The Desire

by Gary Smalley

  “I will stay here with the car,” the driver said.

  As soon as they left the car, they were surrounded by children. All of them smiling, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

  “You are like celebrities,” Henok said. “They almost never see a white man.”

  Instantly, Ray began touching them. Rubbing their heads, patting them on the shoulders. Allan began to do the same, but he didn’t want to. He had secretly hoped they would remain in the car the entire time. He felt a growing revulsion inside and a fear of catching something contagious. Lord, he prayed, help me be more like Ray.

  Suddenly, Ray bent down and picked up one of the children, a little boy, and carried him in his arms. “And how are you today, young man?” he asked. The boy giggled and smiled.

  Other children began lifting their arms toward Allan, wanting him to do the same. A part of him felt intense compassion for them, but another part raised a red flag. This isn’t safe. You’ll catch some serious disease. You don’t have immunities for this place, or these people. After these thoughts, a wave of nausea hit him. He took a deep breath, but the smell was overwhelming. Allan suppressed all this and picked up a little girl who had been staring at him the entire time. She hadn’t said a word.

  She had the biggest, brightest eyes, and she was light as a feather. She couldn’t be more than three or four years old. “You have the prettiest eyes,” Allan said. He pulled three Hershey’s Kisses out of his pocket and showed them to her. She seemed puzzled, so he opened one partway. She smelled it, then opened it the rest of the way and popped it in her mouth.

  The look on her face was priceless, and her smile melted his heart.

  6

  As Henok led them through an opening at the back of the dump, Allan buried his nose in his forearm against the stench. Ray did the same. Henok kept walking forward. As they followed, Allan was certain he’d lose his breakfast any moment, but somehow it stayed down.

  Henok turned and noticed the difficulty they were having. “I’m sorry. I forget how it is for those who never come here. We can turn back.”

  Allan was happy to hear that, but Ray said, “No, keep going. We need to see this.”

  Allan had seen—and smelled—enough.

  “Are you sure?” Henok said.

  “Yes,” Ray said. He set the little boy down. “I can’t carry you anymore. I’m afraid I’ll drop you.” They were standing before a massive heap of garbage about thirty feet high, and it was clear Henok intended them to climb it.

  Allan released the little girl. The boy took her hand and led her away, but he did not leave the dump as Allan expected. Instead, he led her around the base of the hill several yards away, then they both began to climb.

  “What’s he doing?” Ray asked.

  “Come back,” Allan said. “Don’t go up there.” The children looked at them for a moment but continued to climb. “Where are they going?”

  “To get food,” Henok said matter-of-factly. “It’s what they do every day.”

  “Children that young?” Ray asked.

  Henok didn’t answer. He took a few steps up the base of the hill, then stopped. “We must be very careful as we climb. It is extremely dangerous. Do your best to follow my handholds and footsteps.”

  “It doesn’t look that steep to me,” Ray said. “If the children can do it . . .”

  “That’s not the danger,” Henok said. “There are many needles buried in the trash. If you fall, and one pierces your skin, you could catch AIDS or TB or many other bad things. My eyes are trained to spot them. So do as I do and go only where I go. Once we’re over this hill, you should be all right.”

  The men climbed single file. Allan had a thought and almost said it. How about if he stayed at the bottom of the hill until they got back? But he kept following Ray. As they neared the top, he kept hearing beeping sounds. Lots of them. When they reached the crest, he saw the source. Bulldozers spread throughout the dump were moving massive piles of trash. And garbage trucks of every size were dumping more piles here and there.

  They looked across acres and acres of dark gray garbage, as far as the eye could see. The scene on the ground offered little contrast to the overcast sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people wandered through the rubble. Children, mothers with babies tied to their backs, the elderly, teens, and lepers, all holding big bags, poked and sifted through the garbage. Crowds were especially thick around the bulldozers and garbage trucks. Mingling among the throng were dogs and goats and so many birds.

  All Ray and Allan could do was stand and stare. Both had lowered their arms and were no longer covering their noses. The smell was just as nauseating, but it seemed inappropriate to be so obvious, an insult to these poor souls who had to live and forage for their food here every day.

  Henok motioned for them to follow. They carefully walked down the hill toward the same group of people the little boy and girl had joined, all of them digging through a fresh pile of trash left behind by a small blue garbage truck. Allan couldn’t take his eyes off the little girl. She had squatted down and was imitating everything the boy did.

  “Is that her brother?”

  “No,” Henok said. “She has no brothers or sisters. But he looks after her when she is near.”

  Allan noticed something then. There were no fights. No pushing or shoving. No one grabbed anything out of anyone else’s hands. He looked around. It wasn’t just with this group. He didn’t see anyone acting aggressively anywhere else, either. Back in America, people regularly blamed big-city violence and crime on poverty. But look at the poverty here. It was so much more severe. A different league. Yet everyone seemed almost polite, even the children.

  Ray said to Henok, “You seem to know that little girl’s story.”

  Henok nodded his head. “I knew her mom. She grew up here in Korah. We were . . . friends. One day she was working all by herself, and a well-dressed man came to the dump and promised her work not far away. He said he’d pay good money. I wanted to stop her. I yelled for her, but she was too far away. The man took her to his house and raped her, then he brought her back and tossed her to the ground.”

  “That’s terrible,” Allan said.

  “Yes.” Henok sighed. “She got pregnant from that. After she gave birth, she got sick with TB. A few months later, she died, leaving her little daughter here by herself.”

  “She’s an orphan?” Allan asked. “No one looks after her?”

  “Yes,” Henok replied, “she is an orphan, but she has a grandmother. She lives in another part of the village. I knew where, so before I escaped this place, I brought the little girl to her. But her grandmother isn’t capable of feeding her, so she comes here to get her food every day like everyone else.”

  Allan walked over to the girl. Henok and Ray followed. She saw him and looked up. He smiled, and she returned the smile. That was when he noticed she had two big dimples. Picking her up again, he said, “I wonder what your name is.”

  “Ayana,” Henok said. “Her name is Ayana. It means ‘beautiful blossom.’”

  “That is a lovely name, Ayana,” Allan said, gently touching the tip of her nose with his index finger. Instantly she smiled again. She spoke her first word, but Allan didn’t understand it.

  “She said hello in Amharic. That’s the language she speaks, the language most of the people here speak.”

  “Can you say it again?”

  Henok repeated it. Allan tried to say the word, but judging by both Ayana’s and the little boy’s reaction, he muffed it badly. But it caused them both to laugh, so it was worth it.

  Henok said something else that made Ayana laugh then began a brief conversation with her. “Ayana is very curious about white people. She mentioned her grandmother. I think she wants you to meet her.”

  “Yes,” Ray said. “We’d love to. Can she take us there?”

  Henok suggested Allan allow him to carry Ayana as they walked to her grandmother’s, so they could get there faster. Henok already kne
w the way. It wasn’t far, maybe a ten-minute walk. They came to a small hut, like so many others, made of mud and straw and not much else. But she did have a metal roof over her head. Some of the others nearby didn’t even have that.

  They stepped inside a single room with a dirt floor, approximately eight-by-ten. The grandmother seemed startled to have company. Perhaps, Allan thought, even more so to see white men. She slowly got up and greeted the men with a typical Ethiopian kiss: once on the right cheek, then the left cheek, and one more kiss on the right. She said something to Henok in Amharic.

  “She wants to make us coffee to honor us for visiting her home. It will be safe, the water is boiled.”

  The old woman pointed for the men to have a seat on her bed. There were no chairs in the room. She began roasting some coffee beans over an open fire. Once the beans were roasted and put into a bowl, she put a pot of water on the fire. While the water boiled, she ground the coffee beans by hand, smashing a stick into a bowl. After she finished, she served the coffee to the men. Over the next several minutes, she and Henok talked. He occasionally paused to fill them in. They learned she was born in Korah, the daughter of lepers.

  “Both her parents were lepers?” Ray asked.

  Henok nodded. She told them that life had been very hard. She never knew from one day to the next if there would be enough food. Even today. People from the city treated you badly if you lived here, she said, as though you were no better than the garbage in the dump. Most of her family had already died. All she had left was Ayana, and she was terribly afraid of what would happen to Ayana after she died.

  When they had finished their coffee, Henok looked at the time. “We had better get going.”

  “Would you ask her if we can take pictures?” Ray said. “Of her and Ayana.”

  Allan bent down and playfully swooped Ayana off her feet. “There are those precious dimples,” he said.

  Henok asked her about the pictures, and she said that would be fine. It was too dark inside, so they stepped outside to take them. For most of the shots, Allan held Ayana. When they were done, he almost didn’t want to let her go. Ray asked if they could pray for the grandmother and the little girl, and she happily said yes.

  After the prayer, they hugged and said good-bye. As they walked toward the car, Allan looked back at them standing there next to their little mud hut. This was all they had. All they would ever have. This was their present and their future. It felt so wrong.

  Ayana looked right at him. She lifted her little hand and waved.

  7

  Allan had finally fallen asleep. The images of Korah kept haunting him whenever he closed his eyes. He kept seeing that last moment, when Ayana’s tiny hand waved good-bye as he walked away. He’d accidentally overslept. When he awoke, he quickly pulled himself together and hurried to the breakfast café to meet the rest of the team. The men had maneuvered the tables in a semicircle around Ray, who was talking as they ate.

  “Allan,” Ray said, “I was just about to send someone after you.”

  “Sorry, guys. Had a hard time getting to sleep last night.”

  “Quite a few of us did,” Ed said. “That was rough.” He was referring to how they’d spent yesterday afternoon. After Ray and Allan had made it back to Addis Ababa to meet with the team for lunch, they had all agreed to change plans and spend the rest of the day in Korah.

  Allan had almost declined. He could’ve easily cited an upset stomach or even a headache, because both were true. But he went. This time, he didn’t see Ayana or the little boy they had met that morning. But he’d continued to look for her throughout the afternoon.

  “Go grab some breakfast and join us,” Ray said. “I’ll hold off what I was going to say till you get back.”

  Allan walked past the small buffet and threw some breakfast things on his plate, unsure if he’d eat them. He took the empty seat the guys had left for him next to Ray.

  “We didn’t get too far,” Ray said. “Everybody just talked about how much the dump affected them.”

  “It’s affecting me now,” Allan said. “I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt just looking at this plate of eggs. This would be a king’s feast to everyone out there. And seeing those kids . . .”

  “Believe me, Allan. We all feel the same way.” Ray sipped his coffee. “I’m thinking the trip to Korah yesterday was the reason we came here.”

  “But what can we do?” Ed said. “There are thousands of people there, and it’s been like that for so many years.”

  “I asked Henok how many people lived there,” one of the other men said. “I don’t know if this is accurate, but he said a hundred thousand.”

  “Whatever the exact number, it’s a massive amount,” Allan said. “The worst part is how many of them are kids.” The group paused. Allan forced down a few bites.

  “I know the numbers are huge,” Ray said. “It’s hard not to be overwhelmed. Standing at the top of that hill of garbage, looking down on it all. How can you not be? But I kept thinking, I’ve got to do something. I can’t ‘unsee’ everything I’ve seen. There’s got to be something we can do for those kids. Even if we could only help a few of them, it would be something.”

  Ray stopped a moment. Allan figured it was to let what he’d said sink in. It worked, at least for him. The problems at Korah were too massive if you looked at the whole thing all at once. So don’t look at the whole thing; look at one thing. What was the one thing he could do?

  “So here’s my idea,” Ray said. “Let’s help get Henok’s orphanage going. It will be a small operation at first. I’m sure Henok will help us get it set up locally and even be willing to run it.”

  “But we’re flying back tomorrow,” Ed said.

  “I know. So we have to make today count. Yesterday afternoon, we forgot the video camera. I know you guys got some videos from your cell phones, but I’d like to go back out there and spend the rest of the day intentionally capturing footage we could use back home. Something we can polish up enough to show people at our churches, to help them grasp what’s going on here. I know I can get my church behind this. I’m sure most of you guys are going home to a church that’ll be expecting a trip update. What if we could show them a video about Korah, especially about the orphans? Talk up the idea. See if we can get some fund-raising started. Things here are way less expensive than in the States. And Henok’s a pretty sharp guy. We can work with him by emails and Skype, help things move along with government officials.”

  Sounded like a great idea to Allan. Everyone was nodding their heads.

  Ray put his hand on Allan’s shoulder. “I was thinking of Allan here, maybe he can be our point man once we’re back home.”

  “But I’ve got a full-time job,” Allan said. “I can’t really travel much. I’m using vacation time for this trip, and I only get so much of that.”

  “I’m not thinking you’ll need to travel,” Ray said. “Once we get things to a certain point, we’ll probably need to come back here. But I’m not thinking of you driving or flying around to a bunch of churches back home. More of a behind-the-scenes kind of thing. Some tasks on the phone, some emails. Helping to coordinate what the other guys are doing in their churches.”

  Allan felt relieved. “I suppose I could do that.”

  “Great. We can talk about this some more while we’re out there today. Let’s get our stuff together. I’ll go find Henok and brief him. He already said he could go out with us again today. Then let’s meet out by the curb in thirty minutes.”

  “Can we make that forty-five?” Allan asked. “I told my wife I’d call her at nine. Haven’t talked with her for a few days.”

  “I’d like to call home too,” Ed said.

  “Sure,” Ray said. “Let’s meet in forty-five minutes then.”

  8

  Michele was nodding off.

  Normally, when she had to work the next morning, she’d be asleep by 10:30. But Allan had said he’d contact her tonight on Skype, if at all possible. He w
as almost thirty minutes late. She was beginning to doubt it would happen. Communication was the worst part of these trips. No, the worst part was him being gone every night and her being left alone.

  Was there a best part?

  She forced herself to think about all the good he was doing. He was helping people. Lots of people. Orphans and widows and sick people and hurting people and people who had almost nothing. She was sitting in an upscale townhome in River Oaks, in a nicely decorated and spacious master bedroom suite. From her soft, upholstered chair, she could see into the bathroom. There was a garden tub with whirlpool jets. She barely used it anymore; it was a nightmare to keep clean. But there it was, and she could use it whenever she wanted.

  Allan had talked to her once about the bathroom situation of most of the people in Ethiopia. Halfway through, she had to make him stop. The images in her mind were so revolting.

  She stared at the computer screen, waiting for the little icon to activate, indicating Allan was on the line. Please, Allan . . . please call. She heard a beep and jumped. But it wasn’t him. It was her cell phone on the nightstand. Apparently informing her the battery was fully charged. She stood up and walked to the bathroom to wash her face with cold water.

  Five more minutes. She would give it five more minutes.

  As she turned off the faucet, she heard that familiar chime from her laptop. She dried her face and hands and ran to the computer. There was Allan’s beautiful face staring back at her. She clicked the button to accept the call, and the picture instantly enlarged. “Can you see me? Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “I can. Man, are you a sight for sore eyes. I haven’t seen anything that beautiful since . . . since I left you at the airport.”

  It was so good to see him. But something in his eyes . . . she could tell he was struggling with something. “You look good. A little tired maybe. Your eyes look kind of puffy. Are you sleeping okay?”

  “I was until last night. Had a real hard time for some reason. Well, I guess I know why.” He looked away, offscreen.