisumu. “Pole,” I say. While still holding my hand, the big guy tells me his name is “Godwill” and the deceased is his cousin's sister. Doesn't that make her his cousin as well? “Sister” means different things. It could be their biological sister or someone from their tribe or even someone from their church. I can smell alcohol on Godwill's breath and see in his eyes he has a good buzz going, but he's not quite drunk yet. He asks if I'll pay my respects to the deceased woman. Yes, I indicate with a nod of my head.

We walk away from the road, down a dirt path for nearly 100 yards. Because I've been in this neighborhood with Walter and Tony, I am comfortable following Godwill into the slum. He says the deceased woman's name is Susan. We come upon a group of people under a tarp strung between two houses. A woman is standing and speaking in Luo. It's alien to me to approach a group of mourners whom I don't know. This is the second time I've “attended” a funeral since being in Kenya and the sensation is becoming a little less strange. People welcome an outsider just because their skin is white and I'm slowly becoming okay with being the person with the white skin who is afforded the honor of paying respects to their deceased love ones. Everyone is looking as I follow Godwill through the crowd, past the woman who is speaking and into a narrow doorway. The room is dark and the casket is on the ground. I grab Godwill's arm at the sight of Susan. She seems tiny, her simple coffin seems small, less than half the size of caskets in America. The dead ladies always seem so small.

I knell by the casket to get a better look and notice Susan looks young, perhaps late 20s. She's wearing a white, white lace dress that flows down and over her toes. There is no glass separating her from the dimly lit room. She is leaving behind three small, fatherless children. I stand to follow Godwill back to Ring Road. He points to an elderly man and says, “Here's the father of the deceased, will you greet him?” I shake the man's hand and say, “Pole for your loss.” He returns my grip and smiles. Why is he so kind to a strange white woman pulled off the street while people eulogize his dead daughter under a nearby tarp?

Godwill describes himself as a “business man,” with his clothing store just back there on Ring Road, did I see it when I passed? He wants me to visit his shop, but I tell him I'll come by another day. Tomorrow? “I can't give you a definite day, but I'll be coming by here regularly,” I say. He thanks me and shakes my hand, giving me the coded handshake for intimate friends. Even though he's a bit high, even though he's hanging by the road instead of listening to Susan's ceremony under the tarp, I'm moved by what Godwill and his community are going through. “Please be careful on your way to the burial” I say. His eyes register appreciation as he releases my hand and I secretly hope, hope, hope Godwill is not driving.