by Rula Sinara
“Sopa,” Pippa said to Adia’s mother, Lankenua, when the other woman came to greet her. “I brought some supplies to take a sample of your water, if that’s okay, after Adia’s lesson. Some of the children north of here haven’t been well. Dr. Hope said she’d noticed the same in another area in the east, and asked me to take some samples for her. Just to rule out water contamination.”
“Why would there be contamination?” Adia’s mother asked.
“It’s groundwater. Many things can affect it.”
Even when the drought season left the land looking desiccated and dead, there were rivers and streams that ran deep beneath the surface, fed by mountains like Kilimanjaro or Mount Kenya. Fresh, underground spring water, yet something as unnoticeable as a minor tremor could cause contaminants to leak into it. Just like dealing with loss tainted a person’s life and changed its course forever after.
Her last visit here flashed in her mind. She could have sworn the ground had rippled beneath her, but at the time she’d chalked it up to sun sickness. But maybe it had been a tremor.
“Don’t worry, if no one has been ill here, it’s probably not a concern. I’m just taking it to compare with the others.” She really hoped it would turn up clean.
“Of course. Do what you think is necessary,” Lankenua said.
“I will, thank you, but first let’s go take a look at your essay, Adia. And then we’ll talk to your father, as I promised.”
“Thank you.” Adia smiled and put a hand to her chest. “I hope he listens.”
Pippa hoped so, too. But if she couldn’t get through to Dax about giving the twins more freedom, the chances of her changing the mind of a Maasai warrior about letting his daughter move away were slim.
Lankenua and the other women glanced pitifully at Adia. Pippa’s stomach churned. Was Adia’s father arranging a marriage for her? Oh, God no. She knew it was the norm in the Maasai villages for girls to marry in their midteens, but when Adia’s father had approved her learning to read and write, Pippa had thought he’d taken on more progressive views.
“Is he still here today?” she asked. This couldn’t wait any longer.
“Yes. He is talking to the boys about warrior training over there.” She pointed toward the far side of the enkang, outside the fenced perimeter. To interrupt Adia’s father’s lesson would be disrespectful, but then most everyone here had known Pippa for years. Even Adia’s father had a tendency to overlook her persistence, blaming it on the fact that, since she wasn’t Maasai, she didn’t know any better.
“I’ll be back,” she told everyone. From the expressions on the women’s faces, she suspected that Adia was unaware of whatever was going on. “Wait here. I promise we’ll still have time for our lesson.”
“I need to gather more wood,” her mother said. “I will accompany you, Pippa.” She left her corn grinding and walked ahead of Pippa toward the gate. They cleared the fenced area, and Pippa doubled her step, picking up sticks to help.
“Tell me what happened,” she pleaded.
“He says her marriage was arranged long ago and that it is time.”
“No. He can’t marry her off. She’s too young and smart and she has such a bright future ahead of her. You know that, don’t you? Why would he suddenly change his mind after letting me come to teach for so long?”
What bothered Pippa most was that, unlike in Jaha’s situation at the other village, Adia didn’t want to get married yet. She longed to go to school and study a career. She’d told Pippa so, many times.
“He doesn’t explain all of his decisions. He did say the man has done well with his land and cattle, despite the rains that haven’t come for us. He can provide a good dowry for her. Her father said we need the cattle so the family doesn’t suffer.”
Money. A mixed blessing. A double-edged sword. It gave a person the power to do both good and evil. It was a necessity in so many ways. The world ran on it—a fact that wasn’t changing anytime soon. But where was the tipping point between need and want? Between giving and taking?
Pippa needed money to build a school and to buy supplies for children. Her family at Busara needed money to help support the care and rescue operations that had saved so many orphaned baby elephants. Her Aunt Hope earned a good income as a doctor, but she was driven to help others and donated time and funds to bring medical care to rural areas in need. But what about major companies that based their decisions on earnings without considering repercussions or the people impacted? Or the dangers of cutting corners out of greed? What about people who were easily bribed...even some in politics or government whose decisions affected so many? She had no doubt money played a role in companies like Erebus getting land concessions and drilling rights. And even closer to her heart, money was the drug that drove poachers to kill.
Then there were those heart wrenching gray areas. Impossible choices...like Adia’s father, Chaga, having to decide between one child’s future or the entire family’s well-being. She thought of Dax. Had his decision to work for Erebus been one of sacrifice or greed? Or somewhere in the gray shadows between the two? No...in her heart of hearts, she knew he was a good man. A father.
Pippa took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Money was complicated. Heck, life was complicated. She pushed Dax from her thoughts. She needed to focus on Adia. The girl’s entire future was riding on the fact that a dowry would help her family. Was the village suffering more than she’d noticed from the drought this season?
The earth crunched beneath her boots as they made their way around a copse of elephant pepper trees. There was Chaga, looking regal with his orange-and-red shawl and long wooden staff. He appeared almost old enough to be Adia’s grandfather, but it wasn’t unusual for extremely young girls to be married to older men. It had happened to Adia’s mother. How old was the man Adia had been promised to? The sound of her footsteps made him look up. The stern set of his face indicated that he knew and expected her protest.
“Sopa. Kasserian ingera?”
“The children are well, Pippa. And your family?” His accent was heavy, but his English was good. He traveled on occasion to the city to trade or sell handmade goods or crops. It was one of the reasons Pippa suspected he’d been more open to her teaching than the heads of some of the other villages.
He turned his staff against the dry ground. Pippa wanted to point out that Adia was still one of the children, but she needed to convince him, not make him defensive. He was a good man within the framework of life as he saw it to be. He loved his family. That, she didn’t doubt.
She knew, respected and appreciated the Maasai culture—she’d grown up surrounded by it—but there were certain aspects to every world culture...every society...that needed changing. Some things simply weren’t right.
There had been a time when hunting trips had been organized for the sole purpose of kidnapping wildlife for zoos. Now, that practice was considered inhumane and horrific. That’s what education did. It opened the mind. It even opened the heart. The children out here deserved that chance. Educating the village girls would help their people in the long run.
“My family is good, thank you. I’m sorry to bother you, but can I speak to you for a moment? It’s important.”
Adia’s mother hung back, busying herself with collecting kindling, but she kept well within earshot.
“I expected this,” he said, studying the sky as if it had warned him of her arrival.
“Please. Hear me out. I understand these are hard times, but you’ve been so kind, letting me teach Adia. Don’t let that end.”
“You don’t run a village. I see things. Meitang’e oltung’ani olkikuei leme olenye.”
Pippa understood well enough thanks to her Aunt Hope and Hope’s brother, Simba, always trying to outdo each other with old tribal wisdoms. A person doesn’t itch from a thorn that’s not his. Adia’s father didn’t believe she could understand his
burdens or the troubles of the village.
He tipped his chin as if he’d had the last word. He should have known her better than that.
“I do understand that times are difficult, but letting Adia and other children pursue an education could help the village. There is much to learn about agriculture. Or perhaps one of them will go into law and be able to speak on behalf of the Maasai and their rights. Or they could share their earnings with you to help when the rains don’t come. Let her go to a real school. She’d be of more value to you educated than married off so young. You could make a difference for all Maasai children with this one decision. Esuj erashe ng’ejuk emusana. If an idea is good, it will be copied.”
He grinned widely and nodded at her in appreciation of her familiarity with the saying.
“Memut elukunya nabo eng’eno,” he said, shaking a finger at her to make a point.
“One person’s mind can’t hold all the knowledge out there. Perhaps, but even a little makes a difference. Menang’ silig kewan.” She folded her arms and waited. Facing backward does not perform itself. She loved that one. Initiative mattered. Even the smallest act is as important as a big one. “You don’t need Adia to marry in order for your village to survive.”
His mouth moved as if he was mashing her words. He reached up past the giant, beaded loops that dangled from his ears and scratched behind them. His eyes creased in thought.
“The city is expensive.” He ground the end of his staff in the dirt again. Relief washed through Pippa like a flooded river during the rainy season. He was considering her plea. She couldn’t let him change his mind. She also needed to help him preserve his pride.
“Adia has gotten a scholarship. She doesn’t know about it yet,” Pippa said. She didn’t know about it, either, until she made it up a second ago. It wasn’t a lie. As a teacher running her own rudimentary program, she could create a scholarship on a whim if she wanted to. The dilemma would be in how in the world she’d cover it. As it was, she was barely saving enough for a schoolhouse.
“Her school, paid for?”
“Yes. Edoorie enker modooni nkuta. Right?” Even a blind sheep might chance across rainwater. It meant that good luck could happen to anyone. It was happening to her right now...a woman being listened to by the leader of an exceedingly patriarchal tribe. She hoped that luck would pass on to Adia.
“Perhaps the suitor and his cattle were meant to be our good fortune. A gift from Enkai.”
“But didn’t your god Enkai choose the Maasai as the wise ones? Perhaps he trusts you to make a wise choice. Perhaps this decision is like a warrior’s test. It’s even possible that he had our paths cross and brought me here to teach your children for a reason.”
He turned and stared intently at her, shifting once to adjust the way his shuka draped over his shoulder.
“It is my decision,” he said unequivocally.
“Yes. It is.” She had to give him that, just like she’d done with Dax, even when she didn’t agree with his stringent schedule for his daughters.
“She will not marry now.”
Tears welled behind Pippa’s eyes, and the pressure in her chest pushed against her throat. She swallowed hard and tried to remain composed. From the corner of her eye, she could see Adia’s mother covering her mouth and turning away.
“Asante. Thank you. Your wisdom makes you a great Maasai leader.”
“May Enkai bless us all,” he said. He smiled and trudged off toward his drying field of corn.
Adia’s mother rushed over and gave her a hug.
“You are a special one, Pippa.”
She didn’t want to be special. She just wanted to make a difference...and doing so meant following through. She pushed her hair back from her face, but it sprang forward again.
She’d promised Adia a scholarship. Now she had to figure out how to fund it. Do first, think later. It was her worst fault. Maybe she needed to learn a lesson herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PIPPA RAN HER hand along the trunk of Busara’s newest orphan as he stood on shaky legs in one of the wooden stalls reserved for those in critical care. The baby barely had the energy to curl its length around her arm, but he tried.
It broke her up inside every time her Uncle Kamau had to rescue another baby. Knowing that the little ones were terrified and traumatized by witnessing the slaughter of their mothers ate away at her insides.
She’d lived here, at Busara, since her birth, and yet the pain and utter disbelief that anyone could rip a family apart for the sake of selling ivory on the black market never got easier. Cruelty was never okay. Children and parents...families...getting ripped apart like that was wrong on so many levels.
“He’s still weak, huh?” Pippa asked her mother.
“Yes, but at least he doesn’t have any external wounds to contend with,” Anna said. Dr. Bekker had done surgery on one too many orphaned elephants over the years. Many had their legs gouged by snares and some even got caught in the crossfire of arrows or bullets. Still others, like this one, slowly starved next to their mother’s dead body.
“Do you want to name him yet?” Anna asked her.
Pippa didn’t miss the yet. Pippa had been naming the babies ever since she learned to speak. Her parents as well as Haki’s used to warn her that giving an animal a name too soon or growing too attached would only make it harder if he or she didn’t make it. It was too soon to know if this young elephant would survive. She didn’t care.
“How about Duma?”
“Cheetah? I don’t think he’ll ever run as fast as that, even if he fully recovers.” Her mom laughed.
“No, but maybe the name will inspire him to grow strong and healthy enough to dream that he can,” Pippa said.
“Fair enough. Let me know if he drinks any formula,” she said to the keeper, who stayed close by Duma’s side. All of their rescues had their own keepers who cared for them night and day, often sleeping on a cot in the same pen if the baby needed extra attention or was suffering from PTSD.
The whole thing made her think of Ivy and Fern. How had they handled losing their mother? How many nights had Dax held them close to keep bad dreams from plaguing them? Who had comforted him?
She followed her mom out into the afternoon sun and waved as her brother, Noah, and Haki’s brother, Huru, jogged out to where Kamau and his team were restocking their field medical unit. They’d both gotten so tall in the past year. At eighteen, Noah was probably done growing. She couldn’t believe he’d be leaving for college in the fall. And Huru, at seventeen, was already taller than Haki, though his shoulders weren’t as broad.
“Are the boys going on a round?” Pippa asked.
“So I’m told. I’m not sure either of them will have the stomach for injuries the field unit comes across, but we’ll see. I’ll catch you inside in a bit,” her mom said as she headed toward the supply tent.
Pippa looked back over at Noah and Huru. Those two were more into art and law than medicine of any kind. All teens loved adventure, though. Kamau was a well-known field vet in the area, and he’d been instrumental in helping Anna establish the camp back when it was nothing but a few tents.
The only one of the children she’d ever seen him take along as a teenager had been Haki. Then again, Haki had wanted to follow in Kamau’s footsteps. He’d ended up in veterinary school. He’d worked diligently at Busara, too, until he’d broken up with Pippa.
Now he and Maddie were living in Nairobi, just until he finished working on his PhD. In the meantime, she practiced law there. Something about seeing his younger brother, Huru, climb into the front passenger seat sent a gutting pain through her. Memories poured out like blood from a nicked vein. She bit her lip and pressed her hand to her stomach. She hated how the pain would come back without warning. She was over the breakup. She really was. Haki and Maddie were destined to be together. Those two were so
ul mates if such a thing really existed. She’d made peace with it all, at least on some level.
But there was a deep, dark hole inside her that was too far out of reach to heal. A place that held the shattered pieces of her confidence and ability to trust anyone with her heart. She’d trusted both Haki and Maddie. Mads had been more than her cousin. She had been her best friend. And now Pippa was nothing more than a broken and discarded third wheel. Alone.
She forced herself to look away, but everything here had a part of Haki in it. The wooden table where he always played chess under the tree. The old, framed tent where they used to nap as toddlers. The front porch of the main house built many years later, where they’d sit and talk well into the night when they were older teens.
Mosi, the camp’s persistent mascot and resident vervet monkey, scampered around her as she approached the house. He squealed and held out his hand, then squealed some more when she held her empty palms up.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have anything on me right now.”
He ran up the tree that flanked the porch and made a face at her. She made one back and entered the screen door.
“Is that you, Anna?” Niara, Haki’s mother and Anna’s best friend from the day they met, both single and struggling to cope with their first pregnancies, smiled when she saw Pippa.
“Mom said she’d be here soon.”
“I was just going to show her the article I finished for the website. I used that photograph you captured a few weeks ago of the rhino giving birth.”
Pippa walked over and looked over her Auntie Niara’s shoulder at the screen. She quickly read through the post.
“I love it. It gets to the heart of what we do here.”
Niara closed the window and got up, pulling Pippa along with her to the kitchen. Anna may have founded Busara and remained its most famous veterinarian, but Niara was the matriarch of the place. Not only did she contribute to Busara’s website and fund-raising initiatives, she was also an amazing cook.
“Honey, you have that look in your eyes again.”
