Sleepover at Momma's House

(Momma's min by moonlight)


Ani inam Dubsahay. I'm a lady of Dubsahay.

Alicia and I, as mentioned before, have been adopted by a magnificent woman called Nareyo Chawle of this same clan. She is pretty traditional: still lives out in the goob, wears beads, speaks no English, but that's no hindrance on all us girls' relationship with her. We love spending time with her in any capacity, and so why not spend the night at her place.

Thank goodness it's the Dakhnaan ("light nights" - when the moon is full and bright enough to cast your shadow at midnight) because we didn't start the 2o minute walk out to Goob Soriyon until about 9 pm. We used torches only to avoid scorpions, but the path was perfectly visible, and the breeze was lovely. Job and Johnathan were the warriors assigned to our escort, although to be completely honest, they're about 30 pounds lighter than us, and had no weapons at their disposal. I guess if we had to negotiate ourselves out of something, their language skills would be useful.

We came into the goob along with the goats, so our arrival was somewhat overshadowed by all the herding, milking, and greeting of warriors that needed to be done. We entertained ourselves, however, chatting with our brothers and sisters on the animal skins and taking photos of the clearest moon you've ever seen. At some point my Hamado, my niece, so to speak, sat bolt-upright out of her sleep and threw up all over the skins and blanket. Bless her heart, only a few minutes later she was up chatting with us.

(Burro, one of our cousins, I think)

When Momma was finally finished chatting with some warriors, she graciously made us chai and and ugali/goat's milk porridge. As it was 11:30 in the evening, I wasn't much hungry, but she said she wanted to show us how she ate, so I was flattered for the window into her life.

Around midnight, when us girls were fading, literally everyone in the goob was still very much awake. How these people manage staying up so late and then wake up so early is beyond me. Even though our droopy eyes got some laughs, Momma had a fancy mosquito net set up for us, and we lay down on our soft cow skins. I didn't sleep well, but not for lack of comfort, just because I had nightmares for some reason. And, at one point, Alicia thought she had been stung by a scorpion which turned out to be a tiny black spider that packed a punch.

(Morning chai in Mom's min)

In the morning, around 5:30 everyone was up and about milking the goats again. Momma asked if we were scared of them, but it wasn't that I was scared, just entirely unsure of how to milk one of those things! So I made myself useful by picking up the cute babies and occasionally attempting to keep everyone in the sum (corral).

(Alicia and my sister Lari taking laundry down in the morning)

After chai, we hiked back home to rinse off the dirt and smoke, and head off to a long sermon at church, which is rough after 5 hours of sleep... But distinctly contented having spent the night at home.

(Mom, her son Kinesasan, and her granddaughter Hamado)