Funeral in Kainga

We were driving into Kainga Village on Saturday on our way to Pahuwa, when from the back seat Helen said, “Slow down. There’s a funeral nearby.” I had no idea how she knew, then she explained that the green leafy branches spread across the road ahead of us meant a person in the village had recently died.  I learned that unlike Christians, Muslims bury their dead on the very day of their death. 

As we inched along, people stood almost motionless on their porches and yards and watched us as we passed. One man slowly pushed his bicycle through the village. Then at one small house men were standing on the edge of the porch and many women seated on the neatly swept front yard.  Most certainly, these were family and friends of the deceased.  I wondered who in the community had died. 

I had taught the women at the Kainga mosque only the week before, and as we parted ways that afternoon, the women were happy, singing and dancing.  Today, there were no smiles or waves or children running alongside our car to greet us.  Their loss was marked by the grief stricken faces of the villagers and the children who followed us only with their eyes.

We passed another marker, tree branches  spread across the road, and moved on. A few km down the road, and we were in Pahuwa where we taught a group of 16 women.  We scheduled our next visit and said our goodbyes and drove toward Kainga.

As we entered Kainga,  a woman who had been in our class in the mosque the week before walked out to meet our car. Helen lowered her window to hear what she had to say. She said, “Remember the young woman last week who was expecting? She died two days after giving birth.” “Did the baby live?” I asked.   Yes. The baby lived.  I remember the mother, bright eyed, smiling, eager to learn, and very young, in her mid teens.  I thought of her and was grieved.  One has to wonder, how does one measure that loss, and could it have been prevented?

Before we came to live in Malawi we learned of all the things that push a young girl into early marriage and the spiral into deep poverty for her and her children. We also learned that many of these young girls die in childbirth. I will tell you a typical scenario which mades it nearly impossible for the young woman in Kahinga to get an education. From an early age, she had to help with the household chores like fetching firewood and water for her family which caused her to lag behind in primary school. She never got an opportunity to go to school beyond primary grades because the family could not afford the school fees.  If there was money to send only one child to school, it was for her brother.  Disillusioned and discouraged, she dropped out of school.

Then in her early teen years, her parents were approached and a marriage arranged. The time for making choices about her future was over for her. The “bride price,” which is a gift of food or money from the groom to the bride’s family, looked very attractive to the poor girl’s family.  So she was married and became pregnant before her body was fully formed. This led to complications during childbirth, which resulted in her death.

I am certain that we do not know all of the answers to encouraging girls to stay in school and  marry later, but I wonder if a few of the interventions we offer could have saved this young girl’s life.  It is a tragic loss for this girl and her community, but may God help us to be instrumental in saving other girls just like her.

Having a clean source of water in this community will help the girls stay in school. We repaired this well on Christmas Day.  We will soon offer the Changu, Changu Moto clean burning, fuel-efficient cook stoves, which will ease the burden for fetching firewood. This will also help girls stay in school.

Pray for our success as we seek out opportunities to go into nearby schools and teach young girls their worth to God. I want to tell them that the God who made them loves them and has a good plan for their lives, that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and their bodies are to be cared for and respected.  I want to encourage them to work hard, make good grades, and stay in school.  (For girls in the top of the class, there are scholarships to secondary school.)

 I want to give each adolescent girl a Dignity Kit that will enable her to attend classes during her menstrual cycle.  Why does this matter? Statistically, when a girl remains in school two years longer, she will marry four years later, have fewer children, healthier children, and those children will be better provided for.  It changes everything for the next generation.

And the fragile newborn?  What will be her future?