A toddler with a crop of rebellious braids and Cabbage Patch Kid features waddled into the dark room that served as the orphans’ nursery. There were seven adults crammed inside the roughly four-by-eight-foot space, with Sister Freda, another nurse, and the den mother named Agnes standing next to Jen, Amanda, and Irene near the doorway. I was perched on the edge of a narrow bed taking notes as Sister Freda told the story of how the orphanage had begun.
When I glanced up, the child locked her charcoal eyes on mine. Then she bolted past Sister Freda, Agnes, and everyone else in the room to fling herself onto my legs, burying her head in the folds of my skirt.
“Hey there,” I said, pulling her into my lap. She was wearing a striped shirt two sizes too big under a jean dress practically shredded into strips. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and stared into my eyes.
Sister Freda laughed in delight as Agnes stood guard. “I’ve never seen Esther approach a stranger like that!” said Sister Freda. But she didn’t feel like a stranger to me. As I held her little hand in mine, I had the most peculiar feeling we’d already met. It wasn’t logical, but that sensation of recognition was practically tangible. The professional reporter mask I’d been hiding behind slipped off the second that the child and I touched.
When I heard how Esther had found her way to Sister Freda’s, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. A woman who might have been her grandmother, or maybe just another villager, had dropped Esther at the clinic when she was eight months old. Her mother was “deranged,” Sister Freda explained, and she’d drowned Esther’s older sister in a tub before disappearing into the bush.
By the time Esther got to Sister Freda, she was malnourished and had a near-deadly case of malaria. She was also deformed—her legs stuck straight above her head from her having been bound to her mother’s back for days on end. The villager handed her to Sister Freda with the parting words “If you can save her, save her. But if it’s not possible, it’s all right.”
“We gave her malaria medication and healthy food,” Sister Freda told us. “The nurses and I worked with her for over nine months to train her legs to come down and taught her how to walk. She mostly hopped around at first.” But to Sister Freda, “saving” Esther didn’t mean just providing her with food and medical care. She also blanketed her with love and offered her an education. I knew that if Sister Freda hadn’t stepped in, Esther could have died.
When Sister Freda headed for the door to signal that it was time for a tour of the medical facilities, I trailed behind Jen and Amanda, reluctantly handing Esther to Agnes. I was surprised when I felt Esther’s little body stiffen and when she sank her fingers into my hair, fighting to hold on to me as tears rolled down her face. “She doesn’t want you to leave. You can bring her with you on the tour,” Sister Freda encouraged. “You like children, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said softly. I’d always been drawn to kids, the way they can turn exploring even a dirt pile into an adventure, their ability to forget about everything else but whatever they are doing at the moment, and their tendency to say exactly what they feel when they feel it. I’d always known without a doubt that I wanted kids of my own. But I’d never before held a child who had already endured so much in her short lifetime. She was a survivor, and she was only three years old.
Our group trekked into the clinic with its bare walls and concrete floors. Hordes of people, from infants to those who looked as if they’d already lived three lifetimes, waited patiently in a hallway that was so narrow you could touch both walls with outstretched arms. They sat on wooden benches or leaned against the wall. Older children held little ones in their arms while younger brothers and sisters formed circles around them. They were sick, they were tired, and still they waited. Many had no money; Sister Freda’s clinic was their only hope.
I waded through the crowd with Esther on my hip, and she waved at the patients like a goodwill ambassador as we brushed past. Sister Freda proudly cracked the doors to show us where surgeries were done on operating tables that looked more like lounge chairs. There was also a closet-sized room lined with shelves that served as the pharmacy, but the shelves were only half filled with bottles and syringes. An assistant wearing a white jacket was busy taking inventory of the drugs in a spiral notebook. It was a task that wouldn’t take long.
“What kind of medicine do you need?” Jen asked. Unlike Amanda and me, who broke into a sweat around blood and needles, Jen felt completely at ease in hospitals. Both of her parents had nursing degrees, so she’d grown up exposed to medical lingo, and was as intrigued by hospitals as she was by airports and amusement parks. It had all made perfect sense once I’d discovered Jen loved being surrounded by tons of people—she rarely if ever wanted to sleep in a room alone on the trip or hang out solo in a coffee shop like I did.
Sister Freda’s eyes shined at Jen’s question, and she said they desperately needed saline solution and malaria medication. Jen promised to pick up supplies from a pharmacy in Kitale. Then Amanda turned to me with a huge grin. “Esther’s fast asleep,” she whispered, brushing her fingers across the child’s plump cheeks. Despite the commotion happening all around, Esther had closed her eyes and was snoring into my neck. Too consumed with taking in the tour, I hadn’t even noticed the pins and needles running down my arm from supporting her for the past hour. She definitely wasn’t underfed anymore and, in fact, felt as solid as a brick.
“Come, let us go to the house and have food,” Sister Freda invited as we shook the staff’s hands good-bye and walked across the spiky grass to a cottage painted white. A cat swatted at our feet as soon as we swung open the door.
“Hey, little guy,” Amanda purred as she reached down to scratch behind its ears. Esther was awake now, running her fingers through the ends of my ponytail and humming quietly. Sister Freda said I should probably return her to Agnes to be with the other children before we ate. But when I set her down, she started wailing. Her cries felt like icicles inside my chest. I tensed up, torn about what to do next. Agnes seemed on edge. She instructed me to walk away, saying that Esther would be okay, so I turned toward Sister Freda’s cottage, Esther’s cries fading with each step.
I thought about how frustrated Agnes must feel, nursing an abandoned kid back to health, only to have to console her after a Westerner who’d shown her a few hours of attention left to return to her comfortable life.
I’d never realized how many opportunities I’d been given simply because I’d been born an American. I’d learned that even going for my daily runs was a privilege, particularly after seeing how much attention a woman jogging attracted. When I’d sprint over red roads weaving through fields of sunflowers, the men would yell at me in astonishment, “Sistah, where are you going? Where on earth are you trying to go?” Groups of children chased after me like American kids might chase after the ice cream truck, and the little girls would ask, “Why are you training, sistah?” their pounding feet catapulting speckles of mud up their bare legs.
“To beat the boys!” I’d say and laugh. They shrieked and howled at the thought of a woman beating a man, and soon I had a following that rivaled Lance Armstrong’s.
It was a comment from Joshua, though, that really hit home. “My daughters are worth as much as my cows,” he’d stated matter-of-factly one day as we walked to a neighboring farm. “My daughters will get married and then leave to live with their husbands. It is my son who will stay to help with the farm and start a family.” And that was just the way things worked.
Still, Joshua lavished encouragement both on his daughters and on the girls he’d taken under his protection. One night after finishing a meal of chapatis and beans in his living room, he’d called for the boarders. The girls filed in, still wearing their school uniforms because they were the only clothes they owned apart from their Sunday dresses.
Joshua then plunged into what we’d soon learned was his standard motivational speech, telling the girls that the way to succeed was to study hard and stay away from boys
. He looked hard at each girl individually as he spoke. When his eyes met Naomi’s, she said, “We shall not fail,” her brown eyes sparkling in the light cast from the kerosene lamp.
Joshua was definitely a godsend to these girls: not only did he take care of his own family and farm, he also granted kids who otherwise wouldn’t have had a shot to get an education. He was a living example for the children he stewarded that one person could make a difference.
After the girls left, Amanda mentioned what a talented dancer she thought Naomi was. “That girl is in trouble,” said Joshua.
“What do you mean?” Amanda asked, surprised.
“She’s pretty, and it’s the pretty ones that will be married young. Others, like Barbara, will be able to stay in school and get their education,” he explained. “The pretty girls don’t go far. Only an ugly woman could become president!”
Unfortunately, not all girls had a choice about whether they got to go to school or not. Some lived too far away to walk safely, while many couldn’t afford books and uniforms. Others had to work their family’s farm or take care of parents who might be sick from, say, malaria or HIV.
Besides getting married young, another all-too-real option for some girls was prostitution. Because they usually didn’t get the chance to go to school or have a family to take care of them, female orphans were likely to have few other options apart from marrying early or selling sex to survive. All of this flashed through my head as I listened to Esther’s cries fading in the distance.
As I cracked open the door to Sister Freda’s cottage, Jen and Amanda were setting the table. I’d just grabbed some plates to help distract myself from the tightening in my chest when Jen turned to me and said, “I really want to get medical supplies in town and bring them back here.”
“I’ll go with you whenever you want!” I said, jumping at the chance to see Esther again. I glanced out the window to the yard where I’d held Esther just moments before, now empty.
A few days later, a little body slammed into me from out of nowhere and a pair of arms wrapped themselves around my legs, almost toppling me. I regained my balance and turned around to see Esther grinning up at me with outstretched arms. I laughed, lifted her up, and swung her toward the sky.
“So we meet again,” I said as I hugged her to my chest.
Agnes came running across the yard in pursuit of the child who’d escaped from the playground as soon as she spotted me entering Sister Freda’s gates.
“She remembers you!” Agnes said, surprised.
“Hi, Agnes,” I greeted her, bouncing Esther on my hip. Jen stood next to me with the bags of the supplies she’d promised for Sister Freda. After spending the afternoon in Kitale to get the medicine and run errands, Irene and Amanda had hopped a matatu back to Pathfinder Academy. I’d stuck with Jen to ride to Sister Freda’s for the special delivery.
Simply being in Sister Freda’s presence both energized me and made me feel at peace. And I hadn’t stopped thinking about Esther since we’d met. I thought about her before I fell asleep. I thought about her when I woke up. I thought about her as I watched the boarders rehearse the play we’d written.
“We wanted to drop off these supplies to Sister Freda,” Jen announced.
“She’s in the clinic. I’ll take you to her.” Agnes led us past villagers waiting for care, Esther still attached to my hip and twisting the garnet studs I always wore in my ears. The line outside the clinic was much shorter today.
Sister Freda was bent over a table, giving a shot to a boy not much older than three who sat without flinching. A grin spread across her face when she saw us standing in her doorway. “You came back!” she said, delighted. “And you found Esther,” she added, waving to the child in my arms.
“Esther found her first,” Agnes said, recounting how she’d raced right over to me.
Jen held up the supplies, the bags heavy and dangling from her outstretched arms.
Sister Freda thanked her saying, “God has answered our prayers again!” and then instructed a nurse to take the goods to the “pharmacy.” On the matatu ride over, Jen had told me that the meds cost about a tenth of what they would back in the United States.
I thought about how most Kenyans wouldn’t be able to pay for prescriptions at American prices—most couldn’t even afford them at Kenyan prices. The sad fact was that many Americans couldn’t afford prescriptions either, despite living in one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
“Come, let me give you something in return,” Sister Freda said, leading us to her garden. Esther cooed into my neck as her little body bounced with each of my steps across the uneven ground. I noticed she had mud on her jean dress and, breathing her in, that she smelled like sunshine, grass, and dirt.
“Sister Freda?” I said. “There’s something I wanted to ask you. It’s about Esther.” Jen was trailing behind us, chatting with one of the nurses.
“Yes?” she said, looking at me expectantly.
“I’d like to sponsor Esther, to help out with whatever the costs are for her food, clothing, and education.”
She stopped midstride and wrapped me in a heart-stopping hug. Embarrassed, I felt my cheeks turn the color of pomegranate. My small gesture wasn’t a sacrifice. Sister Freda had quit her well-paying hospital job to spend her savings—and her life—healing the sick and poor. Sister Freda and Joshua were real-life heroes. They were the people who remained on the ground day after day, working to heal, to educate, and to save their neighbors. They’d given me something I didn’t even know I needed: the faith that one person could absolutely make a difference.
Still, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when faced with so much poverty, to turn away altogether. Sure, I’d seen the Christian Children’s Fund infomercials with Sally Struthers stating otherwise, pleading for viewers to just save one child. But now that I’d held Esther’s living, breathing, warm little body in my arms, I couldn’t simply change the channel. I could do something.
Six months from now, I’d probably return home to my safe bed, far away from Sister Freda’s clinic. Until then, one tiny thing I could do was share some money and leave Esther in Sister Freda’s—and God’s—hands. By vowing to myself to support her education until she graduated, I prayed that Esther wouldn’t have to marry young or turn to prostitution in order to survive. After finding Esther, I hoped that touching the life of just one person was enough—or at least a start.
As Jen and I left the farm, our arms were piled high with avocados, a gift from Sister Freda’s farm. Crossing over the threshold of the clinic’s gates, I wondered if I’d ever go back to that place and if I’d ever see Esther again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jen
KIMININI, KENYA
OCTOBER
Elbow deep in bubbles, I sat cross-legged on the lawn, hand-washing an elephant-print skirt. “Mama Sandra, look how many buckets I have! Aren’t you proud of me?”
She popped her head out from behind a wet sheet on the clothesline and howled with laughter. “Ah, yah, Miss Jenni-fa. You are Kenyan woman now,” she said, before cracking up again.
Since our arrival at Pathfinder, Amanda, Holly, and I had done and said countless things that made Mama Sandra chuckle. But the first time I attempted to do laundry, I swore she almost popped a blood vessel from laughing so hard.
Since I had no more clean underwear (or emergency bikini bottoms) left in my backpack and my skirts were so stiff from dust and grime they could’ve doubled as an ironing board, Jen’s Laundromat opened for business halfway through our monthlong stay. I’d seen Mama Sandra and the boarders cleaning their clothes outside on countless occasions, so I understood the general process. Pull up some water from the well, grab an empty bucket and detergent, plop down on the grass, and scrub away. No problem.
During an afternoon break, I’d set up shop on a vacant patch of grass and selected the first item from my pile, one of many Champion quick-dry thongs. I daintily dunked it into a bucket of soapy water, gently rubbe
d the fabric together for a few minutes, then rinsed it in a second bucket of clean water, stood up, draped it over the clothesline, and repeated the process with the next pair. Before long, I heard faint snickers wafting across the yard. I looked up. Naomi and Nancy were looking at me strangely and giggling.
“Hello, my gorgeous girls. What’s happening?” I asked, grinning in their direction.
“Miss Jenni-fa, what is that you are washing, and where are your other buckets?” Naomi asked.
“Umm, it’s my underwear,” I said, which only led to more giggling and questions, like “Why are they so small?” and “How do they fit on you?” and “Do Amanda and Holly have the same kind?”
I deflected their hilarious (and acutely savvy) inquiries as best I could, but the damage was done. I was now an official target for laundry scrutiny. As I swished a skirt through the suds, Mama Sandra approached, observed for a few seconds, and then doubled over in laughter.
“Jenni-fa, let me do that for you,” she said, grabbing a dirty garment off the ground.
“No way, Mama Sandra. You do way too much around here to help Joshua and the girls. We’re supposed to make your life easier, not the other way around.”
“Yes, but you will never get these cleaned this way. You will be here all the way through the night,” she added with another laugh.
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