My Friend Betty

A few weeks ago, some of the women on
our team went to visit the women in prison. It all started when we
were praying for patients, in the Tuberculosis ward, in the hospital.
Some of the patients in the ward were from the prison across the
street. This is when I met Betty, she is a guard from the women’s
prison. We told her we were there to pray for the patients, and she
invited us to come to the prison and bring some encouragement to the
women.

Betty and I became instant friends.
After our visit to the prison, she asked when I would see her again.
So we made plans for me to go to her house and have lunch. Chris went
with me to her hut in the prison barracks. All the employees live
right on the compound. I got to meet her sweet little daughter Rita,
and I got to cook some African food. In Betty’s culture, the men come
first, so Chris was not allowed to lift a finger. He couldn’t even
carry his own chair, so yours truly had to do it for him. I also had
to serve him his food. He says it was really hard for him, to sit
back and do nothing but be served. However, I think he really enjoyed
it.

It is customary, in this culture, that
if someone invites a male to their house, the male has to eat the
gizzard from the chicken they slaughtered especially for us. So Chris
got to enjoy that part of the food. I was so glad I didn’t have to
eat it. If he didn’t eat the whole thing, then he wasn’t accepting
their invitation.

Betty and I cooked a meal of chicken,
Irish potato, rice, and beans. We also had some yummy baby bananas
and sim sim paste(tastes like homemade peanut butter). We talked and
laughed for about 3 hours, then Chris and I left.

I am sad to leave Betty, I really enjoy
her company a lot. She is divorced, a single mother of 3 children (2
are away in boarding school), and the little money she makes in the
prisons, all goes to her children. Unfortunately, their father has
dead-beat dad syndrome, so he’s not in the picture.