Life and death

Returned from Mumbo yesterday with the immediate family - Bush, Ben and Eddie. We went to do a little hosting duty, but also to have some family time and it was a joy and delight. Bush and Ben did many "baventures" into the forest, and Eddie and I frootled about on the beach. The landscape did an about-turn in a mere week: it went from being dry and dusty and crackling, with a heat haze of dust hanging over everything, to a lime green lush canopy with incredible fire lilies among the rocks and roots, clear crisp air and gorgeous wild cloud formations in the sky. We can see all the way to the other side of the lake, to the green mountains there. All this from just four great thunder storms. I'll attach a pic so you can see I am not just indulging my descriptive flights of fancy (which, when I cast an eye over them, are hardly the stuff of great literature, but heartfelt, in their defense.)
Before we left there was a horrible sad day here when Lyoness's sister's third child died (the previous two also died) of some nameless disease, which the hospital always just calls malaria, but may be anything. For all of her children to have perished, it must be some genetic disease. The poor woman was distraught and the truck was sent to fetch her, and the elder women of the family who had sat vigil at the hospital with her, from Monkey Bay. The family got the call at about 4am and we were woken by a terrible wailing and keening. I was so scared it was one of the children we know so well from here, and as it was, he was one of Javi's little friends who spent some holidays here and they would speak on the phone sometimes. His name was Samuel - known as Samwelly.
Funerals take the form of silent gatherings of everyone who knows the family around the family house. This was just behind us. Most of our staff went and the street was packed with quiet groups of people sitting on all the verandahs and under the big baobab waiting for the boy's body to arrive back in a box, along with his grieving parents and family members. There was a palpable feeling of sadness all day. When the truck arrived, everyone began singing and wailing. Poor Javi was utterly distraught at seeing Samwelly in a box but insisted and screamed until she was allowed to. Then the women went off to wash and ready him to be buried and people sat and then preachers preached until the burial service. The whole rite of passage took three days.
The immediate family stayed with the bereft for the whole time. I think it must be very comforting to have all those people giving silent support (they also give money to help with burial costs).
One is much closer to death here.
But on a happier note, Janie comes to work with her mother Mabel every day now after I insisted (we are very forward thinking in terms of looking after our female staff! And so we should be because Fegness our biscuit chef also just had a baby and Irene, our other laundry lady, has her fourth child on January. So it will abound with babies around here next year.) Janie is a complete joy - tries to chat and smile and engage even at a mere 6 weeks old.
No more news really. Times are about to get busy, but are still quite quiet. Jurie and his children and Lyoness leave on Friday, so it will be very quiet and different around here in December, although both islands are full from the 15th til we shut on Jan 12. We leave on the 12th too and get back to CT on the 13th and the boys start school the next week - am a bit apprehensive about that week! Might require depths of organisational ability I simply never have had - tend to flounder in the shallows in that area.
You know what will be so nice about getting back? Not having a mozzie net - I am heartily sick of crouching to get in and out of my bed - and putting the kids into long sleeves every evening and spraying them and me with repellent and taking our homeopathic anti-malaria pills every morning and night. It will be such a relief not to have that niggling anxiety all the time.