My Little Impala
NEIRAD enilno edition
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The bus chugged onto the dirt road with a wheeze and my head fell down against the window pane. I looked up startled, but only saw the bus shifting its way onto the dirt road through the Sahara. My head sunk back into my rumpled sweater. My fellow traveler and DHS senior Lauren Murphy elbowed me gently in the ribs and I looked up with a glare. “Kimberly, look we’re at the village” she said. I groggily set myself upright and fought off the last strains of jet lag, then glanced out the window. It was one of the loveliest sights I have ever seen. Small, dense mud homes were neatly clustered together and hundreds of people looked up with broad smiles. It seemed like some sort of celebration. Streamers drizzled over suffering Acacia trees and withered balloons sunk in the humid air. Children in yellow and green uniforms ran behind our car laughing and waving at us. They called out with excited voices, “Jumbo!” The bus eased to a stop and they crowded around our van. I stalled at the back of the bus and then, after licking my chapped lips and smoothing my frizzed hair, I stepped outside. An entire crowd took us in their arms. I realized this, all of this, was for us. A girl, about my age, slipped her hand into mine and with a soft smile led me to the ceremony. She squeezed my hand and pointed at the canopy. There, in the middle of Africa, I looked up and saw a poster board with two big blue eyes and a gapped tooth grin. I was quiet for a moment and then squeezed her hand back. “That’s my brother” I whispered.
Sometimes it’s easier to forget the past. To erase everything and start-off with a new, clean page in a notebook. But I can’t forget Sean. I can’t forget his dark blue eyes swept with unabashed lashes. I can’t forget the waltzes of Beethoven and Bach that drifted out from his music toys. I can’t forget the way he scooted across the ground and pinched my nose. It’s something I can’t forget. I think that’s how this entire project started—because we couldn’t forget.
Sean passed away during spring break five years ago. He was only six-years-old. When we came back he was gone. No one felt like going on spring break again. So instead we do charity projects. At first there was stifled horror at the thought of trading in our swimsuits for denim, but by the time we looked at the children’s faces we understood.
Two years ago we went to Belize and worked at an orphanage. This year was different though, in every aspect of life and culture as we decided to visit Kenya. Tammy Potter, our de facto coordinator of the entire trip, arranged for us to work through the Koins for Kenya: an organization that builds schools for children in the east African nation.
Later, the Murphy and the Potters, both having students at DHS, arranged for our school to be a special needs school. They wanted the children to remind us of our brother. Sean was mentally challenged, but this fact only made him more lovable. The special needs school was going to be a surprise, but of course two days after arranging it in November they had to tell us. That’s how our student body president (McKay Potter), DHS cheer captain (Lauren Murphy), EMT Postie (Melissa Michels), Neirad nerd (me), and frantic freshman (Jared Murphy) ended up in Africa this past spring break.
Of course, I’ve seen the thousands of commercials about Africa. It’s always seems to be an image of a child on some person’s lap, who drones on about giving coins to some organization. The child looks up with wide eyes softly crying. Then the commercial turns back to the show and the child is forgotten. I hope this isn’t like the commercials. I know these words won’t even begin to tell you. They won’t even give a small degree of the tragedy. Africa remains a forgotten commercial until you hold a child on your own lap and look down to realize the child is crying.
When we first arrived in Kenya, I felt like I was in the twilight zone. We couldn’t go to the village right away so we stayed one night at a hotel. We stumbled in at midnight after two days on a plane and I’m sure I smelled just as good as the baboons by then. I knocked out until the next afternoon. When I woke up I could hear a faint Shania Twain song in the background. I looked up blurry eyed and pulled back the curtain and saw a stretch table and about 10 employees lined up ready to serve us lunch. My mom rushed in, threw a sweater at my face, and told me to hurry—they were waiting. It was at that moment that I realized with horror we were the only ones at the resort. Because of the political unrest in Kenya tourism had seemed to come to a standstill. In an economy that depends on the tourism industry, the hotel was more than excited to have us there. I walked out to the tables while the radio crackled into a bubbly rendition of “I’m a Barbie Girl.” About five sets of eyes focused on me. Suddenly a pork chop was being stuffed in my mouth with a weird mixture of some sort of beef—I hope. It was at this time that I realized the 20 bars of granola in my suitcase weren’t necessary.
After being well fed, we went to the village. The Murphys and the Potters arrived just as we were stepping into the van and they grumbled some sort of gibberish and stumbled into the car. Nothing in Africa can smell worse than the newly discovered scent of jet-lagged coach riders. But suddenly I didn’t mind so much as I looked around the van and saw all 15 of us together. It was then that we started the drive to the village. When we arrived and the hundreds of people surrounded us I felt like I was being shoved along in some wonderful dream.
The ceremony was an entirely different story. While we sat down in our melting plastic chairs the director of Koins for Kenya, Brett, smiled and told us that sometimes the ceremonies go on for five hours. Ours lasted two. The microphones they brought in cracked and sometimes split my ears. The Koins founder spoke, my parents spoke, and about a million obscure politicians decided to use the occasion to do a bit of campaigning. By the second hour the flies swarmed around my sticky hair, my mouth gapped open, and I was sure I was destined to become buzzard food.
Then I felt little fingers touch my face. I turned quickly to prove I wasn’t sleeping and saw a little boy, Kea, smiling at me with a broad grin. He was one of the students for Sean’s school. Most girls go off on spring break and find a guy. Kea was much better. He was about 10-years-old and mentally challenged. I could never understand what he said--only what he meant. He climbed happily up onto my lap, I put my arms around his small sunken belly, and he sighed in happy contentment. A balloon drooped from one of the chairs in front of us and we had a great time bouncing it on one of the politician’s heads.
After the ceremony, we went to the school. I would like to say I built the school and laid down the stones, but I didn’t. At the time of the groundbreaking Kenya was in too much political distress to have us come. It took about all of my family’s strength to keep my mom from making a run to the airport. So instead we had to be content with fundraising efforts back in Darien and getting to paint the building when we arrived.
The people in the tribe led us to the school with a hushed silence and watched us with excited eyes. It is a gorgeous school. Two dorms stood off by the side and a small, neat classroom, complete with a chalkboard, sat in the middle.
When I walked outside from the classroom the students were waiting with their parents. Some tucked themselves behind their mothers’ sarongs. Others looked up with shy smiles. And others took my hand and started dancing. We memorized their pictures before we came. My mom cut them out and put them in a scrapbook and we sat for hours just staring at their broad smiles. When I met them I already knew I loved them. And they seemed to already love us. But that always seems to be the way special needs children love others: unconditionally. All of the children were special needs just like Sean. The children were either epileptic, albino (we shared sunscreen), had enlarged heads, shrunken heads, no arms, were deaf, and most were mentally challenged. But to us they were perfect. We rushed around and emptied our suitcases of the uniforms we brought for them. I remember looking around and seeing all the kids with their t-shirts and starched polos on. They strutted around fingering the collars and tugging at their baseball caps. Near the fence a typical boy watched us with curious eyes. He leaned his head against the post and sadly looked over at us. My sister walked over with an outfit for him, but he refused. He stayed there the entire time watching us. I think it’s the first time a child has looked enviously at special needs child.
We picked up the kids and shuffled them into order near Sean’s customized wood-carved sign. Usually the kids were afraid of the camera and ran away when my mom’s ultra large lens protruded from her eye. But this time they stayed by the sign. Some of the kids remained very serious and puffed up their chests like some great leader. Others convulsed into giggles. I remember looking at the girl with the enlarged head. We unbuttoned her hat the farthest it could go, but it still did not fit her. It remained perched on her head. I looked over worried she would be upset, but in the moment’s flash she looked over and gave one of the most terrific smiles. Her cheeks pinched with red and her white teeth looked startling against her chocolate brown skin. She looked so happy.
After handing out the uniforms and felt books we gave them perhaps the most prized present: a soccer ball. The boys looked up at the holy object then skittered it across the dirt field. Though I am dangerously stepping onto stereotypical ground here, I have to say Kenyans really can run. I clutched at my side, heaving, while the kids ran back and forth looking at me like I am some deranged, crazy girl. The little boy with no arms rushed past me and passed it to the albino boy who angled it perfectly into the goal. I finally stopped and went to the side of the field to hyperventilate while the game continued. Our entire group dwindled down. My mom started complaining about her arthritis five minutes in, Jared gave up after losing two goals, and McKay, our star basketball player, sat down asking for water. After a short break and 
guzzling down the entire lake I went back onto the field. The kids looked at me with pity and then one smiled up at me as he passed me the ball. It spun dizzily off my foot into a dry bush. I smiled weakly and decided I wasn’t much fun to have around so I sat down again. But the boy passed me the ball again. I got up, smiled, and copied his motion to pass it back. We then set off for the next game kicking and passing it to one another. The entire time I watched as my team of little special needs boys passed me that ball faithfully. When a boy looked around for whom to pass to all my team members gave him a meaningful look and nodded their heads in my direction. No one in my gym class has ever done that. I wanted to swing them up in my arms and hug them.
One day, Brett decided it would be terrific fun to have all the young girls (Melissa, Lauren, and me) be “Durma women for a day.” Durma women are not your ordinary housewives. Contrary to our culture’s assumptions of women, Kenyan women do all the hard labor: shucking, farming, cooking, building…while the men…well I was never sure what the men did. I usually saw them sitting under a nice shady part of a tree. We woke up early after a restless night sleep at the Koins center (having spent the entire night watching out for the rats). After a quick visit at the village we each took turns going on Brett’s motorcycle to reach the Durma woman’s home. Cars were out of the question as we bumped over every concave lump in the dirt ground. Brett’s Kenyan friend, Betty, allowed for us to stay the day with her. Near the front of Betty’s mud home was another mud room for cooking and a small shack for the chickens. Betty and her daughters were standing underneath a shady tree watching Melissa shuck corn. The motorcycle jerked to a stop as Brett dropped me off. I got out and smiled shyly at Betty. Her heart shaped face beamed back at me, and her dark skin sparkled with rouged cheeks. She shook my hand and grinned hard up at me. Brett came back with Lauren, dropped her off, gave us one devilish smile, then flipped his leg over the bike and sped-off. I scowled at him under the blistering sun.
Betty handed me a large stick and told me kindly to try using it to crush the kernels of corn left in the bottom of a long, hard wood bowl. But it wasn’t really a stick—it was a log. When she handed it to me I almost tipped over. Squatting I heaved the stick up and let it plunk down on the kernels. I heard a slight crunch and all the children under the tree started to laugh at me. I looked up sheepishly and saw Betty trying to smother a laugh. She picked up the stick—ahem—log, and gave her little six-year-old daughter the other one. They then started to bend up and down quickly. Their arms flexed at their quick motions and their sarongs wisped in the soft made breeze. My mouth gapped open as I looked down into the crushed bits of corn. She let us try again, but it only ended up in more laughs. The corn then had to be turned over in a woven basket to get the strains of shells out. It looked easy enough. But don’t be fooled; corn is a very tricky substance. Lauren did a nice job of almost tipping their entire dinner on the ground, Melissa scattered enough to plump the chickens, and this time the neighbors came out of their houses to laugh at me too.
When the shucking was done the next item on the Kenyan housewife’s daily agenda was picking up some brown, hard pebbles underneath a tree. Lauren started scooping them up with a stick broom Betty handed her. We now had an entire group of about 15 people watching us. Old men leaned against trees, children hovered close, and women nursed their babies as they stared. Wanting to prove to them that American women are strong I began to pick up the pebbles without even a broom. The men laughed hoarsely and the women scrunched up their noses. Lauren looked at me and explained with a laugh that I was picking up goat feces. I swallowed the humiliation that burned in my throat, grumbled about how goats are more like donkeys, and then doused my hand in Purell.
We picked up every last bit of goat waste underneath the tree and then placed them in buckets. Betty smiled at us then handed each of us a head sarong. We were going to carry the goat excrement on our heads to bring to the garden she informed us. The garden was about half a mile walk. With each step I felt like I was reliving the horrors of sophomore track meets. The garden wasn’t even a garden at all. It was hard crumbles of the earth overturned with a few weeds spewing out of dry cracks. The sun blistered on my back and I could feel the tears brimming up in frustration. I looked over and saw a pregnant women bending down with a hoe. I stopped complaining.
Betty knew we were on our last wind and in a very teacher-like way of trying to make an assignment “fun,” she told us that this was going to be a competition. We stared at her through the clumps of our hair and smiled weakly. She handed us each a sharp blade and pointed out the corn and then the weeds to cut. After being reassured at least a thousand times that I wasn’t chopping down their entire food supply for the next few months I began to cut at the weeds. In an effort to look for the proper American term, Betty yelled out “You may start!” Lauren was hacking away at her section close by me; Melissa was no competition as she worked through a root. In the final minutes I was the victor. I started to whoop and Betty grinned happily.
On the way back to the village we were mostly quiet. The humidity still weighed on us and our throats burned for the water we had left in her dark house. We asked a few questions about where the men were. She looked up and smiled “The men work,” she said “but the women work much harder.” We laughed and each took a seldom vow to scold the men when we got back. She then quietly asked us what hard labor we do at home. Lauren made up some excuse about school. Melissa laughed. I stuttered on about how a year ago my parents made me pick weeds. She only said a quiet “oh.” That was all she had to say.
Back at Betty’s small clustered home we fell onto plastic chairs. I weakly stumbled to her house and picked up the water bottles. I let the warm liquid drizzle over my chapped lips and resisted the urge to chug down the rest (I had no idea where the bathroom was and I didn’t want to find out). One little boy walked towards us and us and Betty gingerly picked up him and thrust him on her hip. She then wrapped him like a sausage link into a sarong and strapped him on her back. His pudgy cheek rested on her shoulder and he was asleep before I looked away. She set him back down and then restlessly strode off to the cooking hut to cook dinner. We slumped in our chairs and followed her in to grind more corn.
With an air of pride and excitement, Betty showed us the cassava roots her daughter picked for dinner. It looked like a mutant dried-up tapeworm and I shuddered at the thought of eating it. Betty and Lauren added the final touch to the meal while Melissa and I chopped the cassava. The rest of the group met up with us by then. The guys strutted forward looked down at our cassava and smirked “That’s all that the women have to do? That’s not that much.” I wanted to throw the cassava at their heads.
I could tell Betty was excited to have the entire group finally here. She walked out from the hut with the final product of our hard work: the ooguami. It looked like a dehydrated cow’s brain. The side dish was a nice heaping pile of something that resembled green mucus. I was starving, but somehow my stomach still churned at the impending doom. Betty laid out a mat for all of us to sit on and smiled blissfully. She then set down the food like a chef presenting a masterpiece. I looked down at the white mush and thought of how long it took us to make it. I clenched my jaw, picked up a helping in my fingers and quickly shoved it in my mouth. I chewed slowly and felt the soft grains of the corn against my mouth. It tasted like pulp paper. I smiled at Betty with the corn paste stuck in my throat. There was no napkin to spit it into.
Our last job of the day was to go get water from the lake. It was about a half a mile away. A bit prideful, I picked up an empty bucket, and smiled at my family as if to say “yeah, I’m a Durma woman now.” We walked down to the lake. It was rich chocolate milk cupped by a crumbling cookie colored edge. By the edge of the water there were crude constructed ladles made from parts of buckets. Sheila came over and whispered hoarsely in my ear to not get in the water. If we went in there were snails that could climb up our legs and give us a disease that would kill us in a year. I stretched my ladle out pretty far and screamed when a droplet of water landed on my leg. I swear I saw Betty roll her eyes at me. By that time it seemed Betty’s entire village was with us. The younger girls laughed when I tried wrapping up my head sarong, but then helped me. I had a bucket with only one small hole at the top; like a gasoline tub. I clasped at the top of the rim with my fingers and swaggered forward with unsure steps. Then began the long trek back. I looked out and saw Lauren already way up in front and Melissa clutching the bucket at her stomach; she didn’t last long apparently. The tub seemed to be pushing me into the dirt and I struggled to even lift my foot from the imprint. The water sloshed around and out through the hole, seeping my clothes. Tension and a slight headache pinched behind my ears up to my scalp. I looked up at the girl in front of us. Her hips swung lightly and her hands swayed at her side. She turned and looked at me. I looked like I had just gone swimming with the crocodiles. My hair was stringy and my shirt drenched from the small waterfalls coming over the lip. “Are you okay?” she asked with raised eyebrows in a thick accent. I laughed weakly and nodded carefully while my knees buckled in. I was determined to make it back to the village without taking the bucket off my head. The rest of the trip was true torture. We crossed by a group of guys from the village. They carried large shears over their shoulders and grinned at the girls in front of me. I tried to stand straighter. I think by that time the inky blots of leftover mascara were running nicely down my face. I could feel the sticky mess of the water on the nape of my neck. The guys turned and saw me. I attempted to smile, and they looked away quickly. I sighed and stared up at the women in front of me. They felt my gaze and smiled encouragingly at my grimace. Even with my back aching and my head sinking into my shoulders, I couldn’t suppress the feeling of awe. They were beautiful. Their pride was undiminished; the buckets didn’t stoop their backs like mine, but they thrust their shoulders back with grace. The startling crimson, yellow, and lavender of their sarongs made them seem like rare gems encrusted in a desert. 
Back at the Koins site I rushed for the showers. All I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed. I was more than willing to snuggle up with a rat tonight. I stared at disgust at the bucket they handed out; it reminded me all to well of my little trek. But in a desperate search to scrounge up shampoo I didn’t make it to the shower and fell in line behind the rest of the group. I sat grudgingly down on a plastic chair at the porch. Anthony, another Koins director and native to Africa, saw me and his face broke into a smile. All I could think about was how much I smelled. He sat down eagerly next to me and pulled the chair close. “So how was it?” he asked excitedly. I peeled off my soggy socks and then looked up. “Hard” I said darkly. His smile only widened; I could tell he was expecting as much. “Yes and they have to do it all over again” he said quietly as he ducked his face to meet my downcast eyes. “Kimberly” he said my name and I looked up at him. The tone of his voice was different; it was soft and trembled with the fervor of thought. He told me how he went to America a few months ago. He talked about how he went to Disneyland, screamed on the rollercoaster, screamed louder as he climbed onto the passenger’s lap next to him, ate at the buffets…” Then he paused. My eyes hadn’t left his face. His soft brown lips pulled up and his white teeth smiled a tragic, lovely smile. “It was too much” he said finally. I laughed uneasily. I love those things. I love going to Disneyland, I love my warm bed, and I love hot running water… “It is too much, Kimberly.” I nodded and realized he was right. My day was a testimony to that. The people here worked so hard and yet they still smiled. Then Anthony’s brow crinkled “I go to America and yet there is depression, drugs, divorces…” He let me think about that for a moment. I could only nod. “And they are so selfish.” He stared at me. "Kimberly, you must stop being so selfish.” I balked at my name. I wasn’t selfish. Hadn’t I come here? Wasn’t I here now? But he said it without a laugh. It was the first time someone has called me selfish. A small part of me knew he was right. “Kimberly, it is too much” he said finally. He left me with those words.
The rest of the trip went by in a rush. We hop scotched all over Kenya, visiting every safari. The animals took my breath away. The giraffes bowed their heads over a watering hole. The lions prowled by our open truck. Their fur was like a draped robe around their limbs. I woke up to a baboon kneading his knuckles against the porch as he crawled towards a breakfast of bugs. Our safari driver, Joseph, was a former Maasii warrior. He explained with perfect patience why the people knock their bottom two teeth out and told us stories of him being nearly killed by a lion. He held his head high with a calm yet proud presence as he looked for animals. The rest of us jostled around uneasily in his truck. Kyle nearly flung himself off into the bushes, Sheila laid out in the back seat like the Queen of Sheba eating her peanut M&M’s, Melissa stared off at some unseen object while listening to her iPod, and my parents looked like the way too eager Thornberry couple with their binoculars and cameras.
After about two hours of being on a drive one day I looked up to hear my parents laughing at something. My mom got our attention and pointed to a little impala, no bigger than a medium sized dog bounding along the road directly in front of our jeep. “He’s been going like that for a mile now” my mom said as she snapped 50 more pictures of the animal’s behind. I turned my head and scouted out for the Murphy and Potter car. I saw the Potters and they, too, pointed with dizzy delight at our little friend. We had seen about a thousand little impalas that day already, but this little guy just wouldn’t leave us alone. He kept his place right in front of us, kicking his legs out and running. We thought for sure he would steer of the dirt road into the underbrush, but he kept going. When Joseph slowed the engine the little impala stopped for a moment, turned his head, and looked at us with quizzical eyes. His little stub tail thumped against his behind and he jerked his shoulder ready to run whenever our engine revved. When we started again he bounded once more in front of us. We named him Tommy since he was a Thomson gazelle and already held him at the ranks of sighting a lion. Tommy stayed with us for about another three miles. There was one point when he cut into the bushes, but a water buffalo charged him back into the road. We snapped another million pictures since water buffalos don’t usually react that way. Finally, Tommy left us at a turn. He cut off the road and went into long stemmed grasses. Joseph assured us there was a herd up ahead so we settled back into our seats, content with the memory.
We turned right and Tommy was forgotten as Joseph announced there was a rhino sighting near the river. We were off to the next big thing. Five minutes into the ride to find the rhino Joseph’s radio crackled. A voice came on and said something in Swahili. Joseph turned and smiled saying they had found two cheetahs with a kill. Our wheels squelched through a thick paste of mud and we sped off back to where we had come. The jeep grumbled over a small hill that looked eerily familiar. “Mom, isn’t this where we found Tommy?” Kyle asked innocently. “It does look familiar” she stuttered. “Oh I think it is” my Dad said behind his binoculars. Melissa sighed. Sheila yawned. Then we saw them. The cheetahs hunched over a small dead animal. They looked up at the dinner intruders with bloody nuzzles. After a quick glance they turned and struck again at a piece of choice meat covered in crimson blood. It was a little impala. “Joseph” I rushed to the front of the jeep “is that Tommy?” I cried. He was still for a moment, reluctant, and then admitted quietly “Yes, yes I think it is.” I sat down and stared at the massacre. If it had been any other impala… “Unusual” I heard Joseph mutter. I picked up my camera and mechanically took a few pictures. No one was very excited. The cheetahs fought over the body. They were so powerful and he, our Tommy, was so weak. They snarled and snapped the air as they reached their lips toward one of his legs. We turned around after a few minutes and went back the way we came, suddenly sickened by the circle of life.
I leaned my head against the railing of the jeep and sighed. I couldn’t stop thinking of the kids. How like Tommy they were so young, so small compared to their lions. They were so weak compared to that poverty they could not tame, to that destitution they could not deny. What kept me from being with them, in their same position? The cheetahs could kill me in one swift moment. With one giant paw they could end my life. What held them back was a car, a rustic jeep. Something materialistic…I thought of the children, who like Tommy, ran after our van into the village. I thought of their pinched cheeks and small legs rushing to catch us. I know I couldn’t bring Tommy with me…but if I could have driven with him for a while longer maybe things would have been different. That is why we are going back next year to Africa. We cannot leave the kids behind. We will not tuck them into our minds as just one more trip we went on. A footprint doesn’t leave a lasting imprint when the rain comes every year. We will not act as that one cloud, during a drought, that the people put their hope in and then find a clear, dry sky in the morning. We won’t leave them alone against what neither of us can tame.
Yet Tommy reminds me of another. Tommy didn’t seem to belong in this world. The calm water buffalo charged at him and the cheetahs found him so easily; in fact he found them. The entire world seemed to be pitted up against the small animal. Perhaps Tommy died to find us and to show us why we must stay. His death alone could remind us that there are a thousand others. His herd remains; they look off at nowhere and huddle close with wide eyes. Then all around them prowl cheetahs and lions. Tommy’s intelligent eyes smiled at us as he ran toward a den of lions, a pack of cheetahs. Then he darted into the bushes; he went to a place where we could not see him. When we came back he was gone. We are going back to save the herd still hunted by the cheetahs. None will be like Tommy. None will be loved as much as Tommy, but we must save them. And so a little boy whispers us this same message. A little brother returned to heaven so that he could orchestrate a symphony occurring below him.
