“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.”
“Impressive, Irene. You certainly did your research,” Amanda said.
“Actually, Emmanuel explained it to me. But he was much funnier. He said that even though there were a lot of European settlers, they all looked alike to the locals. So even if different people passed by, they’d think it was the exact same person they saw before, just wandering around in a circle because they were lost.”
“Someone who wanders around because they are lost, huh?” I remarked, throwing sidelong glances at Amanda and Holly.
Oh, yeah. We were mzungus for sure.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Amanda
KIMININI, KENYA
SEPTEMBER
Sunlight had barely pierced the curtains on our sixth morning at Pathfinder when I felt a housecat pounce onto the bed at my feet. It trampled over the blanket, using my thighs as a scratching post as it stalked upward toward my head. Clinging greedily to sleep, I flopped an arm outside the fabric and tried to push the cat onto the floor. But instead of meeting a soft coat of fur, my hand connected with a downy body at the same time a frantic flack flack flack filled the air.
“Ahhhh! Get it off of me! Get it off!” I screamed, hurling the blankets and a cyclone of tawny white feathers across the room. The chicken beat its wings furiously and let out a few pissed-off squawks before scrambling out the door.
Next to me, Holly groaned and adjusted her eye mask before rolling over again, determined to squeeze in another few hours of sleep.
“Oh, c’mon, you can’t be that upset,” Irene said later at breakfast, laughing as she used a Swiss Army knife to pare away the skin of a mango. “Besides, you’re the ones sleeping in her nest, not the other way around. She laid an egg in there every day till you guys came.”
“Are you saying Joshua doesn’t care if a chicken uses the second bedroom as a coop?”
“Well, no. The family doesn’t mind it at all. In fact, they probably wouldn’t like it if she couldn’t get in there to do her business, so don’t lock her out.”
“But it’s taking our blankets and clothes and making a nest out of them,” groaned Holly, who finally realized I hadn’t been sleep-talking or hallucinating at 6 a.m.. “Why doesn’t it just stay outside with all of the other animals?”
“Well, she’s a pretty smart chicken,” said Irene. “She’s figured out how to open the door and close it again behind her.”
“Kind of like a Jurassic Park velociraptor!” added Jen, always able to find a movie reference to match the situation. I scowled in her general direction.
“What?” she asked, making a show of cracking a hard-boiled egg against the side of the table and peeling it slowly. “Don’t be in such a fowl mood.”
My scowl morphed into a mini-death-stare. She grinned back at me.
I spread a gooey layer of jam onto a thick slice of bread (after this morning’s episode, I vowed to become a full-fledged vegan) and wondered whether refusing to share my bed with a barnyard animal officially qualified me as a spoiled city brat.
The three of us had expected that volunteering in Kenya would require some serious lifestyle changes, and so far, I thought, we’d all adapted pretty well. This week, we’d learned how to shower by dumping soapy cupfuls of water over our heads, honed our squat-aim-fire method in the little wooden outhouse, and developed a subtle technique for plucking out any critters that had accidentally gotten cooked into our stew at lunch (at our candlelit dinners, we just crossed our fingers and hoped for the best). In fact, other than my barnyard squabble, none of the physical challenges of life at Common Ground had fazed me as much as I’d thought they might. Instead, what had really thrown me for a loop was the lack of a clear-cut purpose—or even a vague idea of what we should be doing during our time here.
Maybe we’d read one too many articles on Alternative Spring Breaks and Habitat for Humanity, but Jen, Holly, and I had figured that after reporting for duty in Kenya, an on-site coordinator would put us right to work constructing homes, digging wells, distributing supplies—anything to improve the quality of life of the local community. It had been Jen’s dream to volunteer in Kenya, but in the days leading up to our arrival, Holly and I had felt almost as eager as she did to put in several hours of hard work each day and to fall into bed every night feeling exhausted, sore—and fulfilled.
But things hadn’t worked out as we’d imagined. Upon getting here, we learned there were no orientation sessions, group leaders, or volunteer guidelines to follow. Once Joshua had introduced us to Mama Sandra and the fourteen boarders, he’d left the three of us to our own devices. We’d figured the work would be doled out soon enough, so we’d spent the unstructured time getting acclimated, using the days to walk around the farm or to explore Kiminini. Every evening, after playing kati, a form of dodgeball, with the boarders, we’d pull ourselves away to get cleaned up and head in to dinner. That’s when one of us would find the right moment to repeat the question we’d been asking Joshua, in various forms, since we’d arrived: “Is there anything we can do to help?”
At that he would shrug and tell us that our presence alone was making a positive impact. And maybe he’d have something for us tomorrow.
Jen and Holly were as perplexed as I was by this response. We’d come all this way to rural western Kenya to volunteer—and there was really nothing for us to do?
Part of the reason we’d decided to sign up with Village Volunteers, rather than a larger, glossier nonprofit, was that we’d been assured that nearly the entire monthly program fee would be transferred into the hands of the people who needed it most. Lower overhead and administrative costs translated to less waste, but, as we were learning, it also meant that there was no budget for an on-site coordinator to guide new volunteers. Joshua technically fulfilled that role, but he was pretty busy overseeing a school, operating a farm, running an NGO, and being a father to his five kids.
Trying to figure out if we were doing something wrong, Jen busted out her neatly organized Village Volunteers file and scanned the pages. She found a section that we’d either overlooked or hadn’t quite taken so literally and read it to us.
“The Volunteer Program isn’t designed to provide a highly structured schedule that guarantees eight hours of work each day. Volunteers who have the most fulfilling experiences are ones who are highly self-motivated and require limited direction. They understand that the pace of life is significantly slower than what they may be used to at home, and that ‘making a difference’ may be as simple as making a child smile.”
Irene, who’d been reading Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty, put down her paperback long enough to reiterate the message: If we wanted to make a positive impact here, we couldn’t wait for Joshua, Shana, or anyone else to invent a project for us. We had to figure out what talents we’d brought to the table and find a way to put them to use. Her assessment was logical, matter-of-fact—and easier said than done.
I quickly realized that most of the idiosyncratic abilities I’d honed as a working professional—turning groaner puns into snappy headlines or instantly recalling the number of fat grams in any given food—had zero practical application in my new environment. In fact, none of us really had an ideal skill set to be a volunteer. Unlike the Bastyr students, we weren’t trained to administer vaccinations or medications to the families who would wait hours or even days for treatment at the on-site medical clinic. And even if we’d earned our official TEFL certificates (a requirement for teaching English as a foreign language)—which we hadn’t—the Pathfinder school already had a staff of young Kenyan women doing the job.
Even my attempts to help out in the kitchen, while appreciated by the cook, Peter, didn’t exactly go over that well with the other volunteers.
The chapati flatbread I’d tried to make—clearly the most dummy-proof of all kitchen tasks—still cooked up to the consistency of unleavened Play-Doh. The girls tried to be polite as they sucked glutinous goo off the roof of their mouths, but their expressions said it all.
That morning over breakfast with the girls, I wondered if I might be more of a liability to the volunteer program than an asset. Maybe I should quit now, while I was already behind?
“Don’t do that,” said Irene. “Look—you’re a journalist. Maybe you could just write a couple stories about Village Volunteers while you’re here. Raising awareness for the program would be one of the most important things you could do.”
It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and actually something I’d already considered, but not such a great breakfast topic. I glanced at Jen and saw her eyes widen, as if she’d accidentally gulped down something she’d meant to pick out of her bowl. I shoved a huge wad of bread into my mouth and didn’t respond.
Because we’d yet to identify a real objective or routine here, I’d already started retreating into familiar habits—and that meant spending more and more time in front of the laptop. I’d even commuted with Joshua into Kitale a couple times to visit a cramped, overheated room housing a few old computers outfitted with dial-up connections. It was probably ridiculous to make an hour-long journey just to check e-mail, but there didn’t seem to be a viable alternative. If I let too much time pass before getting back to my editors, they’d move on and find another writer to do the job.
Fortunately, we were all rescued from the awkward pause by the return of a visitor from early that morning. It took me a second to identify the snowy-colored blur that darted under the fabric covering the front door, but Holly was quicker on the uptake.
“Oh no! Out! Out!” she shrieked, chasing the chicken as it streaked toward our room. A chorus of squawks and an angry flurry of feathers made the bird’s intentions clear. In the end, it was Holly who bolted out rear end first and retreated to the couch for safety.
A few minutes later, the bird strutted out of the room, taking her sweet time as she crossed the dung-coated floor and returned back to the yard. Jumping up, we all ran over and stuck our heads inside the door frame. There, just as Irene had predicted, was one large, creamy white egg—sitting right on top of Holly’s pillow.
As we spent more time with the girls at Pathfinder, what surprised me most was how much they acted like typical schoolkids back in the States—they cracked jokes, whispered secrets, played pranks, and gave one another a hard time. According to Joshua, most of the girls had lost at least one parent to malaria, AIDS, or poor medical care, and all had been removed from their homes to live here. Considering these challenging circumstances, it was remarkable that most of them were as outgoing and seemed as well adjusted as they did. They’d even formed little cliques and filled the archetypical roles that I still remembered from junior high school. In this group, pretty Calvin was the alpha female whose posse of friends followed her every move, hung on her every word. Naomi, the petite, fleet-footed jock, was the one you definitely wanted on your side whenever someone broke out the ball for kati. Also in the group: the chatty one (Constance), the big sister (Sandra), the clown (Tracey), and the troublemaker (Diana).
But it was Barbara, awkward, gangly-limbed Barbara, who unwillingly played the role of the outsider. She was taller than the others with a physical condition that made her limp, and so painfully shy that the other girls rarely invited her to join them in games of tag or beauty parlor or even slowed down so she wouldn’t be the last in the line for dinner.
To help everyone get to know one another better and encourage some of the shyer girls to participate, we invented a game called “My Favorite Things.” This involved sitting in a circle and taking turns sharing the things that we liked, such as meals, games, and school. As Holly explained this to the boarders, a few of them looked confused.
“But, Miss Holly, I don’t undah-stand,” said Alice, who was dressed today in the same daffodil yellow taffeta dress that she’d worn since we’d arrived. “What is this word—fay-voh-ritt?”
It hadn’t even occurred to us that in order to have a favorite of anything, you had to have choice: what you wanted to eat, what to do, where to go. The word hadn’t been taught in their English classes, so we asked if they knew what the word “best” meant.
“For example, is yellow your best color or is it blue?” explained Holly. “Red or green?”
The girls nodded to show they understood, so we took turns going around the circle.
“Okay, Nancy, what is your best activity?” Jen asked the boarder who wore a pink calico smock dress, one of the girls in Calvin’s clique. “What do you like to do after school?”
“My best act-tee-vity is to…wash the plates.”
Jen smiled. “Oh, that’s good, but we mean…what do you like to do for fun time? Once you’re done with school, when you’re playing with your friends?”
“Yes, I see,” said Nancy, looking confused. “I like to…clean the silverware?”
I thought she didn’t understand the question, but almost every boarder gave a similar answer: Polish the silverware. Sweep the floor. Carry water. Feed the chickens. The girls’ “best foods” included corn, rice, beans, and chapati bread. Not a single mention of candy or snacks, even though the treats were available less than a kilometer down the road in Kiminini.
Changing the game, we asked the girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. Several said they wanted to become farmers, nurses, or nuns, but some had grander plans.
“I would like to be a secretary in Nairobi. Or a police officer!” shouted Diana, jumping up and crossing her arms like a tough female cop.
“If I could go to school in the United States,” said Alice, sounding dreamy about the possibility, “I would attend university and become a doctor.”
“Yes, yes, that is my wish as well,” responded Constance, nodding vigorously. “But I would prefer to be a surgeon. This is possible in America!”
At the mention of this mystical, faraway never-never land, the tone of the conversation changed. Suddenly, several decided that they needed to come visit us after leaving Pathfinder, and they wanted us to tell them all about the United States.
What was it like to live in America? Did everyone dress as funny as we did? What did the movie stars and rappers look like in real life? Were we very good friends with Madonna and Beyoncé?
“So you guys like American music, huh?” I asked. “Just a sec…I’ll be right back.”
I tore off in the direction of the volunteer hut, returning a couple minutes later with my pink iPod and new minispeaker, an impulse purchase I’d made on my last day in New York.
Creating a short playlist of top dance tracks, I cranked up the volume. The speaker coughed up only a few decibels of music, but that was more than enough. The boarders, upon hearing the opening strains of “Crazy in Love,” bolted up from their cross-legged positions and started rocking out.
It was joyous, unbridled pandemonium. They jumped, spun around, and waved their arms wildly to the beats of J-Lo, Jay-Z, and Christina Aguilera. The four of us were pulled into the mix by eager little hands, and we grooved together on the lawn between their dorm and the cookhouse. Noticing that something was amiss, Mama Sandra came down from the house. I was hugely relieved when, instead of making us stop, she erupted into peals of high-pitched laughter. At least we knew that we weren’t corrupting the girls with inappropriate music.
Just to be a ham, I tossed in a little freestyle hip-hop choreography.
“Miss Amanda, stop! Please demonstrate this again!” shouted Naomi. “You can show me this dancing, and then I will copy it.”
Of all of the borders, Naomi was definitely the most eager to learn. Jen and I had agreed that under other circumstances, she almost certainly would have been an athlete of some kind—a track star, a soccer player, or maybe even a little gymnast.
I repeated a version of what
I’d just done, and Naomi echoed the moves, performing them almost exactly as I had. Pretty soon everyone wanted in on the action. Even Barbara came over to join the group, and Irene walked her slowly through the steps I was doing.
By the time my playlist ran out, fireflies were lighting up the dusk. At the boarders’ behest, I clicked repeat and we started all over again.
“Okay, guys, I think that Mama Sandra wants everyone to come to dinner,” I heard Holly say. It was almost pitch-black outside.
The boarders retreated, but only after we promised to do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the one after that. Our nightly dance classes had officially begun.
A couple days later, the four of us were holed up in Jen and Irene’s hut reading when there was a knock at the door.
“Karibu!” said Irene, using Swahili to instruct the person to enter.
There was a pause, and then Naomi cracked the door, peering inside. “Miss Amanda? You ah ready to come down now? Many students, they ah waiting.”
It was 5:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before dance class started, but Naomi looked worried that we wouldn’t show. I’d assumed that the novelty of listening to the same songs and repeating similar steps might wear off, but if anything, the boarders had become more dedicated day after day. We’d moved our lessons into a classroom at Pathfinder, one of the few buildings wired for electricity. That way we could continue dancing after night fell.
Naomi waited for the four of us to put on our shoes, then led the way toward the schoolroom. She’d been right; nearly all of the boarders had already gathered. Barbara and Sandra were scraping the heavy wooden tables and chairs into a clump at the very back, while the younger girls waited.
“Habari, ladies, thanks for showing up early,” I said, glancing around. “You’ve made it look like a real dance studio in here. Are you ready to get started?”
As they chorused their replies, I took my iPod out of my bag and set it on the blackboard. Even before I turned around, I knew exactly what I’d hear next.
The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. Page 19