Sarah lay there on the hard dirt floor curled up next to her dead mother. She wept, not the tears of the six year old girl that she is, but the tears of a woman who has had everything she holds dear ripped from her grasp. In the darkness, she saw the woman enter, her white skin a stark contrast to that of all the neighbors who had come to grieve with her. It was Auntie Katie, the woman who payed her school fees and always smelled of soap. She crawled into the woman's lap and listened as voices she didn't understand talked about what was to me dome with her, now that she was an orphan, a burden to the community. As the rain poured down outside she drifted to sleep hoping that this day, the day she had come home to find her beloved Mamma dead on the floor, was only a dream.

But she woke to find that reality was worse than all her nightmares. Men had come very early to start digging the grave outside her small hut, and friends and neighbors lined up at the door to view her mother's now ash colored body. A hot feeling welled up in her throat and she ran outside to vomit. Then came the tears, a fountain she couldn't control, The adults told her not to cry, that it would be ok, but she didn't really believe them. They told her that Auntie Katie was going to be her new mom, but as much as she loved the white woman, she didn't want a new mom. She just wanted her regular old one.

She wailed as they placed her mother's body in the coffin and lowered it into the ground. As Uganda tradition has it, she was given the last handful of dirt to throw on top of the grave. She wouldn't do it. She couldn't throw dirt on her mother. Maybe if she just stood there staring numbly at the mountain of earth, it wouldn't be over yet. Maybe her mom was just sleeping. Just hiding. Yes, that was it. Any minute now the joke would be over and Mamma would walk out of the little dirt house they had always shared, just the two of them, and pick her up and kiss her head.

But they led her away, dirt still in hand. As they walked, her new mommy let her hide behind her big white sunglasses so no one would see her crying, and for the first time in two days, Sarah smiled. A cool breeze blew through the still, hot day. Maybe, just maybe, everything WOULD be ok.

Please pray for my new daughter Sarah as she mourns the loss of her mother and adjusts to her new family. Please pray for me as God has put me in her life at this critical time to cry with her and comfort her.


On a more uplifting note...
Today is my youngest daughter, Sumini's 5th birthday. For lunch we are having a party and inviting all the neighbor kids. Sumini asked me as we were buying mandazi (kind of like... donut holes) for her party if she could please invite Jajja Nakibuka. Jajja Nakibuka is our village mulalu (the ugandan word for mad person). She is about 70 years old, has no fingers and no toes and lives in the bush near our house. It is said that when her husband died, she burnt down their house and moved into the bush, digging for food and refusing help from anyone. Apparently, she is Sumini's friend, and Sumini began to tell me stories of times she has shared her left over lunch from school with Jajja Nakibuka on her way home from school and how Jajja would give her sugar cane and wild berries from her fields. Who knew! The "crazy old woman", who most people in my village avoid, is my daughter's dear friend. Oh, what we could learn from the heart of children. :)