I tell her I am fine, and she asks if I am ready.
Just as I am about to once again use my new line—“Ready as I will ever be!”—I stop myself. I am not going to say that again in Swahili, I remember.
“Yes,” I tell her simply. “I am very ready.”
So she starts to tell me about Imani. Even though I have been eating lunch here for a while, I don’t know as much about the place as I think. She tells me about how Imani started when Reverend Mathu, the man my uncle mentioned, joined with some people from the United States to build a big, beautiful mansion of a building for children in the community who needed a place to live. Then she tells me the rules of the orphanage as she takes me up to the room I will be sharing with my roommates.
As soon as she is done showing me around, I start meeting new people and making friends. Although I have met many of the kids before, they have never been my friends, because there is a separation between those who eat in the orphanage at lunch and those who live there all the time. That division, I come to see, has to do with protection. I soon learn that the kids who live in the orphanage don’t make lots of friends with kids who live outside it, because they are trying to guard themselves from being made fun of and, at the same time, from being the objects of jealousy.
I am still introducing myself to the boarders when it comes time for tea at 4:00 p.m. I didn’t know the students took tea at the orphanage, and I am excited. Three meals and tea!
Two hours later it is the moment I have been waiting for—dinner! We go down to the wooden kitchen to eat my favorite ugali maize meal for the second time that day. This time I am given a cup, a plate, and a spoon and told to keep them for myself. We say grace and then start lining up to be served the food. As I get closer to the front of the line, I am shocked by the size of the pots holding the ugali and beans. I give the servers my plate and they put a huge piece of ugali on it, and then on the side they put a mountain of beans.
I sit down and eat hungrily as people laugh and smile around me. Then I notice that a few people are saving parts of their ugali. I wonder why they are doing that, remembering that the rules the manager gave me say we cannot save food. But I realize they are secretly saving it in their shirts so they can eat it with breakfast in the morning because, like me, they like it so much. I take note of that.
After dinner, we go back to our rooms, and I am told it is study time. I take my books and go to the study hall, where everyone sits around reading and doing homework. I am amazed that I will actually have people to help me—it is just one more great thing about this place. During study hall, the matron calls on me to come downstairs, where she gives me a piece of soap, a towel, and a new toothbrush. There are no clothes to sleep in, but what I already have is more than enough. At 10:30 p.m., we go to sleep.
The next morning I am woken up at 5:00 to take a cold shower in a bucket, as I have done all my life. I then dress quickly in my uniform of khaki shorts and checkered green and white shirt. The clothes are hand-me-downs and very thin, and I don’t have any socks. The funniest part of all is my shoes, which people come to call laughing shoes because the front part opens like a mouth. People soon start teasing me by saying, “Hey, Sammy, you’re still smiling and so are your shoes!”
At 6:00 a.m. we go for breakfast down at the little wood cabin. The servers give us big plastic mugs of uji, a maize meal like ugali that is mixed with a lot of milk, water, and sugar. I love it, and I love it even more when they give me seconds.
When I walk back to the dorms, I see people brushing their teeth, so I decide I better do what they are doing. I take out my new toothbrush and squeeze out toothpaste like I see others around me doing. Everything is new.
After morning class, I come back to Imani for lunch and then return to school for the afternoon. When school ends, I walk back through the churchyard and the gardens and start doing my duties, which include washing my clothes. Since I only have one pair of shorts and one shirt for school, I have to be careful to wash them quickly in the afternoon so they can dry. I will wait until the weekend to wash my sweater.
I get used to my routine, and each day passes quickly until the time at night when the matrons lock us inside our dormitory rooms to sleep.
I soon see that Imani is a strict place. The girls are on one side and the boys are on the other. You cannot go to the other side without getting in a lot of trouble, and the matrons are strict with kids who break rules.
The first time I see someone get in trouble, it is my friend Ephantus, who is a few years younger than me. He is always trying to bend the rules, and apparently he had gotten into the habit of trying to make things easy for himself when it came to clothes washing. He decided that things would be much faster if he could take a shower and wash his clothes at the same time! Someone told on him, though, because one day the matron secretly watched as he did just that. She got angry and punished him severely. Wow! I thought. This lady is not joking! That was the first time I realized how strict the two matrons who look after us can really be.
Weekends are a bit more relaxed for everyone. They begin on Friday night with worship, where we kids sing, dance, and pray together. Worship is run by the older students, and neither the two matrons nor the manager, who live with us, usually attend. It is a really unique time and something everyone loves, as it gives us the chance to sing our hearts out to the Lord—to scream, to cry, to get it all out. For hours we jump up and down, singing every song we know. Then we watch as our peers present their own songs, Bible verses, and speeches. It is an amazing time I come to look forward to each week.
On Saturdays we have breakfast around 7:00 a.m., and then afterward we clean the floors and do our duties. After that, the majority of us wash all our clothes—including the sweaters we haven’t been able to wash during the week because they won’t dry fast enough. We also clean our shoes. Kenyans love their shoes, and the few kids with sports shoes spend forever washing them carefully. We diligently wipe down our black school shoes.
During the day the high school kids like my brother study. We primary kids study as well, or at least we call it that. In reality, we just play the whole day. In the afternoon we watch the high school students play in their football games, then we eat dinner, shower, and go to bed.
On Sundays it is the same kind of relaxed life, and we have a special breakfast everyone looks forward to of bread, margarine, and jam alongside boiled eggs. After breakfast, we go to church and Sunday school. And then it is more football, studying, and homework. Sunday lunch—rice and beans—is a huge favorite, and it is delicious. At 4:00 we have tea and play card games and checkers or volleyball. After dinner, we “study” some more and then get ready for school the next day.
As the days pass, I come to see that the kids at Imani really are their own kind of family. To get inside their circle, you have to gain their trust. Although I know many of them because I went to school with them before coming to live at Imani, I am still an outsider. I also see how important the older girls—the “big sisters”—are to taking care of all the little kids. Later on I hear international volunteers ask how it is possible that nearly two hundred students have only three adults to take care of them full-time. Those big sisters are the reason.
It is interesting to me to see how the concept of family plays out at Imani. Even though people might not have a blood family, they take whatever is available and make a family for themselves. Throughout the years I will see this become true for me again and again.
One of the different things about life at the orphanage is that Imani hosts some international visitors, and this is a whole new world for me. Many of these volunteers come from churches far away, stay for two or three days, and then leave forever.
Dr. Eve, though, is a woman who always comes back.
Dr. Eve has been around Imani since it started, so even when I was only eating lunch at Imani and not yet living here, I had heard of her from other kids and had even seen her from time to time. I don’t know her perso
nally, though, and all I know about her comes from the stories I have heard. She is a reverend in the United States, the students say, and she is on the board of directors for Imani because she has helped the orphanage and Reverend Mathu so much. Everyone always talks about her, and I am intrigued.
When she comes back to Kenya for the first time since I started living at Imani, I go directly up to her and say, “Hello!”
She booms, “Hello!” right back and asks who I am.
This is the first time we have ever talked, and what interests me most is that she isn’t like other visitors to Imani. She doesn’t say, “Photos!” and then “Bye!” She actually talks to me. Even though I am just a kid, we have a real conversation, and it feels really good.
This is when I first begin to understand some of the many problems that come when people from the United States visit us in Kenya. The typical visitor at Imani shows up without knowing anyone, volunteers a few hours, takes pictures, and then leaves. All without finding out who lives in the orphanage and who we really are as people. It is terrible for us kids, and it makes us feel mad and hurt all at the same time.
Then, for the first time, the orphanage has volunteers from overseas stay at the home for longer than a few days. Two married volunteers come from a big place with few people called Alaska to stay for a whole year. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas are younger than our two matrons, and they end up becoming two of the best people I ever meet. Like every other kid who lived at Imani when Mr. and Mrs. Thomas lived there, I will keep them in my heart forever. For many of us, knowing them helped us understand there were people similar to us living all over the world.
One of the great things Mr. and Mrs. Thomas start is Saturday games, which will continue for years after they leave. On Saturday afternoons they set out board games in the dining hall for us to play with. I have not seen many games before, and one day they teach a group of six or seven of us to play a game called Monopoly. I can’t believe my excitement, as it is so fast-paced and fun. After we are done playing that day, for the whole next week all I can think is, I can’t wait for Saturday. I’m going to go to school so that the days are over quickly and I can get to play Monopoly again. The whole week I hold my breath as I wait to play again.
Mr. Thomas also introduces me to card tricks. One day I am going to dinner and see a group of boys gathered around Mr. Thomas. When I walk up, he is doing a card trick. I have never seen anything like it. Whoa, I think. How does he do that? I am mesmerized and cannot take my eyes off the cards. That night I decide once and for all, “Mr. Thomas is a magician.” I had heard about magicians on TV for the first time earlier that year, and I can’t wait to ask Mr. Thomas to show me how to do the trick. He does, and for years after I do card tricks when visitors come.
One day in seventh grade I am doing homework and come across a long division problem. It is something I should have learned in fifth grade, but fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were bad years for me. I lived alone with my brother, then with my aunt and her mean husband, and along the way I was never eating enough or going to school regularly, and I was always getting beaten. It affected me, I know, and kept me from concentrating in school and caring about my studies.
I have absolutely no idea how to do the problem, but I am embarrassed, so I tell my friend Njoki that someone else asked me to help them with the problem, but I’m not certain how to teach them—could she show me how I can best help them? I am embarrassed to know nothing, but because I have skipped so much school, there are a lot of holes in my education.
Slowly, with the help of the good food at Imani and the support of friends, I start getting better. I keep improving, and in the second term, I find myself in the middle of the pack of students. By the third term, I am placed number three in the whole class of seventh graders. I am proud that I have improved, little by little.
Even though some international volunteers later aren’t so sure, I always think that Imani does a good job taking care of our health. When we get sick, they take us to the clinic, and the matrons make us shower every single day. Most importantly, we look out for each other. The high school boys, if they suspect someone has not been showering for a while, even take that person and shower him themselves! They pick him up and carry him to the bathing area, bring the water, and then scrub him and pour water on him.
The visitors also help. One time a doctor comes to talk about teeth brushing. She tells us how one day she dropped her toothbrush in the toilet room, but she didn’t throw it out. Instead, she boiled it. We think that is gross, but then she makes herself clear. If the toothbrush drops on the floor of the toilet, you can boil it and use it again. If it drops inside the toilet, do not use it again. She tells us to boil all our toothbrushes every two weeks. We do not do that, though.
Food at the orphanage is good, and it is very important. It can make two people the best of friends or the worst of enemies. If you mess with someone’s food, there are going to be problems. But if you help someone protect their food or get them more, you are going to be best friends.
We eat together as a family in the small wooden dining halls. (This is before we get even more students and move to the new, large dining hall.) Because there are so many people, the cooks make the food in large pots for everyone.
We have beans almost every day. No matter what, we eat beans. Githeri is a mixture of beans and maize, and we eat that at all our meals on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. On Wednesdays we mix my favorite ugali with bean stew. On Thursdays we have rice with beans, everybody’s favorite. Sundays are the best days, when we have rice and beans for lunch and then ugali for dinner. Just like I saw other students do that first day, I start to save my ugali when we have it, then take it to bed and eat it in the morning for breakfast.
At Imani, I come to love reading books. Since there isn’t much to do except for school and chores, reading becomes one of my favorite hobbies, and I am amazed that Imani has its own library. Most of the books have been donated by Christian missionaries and overseas churches, and there are a lot of Christian books. There is one series I love—the Magic Tree House books. I earn a gift when I fill three library cards with books I check out, and I am really happy.
Aside from reading, I also love participating in church programs, like Brigades, which is similar to Boy Scouts but is sponsored by the Presbyterian Church. Like the church youth group, it occupies my time and helps me stay out of trouble. It helps me start to become a young leader and opens up new opportunities for me. When I do eventually join the youth group, I am recognized because I am actively involved in Brigades.
As time passes, I reach the eighth grade. It has been a year since I joined Imani as a boarder, and time has gone quickly. Eighth grade is a big year for me, and for all Kenyans, since it is the year we have to take a huge national test called the KCPE, which will determine if we can continue on to secondary school. If you fail the KCPE, no high school invites you to join. I study for months and pray hard.
It is at this time that a new manager joins Imani Children’s Home. Her name is Eunice, and she is a great Christian woman who loves God with her whole heart. Since she has been very active in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), most people at Giakombe parish—the parish that Imani Children’s Home and the orphanage church are part of—already know her. One month into her time at Imani, she comes up to me and says, “Sammy, you’re one person who has really great potential. Make sure you study, and study hard. Get good grades.” She says this as though she really believes in me and believes I will score well on my important KCPE exams.
It is also during this time that I get to know Reverend Mathu, or Guka. Guka, which means “grandfather” in Kikuyu, is the man my uncle once told me he hoped I would know. He is the reverend who started Imani Children’s Home, and he has been at Giakombe parish for a long, long time. He is good friends with the treasurer of Imani, whom we call Cucu (“grandmother” in Kikuyu)—a very strict, very loving woman who always gives us words of caution and advice.
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Soon the year with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas comes to a close, and our second missionary couple moves in. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have set a high bar, and Paul and Stephanie try as much as possible to live up to what they have accomplished. They both teach in the local school. Paul, who is studying to become a pastor, teaches Christian religious education, and Stephanie teaches English.
Dr. Eve, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, and Paul and Stephanie all teach me that mzungus, or white people, don’t always leave after just a few hours and a few hundred pictures. But it will be two other mzungus who teach me that sometimes mzungus stay in your life forever.
Claire
Chapter 4
One month after our trip across South Africa ends, I am in an internet café in China, begging Lara to travel with me around the world for a year.
“For real this time,” I write. “A year.”
Up late at night in San Francisco, she responds within minutes. “I’m in. Just promise me we will really plan things this time.”
In the end, any planning we do will consist of me drawing a map of the world on a napkin and dotting regions of the globe we’d like to visit.
To begin the year right, Lara shaves her head.
It is a month before we leave, and we are watching Saturday Night Live with our friend Amalia in San Francisco, where I am visiting friends and family before setting off on the trip. A famous actress is guest starring, looking great with her new short haircut for her latest terrorist movie.
Lara, out of the blue, says, “I might want to shave my head.”
Amalia and I, distracted, barely acknowledge her. She can’t be serious, of course.
But then Lara says it again. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve thought about it.”
With minimal prodding from two friends who are amazed at the idea of knowing someone who would actually willingly shave her head, we drive to Walgreens to buy the clippers.
Hope Runs Page 4
