Chai Tea Sunday

by Heather A. Clark

  Johanna and I grew closer and I trusted the bond to keep the children safe in my absence. I knew Johanna would call me if I was needed at the orphanage.

  “I glad you here, Nicky. It nice havin’ you, and you make the chil’n laugh like I never heard,” she told me one afternoon after school was over. I was helping her make that night’s dinner, and was planning to stay as late as I could to do the work. “You got a gift, Nicky. These chil’n love you.”

  And I cared about them as much. Nothing gave me greater joy than to listen to the laughter bubble up in their throats. I felt happiness attach itself to me as I watched them play in the field, their glowing faces turned upwards and smiling as they twirled in the sunlight. Their bliss was contagious, and it filled me with hope; they were joyful and full of spirited highs — despite being barefoot, dressed in rags and still hungry from the insignificant breakfast they had eaten that morning. The children had next to nothing, yet they were filled with a richness that money couldn’t buy. It was both lovely and sad to watch.

  The language barrier continued to be a challenge, but we communicated mostly through love. The kids responded to attention in a way I had never seen before. All they wanted was to be held. To be given affection. Hugs. Security. Protection. And I was addicted to giving them as much as I could.

  As Johanna’s belly grew, proving her pregnancy to the world, she became increasingly tired and weak. She struggled to make her way through the day, taking care of the children, then tending to the daily duties of cooking, cleaning and tidying.

  Somewhere in the beginning of her twenty-third week, her face went ashen. And it stayed that way as she forced herself to soldier through the motions that were required for her job security.

  I tried to help as much as I could, although I was often met with her superhuman resistance. She agreed to let me help her only when Jebet was out; even then, she would let me wash only the large piles of dishes or clean up after the children. In turn, I would mandate that she put her feet up and rest. Johanna always resisted, even when Jebet was nowhere to be found, but I could see relief fill her eyes as she took her needed break.

  One Tuesday morning, I arrived at the orphanage to start that day’s lessons. When I got there, I found Johanna huddled over two of the children — Kevin, a seven-year-old boy who had lost both of his parents to AIDS by the time he was five, and Rhoda, a nine-year-old girl who had just arrived at the orphanage about a week before.

  They were both lying side by side, on their backs. Rhoda was moaning in pain and clutching at her leg, while Kevin was curled up in a ball, his eyes glassy and distant. Some of the other children huddled close, their faces grim and concerned.

  “What happened?” I asked, taking Rhoda’s hand. I rested my other hand on Kevin’s back. Neither of them spoke very much English, so I stroked their cheeks and rubbed their backs to let them know I was there, that I would take care of them.

  “We not know, Nicky. Kevin woke up this mornin’ in real pain, and Rhoda not been right since she got here. And then I found this . . .” Johanna lifted Rhoda’s pant leg to reveal an open gash that was oozing pus.

  “Jebet gone — she left this mornin’,” Johanna continued, “I don’t know what to do. I told Jebet that both kids seem real sick and need hospital, but Jebet say she got no money to get ’em treated. Then she left.”

  “Did Jebet see Rhoda’s leg?”

  “Yes. She said Rhoda came to orphanage with her cut already there . . . so it not her fault. And Jebet say it look gross like that for a while, but we got nothin’ to fix her up . . . so we can’t do nothin’ ’bout it. But the reason we don’t got nothing is ’cause she sold every bit of medicine and bandage that get given to us as donations. That’s why. And it make me real mad . . . ’specially now! But I not say that to her. I scared of what she do.”

  Without saying another word to Johanna, I grabbed my cell phone from my backpack. “Mama Bu? I need your help. I don’t have time to explain right now. Just, please, can you come quick and help us? Two of the children are really sick and Jebet is not here. Please come, Mama Bu — and be quick.” Mama Bu hadn’t been back to the orphanage since she had confronted Jebet on the porch, and I knew she’d be thinking about what altercations might occur when she arrived.

  Mama Bu arrived as quickly as her legs could carry her. We agreed that Johanna would stay with the kids while Mama Bu and I took Rhoda and Kevin to the hospital. Some of the younger children who were particularly close to Kevin were crying in the corner. Others seemed oblivious to what was going on and played on their own; saddened by the thought, I wondered if it was because they had seen so much pain in their lives that they were unaffected by what was going on.

  Neither of the children could walk well. We helped them as best we could, but it was impossible for Mama Bu and I to carry them the entire way. We took turns trying, but short of collapsing underneath the weight of the kids, we were forced to put them down.

  I hated being forced to encourage them to walk, but we had limited time to get them to the hospital. Kevin’s eyes were growing increasingly glazed over, as though he wasn’t present in the moment. And Rhoda had developed a fever that was so high it scared me.

  We wrapped our arms around them, letting them use our bodies as crutches, and Mama Bu told them in Swahili to use us as support. To put as little weight as possible on their legs.

  Rhoda was grunting and grimacing, sweat forming beads on her forehead as she struggled to put one leg in front of the other. At one point, I feared she would faint.

  Kevin stayed silent, but his limp body seemed fragile. It was as though he would be willing to give up at any step.

  My insides cranked with fear, I was suddenly teleported back to the hospital room at Mount Sinai. Despite the differences in situations, the feelings exploding through my veins were too familiar to what I had gone through over a year before, and my panic was close to unbearable.

  I could hear Mama Bu praying out loud as we walked and joined her with my own pleas for health. I begged internally, hopeful that Mama Bu’s messages would reach the God she swore would always guide us to the right spot.

  When we got to the hospital, I emptied my wallet, giving the nurses everything I had so that Kevin and Rhoda could get the care they needed. We were placed in a crammed hospital room. Rhoda continued to groan in pain as she lay on the dirty bed she had been given. Kevin stayed silent.

  When a nurse finally arrived, she took one look at Rhoda’s wound and called in two other nurses to help her. Rhoda’s infection had swelled to a state where she could no longer bend her knee, and the nurses surrounded her and began to push on her knee to get the pus out.

  They took turns, two holding her to the bed, pinning both her arms and legs, while the third pushed directly on her gash to free her of the yellowish discharge that seeped from her five-inch cut. Despite her screams, they held her down. She begged them to stop, drooling from so much pain. I had to hold myself back from forcing the nurses to leave her alone.

  My face blazed with anger towards Jebet. If she hadn’t sold the medical supplies that had been donated by previous volunteers, if she had just cared for Rhoda in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. I cursed myself for not realizing Rhoda had had a cut on her leg, thinking I should have paid closer attention. I racked my brain to think of any signs of her limping or hurting in any way. I came up empty.

  “Don’t they have anesthetic? Or anything that would help her?” I asked Mama Bu.

  Shaking her head, Mama Bu explained that hospitals don’t use painkillers in Kenya. She whispered, “We do not have any type of pain medicine for the children. Nothing is used here. No painkillers of any kind.”

  Rhoda’s cries grew louder and more intense, and I held Kevin closer, knowing that his fear was mounting. I wanted to take him from the room, to shield him from Rhoda’s agony, but was instructed to stop.

 
“The beds are all full, some two and three to a bed, and there is nowhere for you to go,” the pudgy nurse said as she pinned Rhoda’s arms on either side of her. “Sit and stay. You and the boy are fine here. You leave, and you risk getting no treatment.”

  One side rock, other side hard place. I had no solution.

  Kevin faded in and out of consciousness. I held him close, desperate to free him of Rhoda’s wails. I hugged him tighter, whispering in his ear and hoping he would hear my voice over Rhoda’s cries.

  When they finished cleaning out Rhoda’s gash, they gave her a tetanus shot. She whimpered into Mama Bu’s arms, who was leaning over the bed and hugging her tight.

  One of the nurses left. The other two stayed and prepared Kevin’s needles. After deeming that he had an infection in his ankle — but not from a wound, like Rhoda — they gave him a tetanus shot as well, followed by a second needle in his hip to bring down the infection. Then, they took out a scalpel — and cut his ankle open to drain the infection. Kevin screamed less than Rhoda did, but the pain in his eyes somehow seemed worse. He barely blinked through the whole ordeal.

  Once the nurses were finished, we were pushed out of the hospital. The kids weren’t ready to leave, but the nurses told us it didn’t matter — people were waiting and they needed the beds.

  “These two children will need to recover in their own beds,” the slim nurse said. “Now, take them home.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that Kevin and Rhoda didn’t have a real home. Or that each of the beds she spoke of would be shared with two other children.

  24

  On our walk home, Mama Bu and I took the kids to a store. I told both of them they could get whatever they wanted. Kevin requested juice, and Rhoda chocolate. Nothing more, they said, and I could tell they didn’t want to be greedy. It just made me want to give them more, so I ignored them. I bought them both juice and chocolate, along with some nuts, and I knew they were happy.

  When we arrived at Kidaai, we took the two children to their beds and tried to make them as comfortable as possible. They were still far from better and the medicine they had been given at the hospital was starting to kick in, making them drowsy. All I wanted them to do was sleep so they could get better faster.

  I tucked both kids into their lower bunks and sang to them until they fell asleep. Despite the warmth outside, the orphanage was drafty. Both children shivered, clinging to the only sheets that I could find.

  I kept the medicine we had purchased at the local chemist tucked in my backpack. I didn’t trust Jebet to give it to them; I planned to stay until later that afternoon so I could give Kevin and Rhoda their next dose. If I left the medicine at the orphanage, it would be sold by dinner.

  Jebet hadn’t returned and Johanna was busy completing the list of tasks Jebet had left for her, anxious to have them done by the time the orphanage director returned. The kids had been left to care for themselves all morning.

  I joined Mama Bu and some of the kids in the common room and we played a few of the tattered board games that had been left by previous volunteers. I knew the only reason Jebet hadn’t sold them was because she could get nothing for them; the board games were all completely falling apart and many of the pieces were missing.

  So, the only games we could play with the broken and missing pieces were ones that we made up rules for. They definitely weren’t very fun by North American standards but, not surprisingly, the kids of Kidaai seemed to love them, clapping their hands and asking to play again.

  An hour later, I took all of the children outside and Mama Bu helped Johanna make dinner. We played all of the kids’ favourite games, including Duck Duck Goose and Red Rover.

  From a distance, I saw Jebet trudging towards the orphanage. I felt every muscle in my body clench. I ran inside to warn Johanna and Mama Bu that Jebet had returned.

  When Jebet walked into the kitchen, the explosion of Swahili was too much for me to fully absorb. Johanna slinked to the back of the kitchen, keeping to herself and chopping carrots, but Mama Bu and Jebet went nose to nose, battling about how Jebet had sold the children’s medicine and first-aid supplies and put the children’s lives at risk. I could follow only a handful of Jebet and Mama Bu’s heated words, but their volume and hand gestures would have told a two-year-old how upset each of them was.

  Jebet seethed. Mama Bu hissed. Jebet scowled, and Mama Bu raged. Then, Jebet spit at our feet, followed by Mama Bu storming out of the kitchen and slamming the door behind her.

  The orphanage director turned and barrelled straight at me; she threatened me with a motion that implied slitting my throat, and it was then that I knew, without a doubt, that Jebet was crazy.

  Before leaving for the day I sneaked upstairs to give Kevin and Rhoda their next dose of medicine. They were both still groggy from the medication the hospital had given them and they needed help sitting up. Like little birds waiting for the worm, they opened their mouths and swallowed what I gave them. Kevin was still battling a fever, so I removed his blanket to let the heat escape.

  When I went downstairs, Mama Bu was just finishing serving the children their dinner. “Come on, Nicky. We must go. The dark is coming.”

  With the sun threatening to be gone entirely by seven o’clock, we sprinted home as fast as we could, and were just sitting down to dinner when my cell phone rang. “Nicky? It Johanna. Kevin taken turn for worse. He bad. Real bad. Got a bad fever. Much, much worse than today. You come back? You help him?”

  My heart sank. I needed to help, but knew what Mama Bu and Kiano were going to say about walking back to the orphanage in the dark.

  “Can you put cold cloths on him? Try to break the fever?” I asked Johanna, hopeful that I could help over the phone.

  “It no working. Tried that for last hour. He real, real bad, Nicky.”

  “Where is Jebet?”

  “In her room. She gave me phone to call, but then went back to her room. She watching TV in her room,” Johanna said. I scoffed out loud, not surprised to hear that Jebet had a TV in her room but the kids didn’t have medicine.

  “Okay, Johanna. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there,” I said. I ended the call, and turned to find Mama Bu, Kiano and Petar all staring at me.

  “You are not going anywhere,” Kiano said, shaking his head.

  “But Kevin is really sick and they can’t help him. Johanna doesn’t know what to do and Jebet isn’t helping. Kevin needs us and I’m really worried about him. He seemed hot when I left, but now Johanna says his fever is worse. I don’t really think we have a choice.”

  My host father shook his head and crossed his arms. He looked pretty set in his ways. “You are not going anywhere, Nicky. It is my job to protect you and I say you need to stay here, so that you can stay safe.”

  Mama Bu gave me a look, telling me she understood. I knew she would fix it.

  “Kiano,” she started, gently putting her arm on his back. “I know this is not good. But that little boy needs us. He has got no one. I know going to the orphanage has risks, but leaving that little boy all night by himself with that fever . . . well, I think that is a bigger risk. We cannot do it,” Mama Bu pleaded. I watched as Kiano started to soften, his arms slowly coming uncrossed.

  “You are not going anywhere without me,” Kiano said, grabbing his sweater. “And you best get ready to run fast, because we are headed into danger.”

  Mama Bu and I nodded in silence, fully aware of what we were about to walk into. All of the nighttime crime stories that I had heard since arriving in Africa filled my mind. I shuddered, fear ripping its way down my spine, yet I knew I had no choice but to ignore it. We needed to move forward, one foot after the other across the violent land of Kenya, so that we could try to help Kevin.

  We collected our things and told Petar to stay close to his cell phone; he needed to send the night guard if we needed him. Even if he got a sing
le ring from one of our phones, Petar was to take the shillings Kiano had stashed behind the bathroom pipe to pay the guard and send him in the direction of the orphanage.

  The three of us sprinted to the orphanage as fast as we could. I was out of breath and hurting when we got there, but happy that we had made it safely.

  Kiano waited on the couch in the common room while Mama Bu and I rushed to Kevin’s side. He was curled up in the same bed I had left him in, both sweating and shivering, and cowered in a fetal position. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he begged for his mama.

  We didn’t have a thermometer, but I guessed his temperature near 104 degrees. I lifted the sheet off Kevin and gasped at the size his foot had swollen to. It was puffy and pink and taut to the touch. White pus dribbled from the place the nurses had cut him open earlier that day and I knew the infection had become very serious.

  Without needing to talk it over, Mama Bu and I instantly came to the same conclusion — we needed to get Kevin to the hospital immediately, and no one — not even Kiano — would stop us. We gently lifted the fragile boy up to prepare him to go.

  Standing across from each other, Mama Bu and I locked arms and Ita helped to lift Kevin into our human seat, guiding his arms around our necks for support. We shimmied together down the stairs, our movements in sync, until we reached Kiano in the common room. He knew instantly what we were doing and was smart enough to not protest but simply help. Kiano took Kevin easily into his arms, like a father cradling a newborn baby, and we continued to the hospital as fast as we could go.

  Jebet had stayed in her room the entire time, either stupidly ignorant to what was going on or selfishly pretending not to know. Either way, we didn’t need her butting in. I was happy she had stayed where she was.