latter days

I am so touched right now I could cry, silenced by what just transpired.

As background, you should know that I really love a Zimbabwean singer named Oliver Mtukudzi, "Tuku" as he is called, a wildly popular, middle-aged African man who sings from his soul, in jumpy southern African style, all about the hard truths of life, the realness of what we're living. Or rather, what Africans live. I love him. I could listen to his songs for hours, and I do, my iTunes set on repeat. He's like a comfortable friend, good, easy to have around.

I knew a girl once, a Canadian anthropology doctoral student who studied at Boston University a few years ago, and while she was there, Oliver came to town on tour. She managed to get tickets, and described to me how it seemed like every African living within 300 miles had turned out for the concert, dressed to the nines. They were all seated nicely in a large, dark auditorium, but within the first 30 seconds of his opening song, every single person had leapt out of their chairs and spent the rest of the night in the aisles dancing. I love that story.

Patrick and I once planned to drive 9 hours out to D.C. to see Tuku live; but we broke up before that became reality. I still feel disappointed.

Anyway, just now I was sitting here in my office in The House Where All Our Dreams Come True, working hard on a proposal for a new HIV project. It was all budget and numbers - how many chickens do you think 140 Mozambicans would eat for lunch? - and rationale and blah blah blah, my mind gets tired thinking about it again. To keep myself from sinking into oblivion, I put on Oliver who, because he usually sings in Shona, I can enjoy without focusing in too much on the words. Just sort of mindlessly bounce around in my chair to the rhythm instead.

Sara was in the room working too. Our desks are opposite each other, so we sit back-to-back, each facing a wall. We were not distracting each other today; both of us were busy scribbling away at our work.

Someone else was also in the room, though sitting so quietly she'd almost become part of the decorations. Tia Liliana (aunt Liliana) is one of Sara's friends from church. She is young, maybe 40, very beautiful, a widow, and mother to seven children, most now out of the house. Her youngest, Laura, is only age 6 and stayed with us for a week last September, a quiet child it's so easy to keep on hugging. A few days ago, the afternoon before she came to stay with us, Liliana sent Laura away to live with her older, married sister in the campo, a distant rural area. She made that decision because they had no food at home, hadn't for some time, and also because Liliana is dying, we think of leukemia.

Laura was very brave about it, as we waited in their empty box of a house, leaning against Sara's knee shy and silent; but the reality is that she will likely never see her mother again.

Sara explained to me that for the past couple of years, Tia Liliana just kept getting ill. She went to Maputo a few times, but the doctors there said she must go to South Africa for treatment, we're guessing for radiation. They may as well have said she needed to fly to Jupiter for all the difference it made in her ability to doit. So she always came back home to Chimoio and inevitably seemed to gain some strength after a while.

But this time is different. This time, it is hard to see how she will come out of it.

She was in the hospital about a month ago, and when we visited her there, the doctor said she was extremely anemic and needed as much iron as possible. She was skin and bones by the time they discharged her. A week later, visiting her this time at home, she looked worse. Then a week later she sent her youngest daughter away, sweet Laura, whom Sara loved.

Liliana has been with us now for 4 days. Mostly all she does is sleep. She has no appetite, has eaten almost nothing, but each day we try to make her take something: raisins, clear soup broth, some bread and cheese. Sara keeps bending over backwards to get health into her. But it is not working. She is sinking low.

Today she wanted to sit up for a while, so we put her with us in the office. She reclined in a narrow wooden and cloth chair we have, just being, while Sara and I worked quietly at our desks. It was the three of us and the sound of the fan. Oh - and there was Tuku too. He floated above us, strumming guitar, singing softly in a language I do not know, cannot understand.

But Liliana did. I hadn't even thought about it.

After many minutes of long silence, suddenly she spoke up, her voice barely above a whisper for lack of strength.

"This singer," she choked out, almost in tears. "He's singing about courage."

We both looked over at her. She looked us straight in the eye. Softly, she continued:

"He is singing about a woman whose husband has died. Her children have died. Her home is falling apart and she herself is very sick. There is no food.

"She is sitting out in her field, alone in her grief. Then the rains begin falling... and they are falling, falling, all over her, they are bringing down her roof but she is too weak to stop it. She is without everything - but what he is saying is, 'Courage! You must take courage!' That is what he is saying."

She paused, looking at us.

"This song is beating in my heart."

Then she drew up her hand, so soft, too thin, too bony, and rested it on top of her heart. Her chest was imperceptibly heaving. She was quiet. Her eyes were full.

We both looked down at her, Sara and I, and said nothing.

But Tuku, meanwhile, he just kept on singing softly. Saying all there is, really, to be said.

Courage.

Laura