Once everything had been laid out, Joshua cleared his throat and turned in our direction. “So, to our new volunteers, Jenni-fa, A-men-da, and Howly, we welcome you to Common Ground and to Pathfinder Academy. After the meal, the fourteen girls who are boarders here will arrive to provide you with entertainment. They have won many district awards for their performances in the areas of singing, dance, for poems, and also for scholastics,” he said, his shoulders set back with obvious pride. “So I hope that you will enjoy it.”
Shortly after we finished eating, I heard light footsteps and giggles from outside. The calico fabric curtain covering the doorway was pushed open slowly, allowing excitable whispers and “Shhs” to float across the threshold. Peeking shyly at us, fourteen little women filed in two at a time and formed a circle around the room. Suddenly the boarders erupted into song, clapping and swaying their hips in a choreographed rhythm. Most of the lyrics were in Swahili until they pointed to Irene, who shouted her own name. After that, every tenth word or so was “Irene,” like the Kenyan version of the “name game” (“Irene, Bean, Mo Mean, Banana Fanna, Fo Fean”).
Soon we were all twisting our hips, shaking our booties, and repeating the lines as best we could. I waited for my cue and then yelled “Jennifer!” at the top of my lungs. That made the girls giggle, and one called out, “Ooh, like Jenni-fa Lopez!” Once they shouted my name another nine times, the group moved on to Amanda and Holly.
The festivities continued for another half hour before Joshua released his charges back to their dorm to get ready for bed. The girls approached us one by one to shake our hands before dashing out the door. After only a few hours at Pathfinder, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to love getting to know them.
“That was amazing. Thank you, Joshua,” Holly said. “The boarders were so brave to sing in front of us. Will we get to spend time with them tomorrow?”
“Yes, that is certain. After their classes end around three o’clock in the afta-noon,” he replied. “But now we need to determine where each of you will sleep for the evening. There is one space with Irene in the volunteer hut, then there’s another room here in the house for two more.”
Since it’d been my idea to come here, I figured it was only fair to let Amanda and Holly stay together, so I offered to bunk with Irene. Entering the cement hut, I was surprised to discover that it had working overhead lights and a linoleum-tiled floor. There were two windows, a small table, and a couple folding chairs. In the center of the room sat two twin beds with oversized mosquito nets that hung from the ceiling and floated above the mattresses. A few creepy-crawlies were scaling the walls, but hopefully they’d stay put. All in all, it was pretty much like camping—only with a stray cow or two moseying by outside.
“So, that blanket should be enough but there are extras on that shelf if you need them,” Irene said, explaining that the weather in this part of Kenya was a lot cooler than she’d expected. Selecting a book from a huge pile, she settled under her own woolly throw.
Although a thin layer of dust still clung to my face and bare arms from the open-window bus ride, I was too worn out to care. In less than a minute, I’d swapped my dirty clothes for slightly cleaner pajamas and cocooned myself in my silk sleep sack.
“I can’t believe it’s only eight thirty p.m. It feels so much later,” I said with a yawn.
“I know. I rarely go to bed after ten p.m. here,” Irene said. “Especially since Elijah, that’s one of Joshua’s workers, wakes us up at six a.m. for our showers. So do you think you’ll want to go first tomorrow?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know. I kinda assumed showers weren’t an option,” I remarked.
“Well, it’s more of a sponge bath, but it’s really a very effective system. One of the cooks puts out two buckets of water, one boiling and one tepid. Plus a third that’s empty, so you can mix your own hot-to-cold ratio to take into the stall. You probably didn’t notice it in the dark, but it’s the one to the left of the toilet,” she added.
As we’d discovered upon arrival, the “toilet” she was referring to was actually a shed with a crude hole cut into the ground—and quite the social venue for families of flies and gnats. After hours of riding with no potty breaks, our bladders had been bursting, and the girls and I were squirming around like kindergartners, desperate to go almost anywhere—even in a scary outhouse that added a whole new level of negative stars to our rating system. I shuddered at the thought of trying to do any, er, extended business in there, but I figured we’d cross that daunting bridge when we came to it.
“Gotcha, okay. Well, why don’t you go first, that way if I screw up the bucket system, your shower won’t be ruined,” I said, still a bit unclear how it all worked (and admittedly not a fan of early mornings).
“Sure thing. But I’m confident a savvy New Yorker like you can figure it out,” she joked, setting her book down and flipping onto her side to face me. “It must be so exciting to live there. Do you love it?”
Pulling up the extra blanket I’d grabbed from the shelf, I told her about working in television, the late nights and crazy parties, Sunday brunches on the Upper West Side, and other silly details of a typical week in the city. In turn, she enlightened me about her experiences as a Yalie, the coed naked parties at secret, off-campus locations, her passion for environmental studies, and the gorgeous new guy she was dating and currently missing like crazy.
“So do you have a boyfriend?” she asked, propping her head on her hand.
AAaa…BOoooYyy…FRIEeeeNnnDdd. The letters wafted across the room in ultraslow motion, smothering my face like the psychedelic caterpillar’s smoke rings in Alice in Wonderland. A boyfriend. I’d desperately been trying to avoid thinking about that word—and Brian—since we’d gotten onto the plane, but now that Irene had said it, even my “curiouser and curiouser” new Kenyan reality couldn’t stop me from reliving the heartbreaking one I’d just left in New York.
I could hardly believe that less than a week earlier, I’d been sitting on the floor of Brian’s studio, sobbing hysterically into a plate of chicken pad Thai, struggling to face the inevitable demise of our relationship. Though a breakup had clearly been on the horizon since I first announced my plans to travel, somehow the months had slipped carelessly through our fingers like a worn-down sliver of soap.
I’m sure most people thought we were nuts for dragging things out as long as we had. But in my mind the reason was simple: Brian and I just weren’t a cold-turkey kind of couple. We needed the emotional equivalent of, say, the patch or Nicorette gum. We had apartments only an M86 bus ride apart, and Central Park never proved a powerful enough barrier to keep us apart for any significant length of time. Even after the worst fights, we easily succumbed to temptation, sprinting back to the source for just one last fix, “we swear.”
Maybe it had been unfair of me to run away. But the only way I could think of to finally end this relationship was to literally put oceans and continents between us. My justification: If we were meant to be together, we’d find a way back to each other. If not, then at least Brian could have custody of New York for a while and we’d both have our space to grieve.
The logical side of my brain could accept that rationale until all the easy distractions—the happy hours, Yankees games, dinners out, lazy hours in bed—came to an end. It was my last night in town, and that far-off future moment we’d been dreading and avoiding for so long was staring us down. It was finally time to face reality.
I kept my eyes glued to the greasy takeout containers while Brian’s ultimatum hung in the air like an ominous rain cloud. “If you can’t promise me you’ll come home after Kenya or at least after India, then we’re over,” he said quietly. While I was tucked safely away with Brian in “our” apartment, my fingers wrapped tightly around his, the round-the-world trip temporarily melted away. For one brief moment, I thought, Just stay. Stay here cuddled up with the man you love and never leave.
The old me would have broken the tension with
a witty one-liner like “C’mon, sweetie, I’ll throw in half a spring roll and raise you a dumpling if you fold.” He’d pretend to be mad for a second but would quickly start laughing. Then we’d both snuggle together on the couch and forget the silly argument had ever happened. But I couldn’t joke my way out of this.
It took every ounce of strength I had to say the words that needed to be said. “I’m so sorry, Brian. I just can’t quit the trip. I need to see it through to the end.” And then that was it. We were really over. I was going to lose him. Not for a few days, not for a few months, but probably forever. By the next day, I’d be on another plane with Holly and Amanda, preparing to face the world again. Only this time there wouldn’t be a boyfriend waiting for me when I got home.
Although I’d shed plenty of tears that day in New York—hysterically sobbing my way down Second Avenue the entire morning before departure—somehow my grief just didn’t feel appropriate here in Kenya. One of the main reasons I’d wanted to volunteer in the first place was to transfer some of the focus off myself and channel that energy toward someone else in need. If there was one time that my own struggles could—and should—take a backseat, it was now.
So, very simply, I told Irene that I’d dated the same guy for the past few years but it just hadn’t worked out. I could tell that she sensed there was more to the story, but since we were still getting to know each other, she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she gave me a friendly half smile, maybe to let me know that she understood. Grateful, I smiled back at her, then rolled over and finally succumbed to exhaustion.
While unexpected early-morning construction wasn’t a factor at Common Ground, evil roosters swooped in to continue our wake-up curse, piercing the air with their persistent squawks at 5 a.m. I buried my head under my pillow, snatching morsels of sleep until it was my turn to take a bucket bath. Somehow I bumbled through the three-bucket process and managed to scrub a surprising amount of dirt off my body. By the time I emerged from the shower shed to face the rising sun, all the volunteers, including Amanda and Holly, were already seated in the living room.
As we dined on another surprisingly huge meal of omelets, fresh mangoes, bread with jam and peanut butter, and popcorn, of all things, our conversation quickly turned to our volunteer applications. We’d each filled out a detailed questionnaire about which areas we were most interested in—with child care and youth theater topping my list—and were eager to see how everything worked.
After breakfast Joshua took us on a brief walking tour to help us get acquainted with the grounds, which included the Pathfinder Academy school and several fields used to grow the food that we were eating at each meal. Reaching the main entrance at the far side of the farm, we were almost swept away by a flood of children that poured through the gates.
Dressed in faded navy and lavender uniforms, some two sizes too big for them, the knee-high super troopers marched proudly toward their classrooms, shouting, “Good morning, Headmaster,” when they spotted Joshua. The tiniest of the group, a boy no older than four or five, ran over to get a closer look at us. To my surprise, he dropped his small bag and reached up for a hug. I couldn’t resist. I got down on one knee and hugged him back.
“Joshua, do you think that we’ll be able to work with some of the students, like maybe teach classes or do after-school programs?” Amanda asked. “How can we help while we’re here?”
The students already had full-time instructors, Joshua explained, but several of the boarders still needed sponsors who could assist with the cost of their school tuition, uniforms, and meals. He wondered if maybe we knew some people back in the States who could help. “It does not matter how much—any amount great or small would be very useful,” he added.
“Well, we’d be happy to ask our friends and family for financial support and raise awareness for your program,” Holly said.
“I have acquired many more boarders this past year, so that is much appreciated,” said Joshua.
“We’d love to learn more about them. Do you think we could sit down and talk with the girls later today?” I asked.
Joshua agreed, then gave us a bit of background to explain why and how they’d ended up at Pathfinder in the first place. He said most of the girls boarded here because they lived a great walking distance away and had been attacked on their way to or from school. In most cases, it was a crime of opportunity, an attempted rape by drunken idlers on the side of the road. Some girls had managed to escape, while others were not as fortunate. “It happens a lot of the time,” Joshua said. “But sadly, there is nothing that can be done.”
Sorrow and disgust churned in my throat, dropping like a lead weight into the pit of my stomach. What did he mean, nothing can be done? We could teach these girls to fight back. Get them some sort of alarm key chain to blow the eardrums out of those bastards. Or we could organize a self-defense program!
From the incensed and horrified looks on Amanda and Holly’s faces, I knew all three of us were on the same page, if not thinking the exact same thing. I was just about to share my sentiments when Joshua added, “Yes, it is very sad for these girls, but that is the way it is here in Kenya.” He explained that the government didn’t do much to stop rape—and most of the time, neither did local citizens. The most effective thing he could do, he said, was to keep the students out of harm’s way so that this didn’t happen to them again.
“It is very good for the girls to have volunteers like you here as role models. To show them what can be accomplished if they stay in school and study hard,” he said, leading us back to the main house. It sounded as if this wasn’t the first time he’d explained the issue to female volunteers.
Raised to believe that a woman had a right to protect her body at any and all costs, we instinctively wanted to push the envelope and advocate a radical new way of thinking to keep the boarders from harm in the future. But one of the main reasons that the Village Volunteers organization was so effective at its mission was that it developed programs with local sensibilities in mind rather than trying to force-fit Western ideals. So, for the time being, we bit our tongues. Our best course of action, it seemed, was to observe, learn, and simply be available to Joshua and the boarders.
Since Holly and Amanda had been assigned a tiny room in the big house until the Bastyr students left in a few days, they spent their after-meal hours hanging out with Irene and me in our hut. Sprawled out diagonally across the two beds, the four of us fell into our own little worlds—Irene and I pored over books, Holly caught up on journal entries, and Amanda uploaded our latest crop of photos onto the computer. As groups of boarders passed by our open door, they smiled and waved but continued on their way. As the evening progressed, the more outgoing girls popped in to say hello or ask what we were doing. Irene reintroduced us to each girl as they entered. There were Naomi, Nancy, Esther, Calvin, and Joshua’s eldest, Sandra, a thirteen-year-old girl, who made the others feel less self-conscious about coming inside.
The moment they spotted the computer, any shyness they harbored instantly dissolved. “What is it that you ah doing, Miss, umm…?”
“Amanda,” Irene offered.
“Miss A-men-da,” Naomi repeated. “Will you please instruct us on how to use this?”
“Of course, come over here and I’ll show you some pictures.”
“Pic-chores?” Nancy asked. “Ahh, yes, photo-graphs. I see,” she said, smiling and moving closer to see the screen.
Although Joshua had mentioned that almost all of the boarders could speak Swahili and English, I was amazed at how proficient they were at both languages. Not to mention how dedicated they were to doing their schoolwork and learning new things. They told us all about the subjects they were studying and then peppered us with questions about the books and electronics that filled our room.
“Have you girls ever seen a movie?” I asked, remembering our bootleg library of DVDs from Peru.
“Yes. Yes, we have. A volunteer that stayed here before you. He had a movie wi
th him,” Naomi explained. “I do not rememba what he called it, but it was very good.”
I scanned our selection for the few PG-rated titles and popped in Mona Lisa Smile. Our audience was over the moon. Six boarders piled onto the beds that we’d pushed together and were mesmerized by the scenes of girls only slightly older than them running around on a school campus covered in snow.
As we sat and watched, the girls chatted animatedly, and before we knew it, a slumber party of sorts had ensued. Sandra drifted to sleep, Calvin and Holly distributed lollipops, and Naomi played with Amanda’s hair, which prompted Esther and Nancy to follow suit on mine. They grabbed a handful of strands and began twisting them into braids.
“Your hair is very funny, Miss Jenni-fa. It does not stay in the place that we put it,” Nancy said, giggling. “Maybe you have a rubba-band we could use?”
“Yes. I know. It is funny,” I replied with a sleepy laugh, my eyes half closed from the relaxing head massage. “Holly, will you grab a few ponytail holders from my stash over there, please?”
“No, you silly mzungu. Get them yourself,” she said, but as always, helped me out.
“Silly mzungu,” Nancy repeated. “That is very funny too, Miss Holly.”
“You know, when I first got here and heard the word mzungu, I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or not,” Irene interjected, looking up from the storybook she was reading to Shana, Joshua’s two-year-old, who’d toddled in after the boarders.
“But it’s not meant in a derogatory way at all,” she continued. “In fact, I learned that it originally meant ‘one who travels around,’ referring to the European traders who came in the 1800s. Mzungu just became synonymous with ‘white person’ because of the color of their skin.”
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