Two Years of Wonder

by Ted Neill

  This book itself is an effort to bear witness to the suffering, but also resilience, of these children and young adults. And, as they see it, this is an attempt to illuminate a corner of the world often misunderstood and caricatured. As I reached out to them over the years to seek their permission to use their stories as inspiration for this project, they would often tell me how necessary such a book was. They would reiterate that we westerners, ensconced with a paperback or e-reader in our coffee shops, airport lounges, or living room reading chairs, those of us living in “developed” countries, we were the ones in need of help. We needed to remove our blinders and come to see a truth of the world too often hidden from us. We were the ones who needed to be educated, as we were far too ignorant, and that is a loss to us all.

  Chapter 1

  What would Sebastian Junger Do?

  September 25, 2012, I picked up a knife to kill myself.

  I have to rewind to show how I got here.

  While in undergrad at Georgetown University, I had to withdraw from Intensive Italian. Even with four years of high school Latin it was, well, too intensive for me. In order to still graduate on time I had the option of making up the credits by doing community service work that was somehow connected to one of my classes—service work for school credit was not unheard of at a Jesuit University. I was taking an English course in literature related to the HIV crisis. We read works like Borrowed Time and The Way We Write Now. Long story short, I ended up volunteering at a downtown shelter for children with HIV.

  Vulnerable, sick, abandoned children quickly became a passion for me. I volunteered at the shelter for six years. Like many English majors, I had dreams of becoming a journalist. I thought I had found my cause. I wrote about the children and I expanded my range to other marginalized groups at risk for HIV such as IV drug users and sex workers. I volunteered with outreach volunteers who did needle exchange, passed out condoms, and provided HIV testing to these groups late at night. I befriended addicts sex workers, and the social workers and even police who tried, in their own ways, to help them. For a sensitive, idealistic young man who had been the target of the word “fag,” punched, kicked, and generally intimidated and marginalized by others in the jungle that is high school, it felt as if I had found my niche.

  With years to reflect and look back, I can also see the extent to which my upbringing, my generation, even my race and socioeconomic status all played into who I was and who (I thought) I wanted to become. I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, a county of suburbs that surrounded Washington D.C. Fairfax was an enclave of highly educated, driven, middle and upper middleclass people, who during my childhood in the eighties and nineties, were predominantly white. I felt pressure for performance and upward mobility at a young age and with so many resources and advantages, kids like me were set up for success. The channels of high schools, colleges, and universities further separated us out according to ability, advantages, and expectations. We all strived to be the best, of course.

  I was lucky enough to be accepted into Georgetown, which, although not an Ivy League school, was considered the Catholic or Jesuit Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Once there, it was hard to escape the sense that I was with a rarified elite. The notion was cultivated. The selection process alone guaranteed that I was surrounded by dozens upon dozens of valedictorians, who were now just in the middle of the pack, so to speak. We were reminded of our talents often with stats such as Georgetown’s ninety-nine percent rejection rate. This was disguised as school spirit. I can’t speak for others, but for me, it had a more insidious effect of inculcating me with a sense of grandiosity. I thinkd all of us were infected with a sort of assumption that we were great and great things were expected of us. I remember, in what I thought was a show of modesty, I hung the Bible verse from Luke 28:48, “To whom much is given, much is required,” over my dorm room door.

  This was the extra ingredient that was added to my mix of big dreams and youthful ambition: Georgetown is a Jesuit school, founded by the Society of Jesus, an order of priests who in theory had a deep commitment to social justice and more progressive causes. In practice, the Jesuits have often been known for this, but also for cozying up to society’s elite through education—not to mention participating in the cultural genocide of indigenous people throughout the new world.

  To me, a twenty-two-year-old graduate with a lingering sense of being undervalued, desperate to be relevant, and desperate to be significant as an adult, I became driven to achieve, but achieve through the heroic act of saving others. And for me, the English major with a concentration in writing was where I knew I had found my vocation, where my talents and the needs of the world would meet (another phrase scribbled into my pocket notebook of inspirational quotes I carried everywhere on campus).

  I had precedents for the mark I wanted to leave on the world through my writing. The old adage was that journalism’s work was to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” And these were the late nineties, when the celebrity print journalist was having a bit of a resurgence, giving hope to all of us English majors. The most notable example came in the form of Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and Fire, Sebastian putting himself in harrowing danger for the stories in the latter. He was the intrepid western journalist braving the world’s hellholes to spread the story of man versus danger. One read half in awe of the fighters, smugglers, and smoke jumpers, and half in suspense of whether or not Sebastian himself would make it out without a terrible, life altering injury. And as the large photo on the back cover of Fire reminded us, who wouldn’t want this beautiful square-jawed man, with angled cheekbones and blazing blue eyes, to escape unscathed (well perhaps a little scathed would be acceptable—after all, if someone could pull off a scar or even an eye patch, it would be Sebastian).

  In the 2000s we had an even better prototype for the hero-activist-journalist in the person of Greg Mortenson, who with his selfless and courageous work in Afghanistan, and the book by himself and David Oliver Relin chronicling his exploits, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations … One School at a Time, seemingly burst onto the scene in a kufi and a perahan tunban on a ray of light from the heavens, or rather, Penguin Press.

  But Greg would come later. By 2002, my stories had not yet been accepted by any journals or papers. I was paying my bills as a waiter at a white-tablecloth seafood restaurant on K street near the White House, and I realized the scope of my story was too small. So I worked my networks and contacted a Jesuit priest from Georgetown, Father Devon McLeod, who was based in Nairobi, Kenya. He had founded a hospice in 1992 for orphans with HIV. I told him I wanted to come for two years, as if I were a Peace Corps volunteer (local expats referred to such volunteers as Two Year Wonders). He said he would be stateside soon and we could meet.

  I visited him at the Jesuit residences on Georgetown campus. The male receptionist—a seminarian student—let me in with little question, just another non-descript bookish white guy in glasses assuming the privilege and non-threatening status of another. Father McLeod met me as I got off the elevator to his floor. He reminded me of Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Gandalf, if Gandalf had moved to Miami and traded in his beard for a goatee and his hat for a pair of photochromic reading glasses. Tall and imposing, he still had a gentle air about him and eyes that conveyed heartbreak at the state of the world. If there ever was a holy man who would have rescued orphans, this was him right from central casting. I was surprised that he didn’t talk much, allowing me to do most of the talking, however, I was left with no doubt that there were a great many thoughts crossing his mind. They played across his face with a bemused smile. After a discussion that was much briefer than I had anticipated, he asked me when I would be coming to Kenya.

  I remember walking out to the brick quad in front of Dahlgren Chapel after he told me I could join the work at the orphanage, Rainbow Children’s Home—visions of lions, elephants, ostriches, and other safari-themed adventures dancing through my mi
nd. But it was shadowed briefly by a tiny thought: what if this trip, this adventure, was nothing like I thought it would be? What if it was heartbreaking? What if my own well-being was put at risk?

  But it was grist for the mill, as far as I was concerned. I could be the impartial, objective writer. I could keep my attachment at bay and righteously channel my anger into the writing—to everyone’s admiration. I would craft my own eye-opening work of staggering genius.

  But I never truly pictured myself suffering. I saw myself as a modern-day George Orwell or Dorothy Day. I would bring comfort to the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. All while remaining objective. Fame awaited. Oprah’s stage beckoned.

  And if my face ended up on the back of a book cover next to Sebastian Junger, well then so be it.

  Chapter 2

  Fish and Chips

  One of Miriam’s earliest memories was of standing on her tip toes to see the rows of fish laid out at market. She had always been fascinated by fish, more so than anything else sold at market. Her father used to tell stories after dinner, often using Miriam’s and her brother’s names for the characters, and if there was ever a fish in the story, its name would inevitably be Miriam. The idea made her laugh as well as squirm, for she found the prospect horrid. Miriam was fascinated by fish, but the last thing Miriam wanted was to be turned into one, for they were smelly, ugly, and their eyes were yellow, green, or even red.

  Despite this, her fascination continued, drawing her attention to the men that brought the fish to the market each morning, making her forget that she was tired or hungry. Here was a creature that had no arms, no legs, no wings even, yet it could move, somehow, in the water. Miriam knew its tail, which was different from any tail she had ever seen on a dog, a cat, or a rat, had something to do with it. Even a fish’s color, silvery, shimmering, was different than anything she had ever seen except for perhaps a new shilling coin, which made her think for a time that coins were made from fish, until she saw the skin taken off one and she realized that it was not stiff or hard like a coin but flimsy and prone to dry and shrivel.

  One morning her father told Miriam that she would be accompanying him on an errand. Her father was lean and tall, like Miriam and like her mother. She also remembered him as gentle, with a deep but soft voice. Usually he worked at the truck depot, lifting and carrying things, but this day he said he was to go to a hotel to deliver an envelope to his cousin Maurito.

  He insisted that Miriam wear her best clothes. He did the same. Miriam understood why when she saw the hotel. Miriam knew that hotels were for eating meals. There were many along the way to the market. They all were made of the same mud, sticks, and corrugated metal, like her family’s house. Each was around the same size as their house as well—with two rooms, one for cooking and one for eating chipatis, mandazis, oogali, or skuma weeki.

  But this hotel was nothing like the hotels Miriam knew. This building was huge, like a warehouse, or a church, but even bigger. The outside was covered with glass windows and the windows were also clean, not brown and dark. And the walls—there was no writing on them or remnants of posters. The garden was full of square hedges, banana trees, and flowers Miriam had never seen before. Shiny cars—small cars, not matatus—were parked in the parking lot and wazungu walked around everywhere. On the other side of the hotel from the road was the ocean—Miriam and her family lived in Mombasa, so the ocean was always near. But she had never been to this part of the ocean where the sand was white and people played in the waves or laid down beneath palm trees in their underwear.

  Maurito met them in the back of the hotel where wafrika were moving very quickly carrying crates of milk and bananas. The kitchen must have been nearby, so perhaps people ate in this type of hotel as well. Maurito was wearing an apron so Miriam concluded he must have been a cook. Her father gave him his envelope and they talked about adult matters. Miriam knew to remain quiet and wait.

  She knew they were finished when Maurito turned, greeted her, and asked, “So, you would like to see the fishes?”

  Miriam did not know what fish he meant. She looked to her father who said, “They have many fish here. Maurito will show you.”

  Miriam followed Maurito, but she did not want get close to any smelly dead fish. She and her father were in their best clothes. Still, when adults spoke, it was best to do what they said. So Miriam continued after Maurito. He led them through a kitchen. Miriam knew it had to be a kitchen from the way the men in it were dressed, the smells of cooking food, and the flames burning on the stoves. However, it looked nothing like the kitchens she knew—this one was many times larger than her house and everything was shiny and metal. The men greeted Maurito as he walked by. Miriam could tell they were making wazungu food because she did not recognize any of the smells—except for tea and mandazis which two men sitting on crates were enjoying.

  They passed through swinging doors, down a hallway, through another set of doors, then they entered a whole other room entirely. It was giant like a church, but it was not a church, it did not have benches, although it did have chairs, but they all faced different directions. There were all sorts of people walking about. Most of the wafrika were wearing white suits, although there were a few in very fancy dark suits and wearing dark sunglasses. Then there were the wazungu wearing short pants and short shirts. Their skin was by turns red, pale white, or covered in what looked like moles. Some had white cream streaked across their shoulders or on their noses. The women wore shirts that showed their shoulders or just their brassieres. Miriam had seen wazungu before and she already knew they were rich, crazy, and disgusting.

  Maurito tapped her shoulder and directed her attention to something large and colorful in the center of the room. It was the size of a matatu and was colorful like one too. Wazungu children gazed up at it, walking around it. Maurito encouraged Miriam to approach it as well.

  She did not understand exactly what it was. Its surface seemed to waver and shimmer and inside things were moving. She looked more closely, where the wazungu children were tapping at the surface.

  Then she realized: on the inside were fish. The first thing Miriam noticed was that they did not move up and down like she had always thought—with one eye on bottom and one eye on top—but rather side to side. She let out an exclamation: “Gai!” but the wazungu boys did not know the Kikuyu word for God. They said something to her in Kizungu, but it was unintelligible to Miriam. She shook her head “no” in response. They turned their attention back to the fish. By mutual understanding, Miriam ignored them and they her.

  The fish moved their mouths like they were talking. It made Miriam laugh. She tapped the glass like the wazungu boys but it seemed to make no difference to the fish. Some of the fish looked like the ones in the market, only smaller. But others were fat and colorful, with long trailing fins and tails that hovered alongside them in the water. There were even two creatures swimming about that had four legs each and flat round bodies. From over her shoulder, her father called them “turtles.” On the bottom there were the most disgusting creatures Miriam had ever seen, they were sand-colored with eyes on stems. They also had claws and shells on their backs. There were also snot-bugs on the inside, but unlike the snot-bugs Miriam had seen before, these had shells as well. Her father called them snails, and the creatures with the claws and eyes on stems, crabs.

  There was such an array of vibrant colors that Miriam had never seen before, except in church when all the ladies were dressed up, or once on a TV in a bus station when cartoons were on. For a moment Miriam wondered if it was a giant TV that they were watching. Her father assured her it was not.

  She watched silver dots shooting up from the bottom—air bubbles. There were colorful plants waving in the water, and Miriam wondered why this water was not gray like water in gutters, or brown like streams, or even blue like the ocean. She did not know how long she stood there, but eventually her father called to her. Maurito was already gone, so were the two wazungu boys, having been replaced by tw
o girls. It was time to go. She followed her father out through the same side door they had entered.

  Something good had happened. Oliver’s mother had gotten a job in Nairobi. Oliver knew this was good because his mother came home singing. Oliver’s grandfather was also happy. He killed a goat and invited all of the neighbors as well as Oliver’s mother’s friends over for dinner.

  Oliver liked it when his mother’s friends were around—it was like having many mothers and although Oliver did not know his father, he did not miss one—he had his grandfather, Babu.

  But with his mother’s new job they moved out of Babu’s house to an apartment that was between Babu’s house and Nairobi. This made Oliver sad. They had never lived anywhere else and Oliver did not want to leave Babu’s house which was large. He loved Babu and would miss him. He would also miss the spacious fields of potatoes and cabbage that grew around the house. Most of all he would miss his favorite bush. It had long branches covered by passion fruit vines. The branches arched up and away from the trunk of the bush and touched the ground a little further out, creating a space within where Oliver played. Babu called the bush “Oliver’s house.” When Babu wanted a passion fruit from the garden, he always asked Oliver if he could take a fruit from his “house.”

  Oliver’s mother told him not to be sad about leaving Babu’s house. She promised that they would return to visit and that Oliver would grow to like their new apartment. She also promised Oliver that he would be able to go to a very good school.

  Oliver did not like the new apartment at first. There were no fields and no bushes and the hallway outside was dark and smelled strangely. But since Oliver’s mother did not return from Nairobi until late at night, Babu would ride a matatu down from his house so he could meet Oliver after school and walk him home. His new school, St. James Primary, was nicer than the old one, Busara Academy. The children had their own desks and did not have to share them with others. The paint was fresh and not peeling and the school even had computers.