by Karen Rispin
Daddy was holding a flashlight for Mom, who was trying to see into the man's ear. The man kept on moaning something about bugs. Finally they put him in the car, and Mom drove off with him.
Dad came upstairs. I guess he knew we'd be up. He said that the man had been sleeping when an orange beetle had crawled into his ear. Beetles can be really strong, and this one kept clawing around in there.
"His ear was bleeding so badly your Mother couldn't see properly," said Daddy. "She's taken him into Machakos to the hospital."
If Daddy hadn't been sick, he would have been the one to drive the man to the hospital. I hated all the changes that Daddy's hepatitis was making. I glanced at Sandy to see how she reacted to all this, but it seemed she didn't even notice or care.
After Daddy left, I lay in bed thinking about it. I prayed for Daddy, but it felt all wrong. Instead of feeling better, I just felt squirmy about what we'd been doing to the Barneses—so I quit praying. Finally I sat up in bed to look at Sandy. If anybody should care, Sandy should. I mean, she's a pain sometimes, but Daddy is her dad, too.
"Sandy?" I whispered. The hump in her bed never budged.
I bet she's faking, I thought, growing angry. Fine! So ignore me then. I'd wanted to talk to her about Daddy and apologize for arguing and stuff, but no way was I going to do that now. I lay down and stared at the ceiling. My eyes felt scratchy and my throat hurt, and I was sure I'd never get to sleep.
I did though. I never even heard Mom come back. You always have to wait for ages at hospitals in Kenya because they're so crowded with people who need help.
"Anika, Sandy, time to get moving!" Daddy was calling us. Sandy didn't even budge. She still hadn't moved by the time I was dressed, so I shook her bed hard.
"Come on, Daddy called us. Get up."
She was just kind of sitting up when I went downstairs. Mom and Dad didn't say anything about Sandy, even when she was late for breakfast. We usually get in trouble for that. Finally Traci went up to get her.
"Mom, what happened to the man who came in the night?" I asked, taking a big bite of toast.
"He's OK now. A doctor poured oil in his ear to drown the beetle and finally got it out with some long forceps. The man will have a sore ear for a while, though." She rubbed the back of her neck wearily. "I must admit I'm moving slowly this morning, too. I didn't get back from the hospital until around one in the morning." She sighed. "Well, let's get moving. We don't want the Barneses to have to wait for us."
The trunks of food and towels, snorkeling gear, dishes, and all the stuff that goes with a trip to the coast were already in the car. We just had to clean up breakfast, make the picnic lunch, and put rugs on the car seats. The rugs kept us from sticking to the car seats and getting all sweaty when it gets hot. But even with rugs, I wasn't looking forward to sharing the back seat with Traci and Sandy. Fortunately, David was riding with the Barneses.
"I bet we'll have to wait for hours for the Barneses to be ready," I muttered as I stuck a couple of books up behind the seat to read on the way.
Sandy had finally finished breakfast and was tucking the rugs over the seats. "Probably," she said. "Ihate it when we have to wait ages for somebody."
"The way Mrs. Barnes talks so slow, she's probably still halfway through calling Alex and David to wake up," said Traci.
Mom and Daddy came out, and, like always, we prayed about the trip before we even started the car. Mom and Daddy prayed for the Barneses, and especially for Lisa. I just prayed that Daddy would rest and get better.
One thing was good: we were wrong about the Barneses being late. They were just getting into the car when we drove over. Daddy waved them on ahead, and we were off.
Sandy and Traci started playing hangman. I watched the people along the road. There were ladies on their way to market carrying big baskets of vegetables on their backs. There were kids walking to school in their uniforms—khaki shorts and tops for the boys and dusty blue dresses for the girls. There were lots of men going to work on their big black bicycles. One man was carrying a mattress on his bike; another had tied a whole basket of chickens onto his bike.
Sandy and I usually compete to see who can spot the first wild animals when we get out of the Machakos hills into the grasslands, but she'd gone to sleep half-way through the hangman game. I wondered if she was sick. Mom wouldn't let Traci wake her up.
I saw a herd of Tommies, little gazelles that look kind of like tiny deer. And a herd of giraffe that lives out by Button's Pimple was right by the road.
Daddy was busy dodging the big potholes in the road. Every now and then he'd dodge one on our side and come real close to a lorry—an old diesel truck that stinks like mad and goes very slowly—coming the other way. Whenever he did that, Mom yelled, "Keeviin!"
We were out of the grassland and into the hotter grey thorn brush when the Barneses' car swerved right across the road.
"Watch out!" Mom yelled as their car spun right toward us. Daddy slammed on the brakes so hard Sandy banged her face on the back of his seat. The Barneses missed us and ended up backward in the ditch.
"Look at their tire!" I said as soon as we stopped. There were chunks of tire all over. Their wheel rim had left a big gouge across the dirt on the side of the road.
Daddy jumped out and ran over to their car. I'd just gotten my door open when Mom said, "You girls stay put until we know what's happening."
That's when Traci noticed Sandy's bloody nose.
Mom sent me to get the thermos of cold water out of the trunk. It wasn't until Sandy was lying on the back-seat while Mom held a big blob of cold, wet Kleenex on her nose that Mom finally let me go over to see what was happening. Traci followed me.
By then Daddy and Mr. Barnes were changing the tire.
Mr. Barnes looked up at us, "How did you like my stunt driving?" he said and started laughing. "Wheew, I wouldn't want to do that too often."
He made a big act out of wiping his forehead. There was a chorus of high-pitched giggles. Mr. Barnes looked so surprised that I guessed he hadn't noticed that we were surrounded by a ring of African kids. That happens whenever you break down near African farms.
Most of us were used to having an audience. Traci didn't care—she just looked at the tire and headed back to our car to be with Sandy. Alex didn't seem to mind, either. He and David were running around picking up chunks of tire. But Lisa and Mrs. Barnes were edged up close to the car, looking nervous. Suddenly Mrs. Barnes shook her head and stepped away from the car toward the African kids. I guessed she'd decided to try out her Swahili on them.
She said, "Jambo," which means hello, only she said it like "Jayam bow," which isn't how you say it. The kids made a noise like "Aieeeee," and giggled behind their hands. One of the bigger boys decided to try out his English. He stuck out his hand and said, "Give me a sweet."
Mrs. Barnes looked at me and said, "What does he want?"
"Candy, but don't give him any."
"Whyever not?" she asked and went straight to the car and got out a bag of peppermints.
As soon as the kids saw what she had, she was mobbed. They crowded up around her, yelling and reaching out their hands. More kids came running from every direction, their bare feet kicking up the red dust. She passed out candy like mad, but she was getting pushed back toward the car.
Daddy looked up at the noise, stood up, and said, "Hapana!"— "no" in Swahili—very loudly. He had to do it twice before the kids looked at him. Then he told them that they should know better and to go home. They just grinned and backed off, but still stayed to watch.
"I see what you mean now, honey," Mrs. Barnes said to me. "My, but those children are simply filthy."
"It's hard to stay clean when all the water your family uses has to be carried for miles from a river or a well that isn't too clean itself," said Daddy.
"Well, we certainly can't eat what's left of this bag of candy. It's too dirty now."
"Here," I said. She gave it to me. I took it over and gave it to one
of the bigger boys. He took off running with most of the other kids after him.
When all the kids had first approached us, Lisa had gone to stand close to Mr. Barnes. She was still practically on top of him.
"Lisa, back off. I can't see what I'm doing," said Mr. Barnes.
"Whydon't you and Anika go sit in our car?" asked Daddy.
Lisa just glared at me. I could tell she wasn't about to go anywhere with me, and I felt the same about her. Neither of us budged.
To change the subject, I asked, "How can people grow enough food to eat here, Daddy? It's so dry."
"They often don't," Daddy said. "Africahas such a terrible problem with overpopulation that many of these people have moved here in the last fifteen years because there is no space for them elsewhere." He didn't say anything more about me going to sit in the car with Lisa.
When we finally got going again, Daddy actually let Mom drive. He never lets Mom drive, so I figured he was feeling even worse than usual. Sandy's nose had stopped bleeding, but she still looked really wiped out. What was wrong with her?
Daddy said he wasn't surprised Mr. Barnes had blown a tire, because he'd noticed they weren't dodging a lot of the potholes. "He's just lucky he didn't wreck the rim of the tire. It looked OK to me." After Daddy said that he paused for a second, then added, "I guess it's not just luck. God is looking after all of us. We could easily have hit them."
"Let's thank him," Mom said. So we did.
After we prayed, Daddy said, "I sure hope we can find a tire at Hunter's Lodge."
"Can't the Barneses just keep going with the tires that are on there now?" I asked.
"Driving on this road with no spare tire would be absolute lunacy, especially the way Joey's been hitting the potholes."
"Well, tell him not to," Sandy said.
"Everybody has to learn to adjust to a new place in their own way," Mom said. It was no use arguing. I flopped back in my seat, crossing my arms with an angry sigh.
Already the Barneses were wrecking our trip to the coast.
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Chapter Four
There were absolutely no tires at Hunter's Lodge. The adults decided we should drive slowly and carefully down to Mtitondei, where there might be a tire.
It was really hot now. We drove with the windows wide open. My hair whipped in the wind and bothered my eyes. We had shorts on, and Traci's sweaty legs kept bumping against mine and sticking.
"Move over," I snapped.
"I can't, there isn't room," she said.
I'd just started to say that there was, too, when Mom interrupted, "First one to see an elephant gets a Coke at Mtitondei."
Traci and Sandy quit bugging me and started looking out the window. I looked, too. A cold Coke sounded super right then. We were going really slowly so the Barneses wouldn't get another flat, so it was easy to look.
"There!" Traci yelled, practically in my ear. She was right. You could just see a rusty red back behind some thorn trees. Mom slowed the car down, and we all leaned out the windows and pointed so that the Barneses would see it, too. They never did, though. I guess they didn't expect red elephants. Not that the animals are really red. They just look rusty red because they like to take dirt baths, and the dirt around that area is red.
Sandy asked, "Mom can we get some samosas and stuff at Mtitondei, please, please? I'm hungry already, and it's going to be forever until we have lunch at Tsavo River." Sandy and David both loved samosas, which are spicy little triangle-shaped meat pies. Some of them are so spicy hot that they can nearly blow your ears off.
"Please, Aunt Hazel, can we?" Traci chimed in.
"Well, OK," Mom said, "but make sure you don't leave Lisa out. I'll get you all pop, too. Just be sure you wipe off the top of the bottle before you open it."
She always says that. As if we didn't know that the dirt could give us amoebic dysentery, or even hepatitis like Dad had—especially at a place with so many people around. Actually, I didn't care as much as Mom wanted me to. Everybody got amoeba once in a while, but those of us who had lived in Kenya all our lives didn't usually get very sick. I figured it was adults and new people who really ought to watch out.
The Chyulu Hills were along the south of the road we were passing. The hills are made of lava and have the craziest shapes—they look like cast-iron whipped cream. They're dry and harsh and rough. I'd heard that people sometimes trek in to climb the cliffs there. I'd have loved to go do that.
At Mtitondei, everybody except Daddy and Mr. Barnes walked over to the duka—the shop—together. It was like most dukas, absolutely packed full of everything from thongs to boxes of English tea biscuits.
"Hey, you guys, watch Alex eat this," David called. He had talked Alex into buying a hot samosa.
"Come on Alex, go for it," David said.
Alex took a little nibble off the corner.
"Come on, take a big bite," said David.
Alex looked at him. "You eat yours first."
"Like this?" asked David, taking a huge bite. "See? It's great," he said with his mouth full. He wasn't letting on how hot it really was, but I noticed his forehead was sweating.
Lisa had been over with our moms, but she walked over just then and butted in. "Alex, don't. It's some sort of trick."
He looked straight at her and took a huge bite anyway. Then his eyes bugged out, but he didn't spit it out. Everybody giggled at the expression on his face.
He swallowed hard and yelled, "Whooooo!" grabbing David's pop and taking a big swig. Then he said, "Hey, give me one of those things. I'm going to get Dad."
"Aleeeex!" Lisa sounded really exasperated.
"OK,you eat it then, if you're so smart," he said.
She took it and, looking really disgusted, took a normal-sized bite. I could hardly wait for her reaction.
"Hey, this is good," she said and took another bite.
At first I thought she was faking. We really looked dumb, all staring at her waiting for her to go red in the face or something.
She put her chin in the air and said, "They're the only good thing in Kenya, as far as I'm concerned. And they're not even as good as enchiladas."
Yeah, well, she's welcome to enchiladas—whatever they are, I thought. If she'd even halfway try, she might like it here. I looked out at the horizon. Far, far off I could see Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Its smooth snowy peak was sitting like a tiny white Frisbee just above the horizon. How could anybody hate such a beautiful place?
I walked over to get a Coke, and Sandy and Traci followed me. A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Barnes and Lisa came over.
"Girls, could you kindly tell us where we could find the facilities? Mrs. Barnes asked.
It took me a second to figure out that she was looking for the toilet. I just grinned and didn't answer.
Sandy figured out what she meant a second later and said, "It's over there on the side of the building. But it's really gross."
As soon as they left, Traci, Sandy, and I started to giggle. The toilets at Mtitondei were one thing that would definitely bug the Barneses. They were horrible. I kind of needed to go, too, but there was no way I was going to use the toilets there. Not unless I was totally desperate! Usually, we just waited until we reached Tsavo River and stopped for lunch. Even the bushes there were better than the "facilities" at Mtitondei.
Some people finally left one of the sticky little tables by the dukas, so Mom, Traci, Sandy, and I sat down. The sun felt like warm syrup on my shoulders. I looked around at all the different kinds of people. It was more fun to watch them and try to guess who they were than it was to listen to Sandy and Traci talk to Mom.
There was an East Indian family with about five kids and two grandmas who were wearing saris—they probably owned a shop somewhere. Then there were some German tourists, complete with cameras and sunburns. I couldn't decide if one very British lady with a fat toddler was a settler's wife or not. But the best one was a big blond man who was tanned almost
black. He wore baggy khaki shorts, looked terribly fierce, and sat at a table all by himself. He looked like he belonged in the kinds of adventures I only imagined.
It seemed like we waited there forever. Finally, though, the tire was fixed and we could leave. It's not very far from Mtitondei to Tsavo River. We usually stopped and ate our picnic lunch there because it's so nice by the river. There's no picnic site, though, just a dirt track that goes down by the river.
The yellow river pours over huge flat rocks in the bright sun. It comes out of the Tsavo hills. Tsavo is a national park, a place of dry thorn bushes, baobab trees, and wild animals. Poachers with machine guns had killed almost all the rhinos and lots of the elephants that used to live there.
Once we got there, I went to throw rocks in the river and think about the crocodiles. I'd never seen one there, but I liked to think about them. They were like a dangerous secret in the wild yellow river. Lisa and Mrs. Barnes refused to leave their car. They even ate in there.
After lunch, as we drove along, both Daddy and Sandy went to sleep. I looked at Sandy. She wasn't getting hepatitis, too, was she?
I sat in my corner of the backseat and worried about Sandy and Lisa and Daddy. I didn't cheer up until the air started to change. We were out of the national parks and out of the desert. There were people on the sides of the road again, only now they carried loads on their heads instead of on their backs. The air was humid. It smelled like rotten fruit, spices, seaweed, and ocean salt. We were almost there.
On the long curves into the city of Mombasa, we got stuck behind a lorry loaded with pineapples. Mr. Barnes was afraid to pass. Waves of stinky black smoke poured over the Barneses' car and back to us.
"Mom, let's just go past," I said. "This lorry stinks."
"Please, Aunt Hazel," Traci added. "We'll never get there going this slow. Please?"
"Shhhh! You'll wake Kevin and Sandy," Mom said. "We can't get ahead and leave Joey Barnes to get lost. We'll just have to be patient until he adjusts to Kenya."
