Mama Sarah's

Rat leading the way

A week ago I mentioned to Rat that I was considering visiting Mama Sarah. I told him, I had been worried about just knocking on her door to say hello, but I had decided (with a single weekend left) that it would be a shame if I made it all the way out to her region without greeting her. After all, in this tradition, the greeting is everything. I also figured, I definitely wasn’t going to be the most annoying person to visit her compound (think Fox News and any media outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, or really any media).  And I was going to bring a gift.

But what gift do you bring to Mama Sarah Obama? After a few months here, there’s really only one appropriate gift and that is an animal. The Luo people prize their livestock and so I figured I would see what I could do. I told Rat I wanted to bring a goat. And he laughed! And laughed! And recommended I bring something a little more practical, like fabric or something American. The conversation was lost and I figured that my trip to see Mama Sarah was over before it started.

I got a call from Rat on Tuesday and he said he had been thinking about our conversation and that I was right, a goat would be a great gift. (He later told me that while it was a great gift, it was an even better story for him to tell, that he went to visit Mama Sarah with an mzungu from America who brought her a goat). He had already talked to his friend in Kogero about where to find a goat. We were in business. Sunday was go day. Throughout the week I would get phone calls: I’m getting a goat, I can’t get a goat, the goat is too small, how much are you willing to pay for a goat, do you want a boy goat or a girl goat, we’re getting a big goat, and so forth.

Our goat

On Saturday afternoon we planned the trip, we were meeting in town at 5:30AM and on a bus at 6AM to Kogero—we’d get there at 8AM and take motorcycles to Mama Sarah’s compound. Hopefully we will meet our goat when we get to the compound and the price will be no more than 2000KES ($25). Oh yeah, bring a back-up gift.

The transportation plan goes without a hitch, we arrive before the town has awoken. We take chai and eat it with stale bread because they haven’t even started to make the breakfast breads yet and hop on motorbikes to Mama Obama’s place. We are driven up to the gate—it has been fenced in, otherwise I think the guys would have driven us to her bedroom door. We get off, and no goat. Not to worry, we are not all that timely here. I look at the sign on her fence, and it has visiting hours for M-F and Saturday (Sunday is not mentioned). Now me, I thought that meant that we were sunk, but Rat just walked up to the gate and greets the guy in Luo—he’s not Luo so they switch to Swahili and I follow along.

The conversation was long and not interesting, I thought about writing it out, but stopped. The gist was simple. Where is this mzungu from? (America.) Where are you from? (I just greeted you in Luo.) What do you want to do here? (Greet Mama Sarah and bring her a goat.) We did not have the goat at this moment, but we had faith that a goat was obtainable somewhere in this great little village and we had connections. I think the goat swung the conversation and the guard said, Mama Sarah is not up yet, but once the sun comes up and it warms up a little bit you will be welcomed on to the grounds. Oh yeah.

We walk into town and meet up with our goat connection—he works for the CDC which is an amazing network to be a part of. And he has to hop on a motorbike to get the goat. I give him the 2000KES and he gets going. Rat being a good man and accustomed to the ways of the mzungu and the mkenya had negotiated 1600 for the goat but figured he didn’t want to disappoint me by having the price increase and that the negotiated price might increase on the day of the sale. As it turns out, this wasn’t quite the case, but apparently, the goat we had bargained for was owned by the wife and she did not want to sell the goat. So our wonderful friend Vincent, went HOUSE TO HOUSE in search of a goat. As Rat said, “Someone who sells a coffin doesn’t bargain.” And if you’re going door to door and asking if someone has a goat, then you pay a desperation premium (200KES) and you get a smaller goat (the meat’s more tender).

So two hours of waiting, drinking tea, and just sitting, our goat arrives on motorbike. We meet the goat at Mama Sarah’s and we ask the guard if now is a good time to visit and he says yes. We enter, sign the security log and make a short walk up through her compound. It is very nicely taken care of and has a few animals grazing on the ground—no goats, but a few sheep which look like particularly close cousins to goats in this country.

We get to just outside the front door, under a few mango trees, and there are a number of chairs set-up. This is Mama Sarah’s receiving area and we are told she will join us briefly. We sit and are brought another book to sign, this one Mama Sarah’s reception book. It was started in October and is nearly full 6mo later. The goat gets tied up to a nearby tree and we sit and talk and look around.

After about 10 minutes, Mama Sarah comes out. She was dressed in a very graceful but traditional blue print dress with ornate gold embroidery around the collar. She comes to us and we stand to greet her and shake hands. I shake her hand last and greet her in Luo. She looks at me and asks if I have learned even Luo and Rat responds for me, since I’ve run out of Luo already, that we can speak Swahili together. She says that’s wonderful and greets us some more.

Rat, Mama Sarah and me

The vast majority of our (their) conversation was in Luo and I got very short translations for very long parts of conversation. When we spoke, I told her how happy I was to greet her and to get a chance to thank her for the support she had given our President. I was proud to have gotten the opportunity to vote for President Obama and I looked forward to the opportunity to do so again in the future. I thought he had done good and difficult work.

She expressed similar appreciation for my visit and said thank you for the gift. She agreed with me about the work President Obama has done, but commented that the wars were a concern for her. She was most grateful for the gift we had brought and she planned on having him for a meal soon.

In Luo, she discussed her life’s work with orphans—she helps them seek out education and employment. She said she was very thankful for support she had gotten from people from all parts of the world. We took pictures together, we said thank you again, I gave her my “back-up gift” (3 meters of a stately red and gold batik) and we were off.

Awesome day and a wonderful experience thanks to Rat, Vincent and Mama Sarah.

More pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/MatthewJMeyer/MamaSarahS?authkey=Gv1sRgCInE6aaOlonn_gE