The Black Shoe

Disclaimer: This is a FICTIONAL kenya story, which became my major story for my fiction wrting class. Like a lot of fiction, it is based on different experiences I've had and different people I've known, and it's been interesting to integrate reality with the make-believe. And yes, the last scene is something from a prior story- let's just say I recycle. For your benefit, a swahili glossery is prvided at the end. And without further adeiu.

“Praise him! Pra-aise him! Praise him in the morning! Praise him in the noontime! Praise him! Pra-aise him! Praise him when the sun goes down!” About fifty Kenyan children, all dressed in ragged uniforms greeted the Americans in exuberant squeals, singing in nasally broken English. The rays of light from the equatorial sun beamed down on the dusty grey pavement they called their playground, reflecting off their beautiful black faces. Hannah felt such delight and pride in being there with them and sung along with the children. The sisters sat Tamera and Hannah down in two school desktops right above everyone and a boy who looked no more than ten pounded on his djembe. And the children began their dance. Tamera felt uncomfortable sitting above them like that, as if they were the wezungu Queens of the playground.
After the entertainment concluded, the girls took their turn to introduce themselves to the children. With an enthusiastic step up her rickety desk, the evangelist went first:
“Bwana asifiwe!” Gales of giggles erupted from the children. They were clearly not used to white people trying to speak their tongue. The sisters reprimanded them, probably asking in Kiswahili “And how should we respond?”
“Amen!” the little ones chirped. A lower-toned more skeptical “Amen” came from the older kids.
“Jina langu ni Hannah na nimeokoka!” she pronounced proudly, as though she were at a beauty pageant.
“Habari, Hannah!” they responded, not quite in unison.
“Mzuri sana!” Hannah cried delightfully. She curtsied in her pink floral dress with a wide, toothy smile. The kids ooed and awed at the whiteness of her teeth and the long length of her gleaming hair. She sat back down in her desktop, her pink cheeks basking in the sun.
Tamera looked at her as to say, “That’s it?” All Hannah had to do was smile. It was the activist’s turn to improve upon that. “Salama wetatu!” They once again laughed. Tamera’s long, gangly legs stood awkwardly before she realized her introduction was not complete:
“Jina langu ni Tamera na...” she hesistated, “nimeokoka!” She went on allowing no stop for them to greet her: “We are so happy to be with you, to play with you, and to teach you. And we’re hoping we can learn from you as well!” When the teacher translated her final thought a group of older students burst out in rampant giggles, hiding their little heads, for awe of the rich American girls. Tamera sank back into her chair; with her cropped hair and crooked teeth, she was not as admired as her ministry partner.
Teacher then asked the girls to “sing song”. Hannah and Tamera only knew one song very well in Kiswahili, and they didn’t even know the whole song. They decided to sing it even though the kids were probably expecting an American song:
“Ni wewe! Ni wewe Bwana! Ni wewe, ni wewe Bwana!” They repeated this line possibly 10 times before we got worn by the repetition. A batch of 5-6 year olds smacked their hands, dancing on the dirt in utter delight. The older students did not seem to care much. Tamera was sure they had their share of traveling wezungu. “This is it.” Tamera whispered inwardly. These people were the people she was placed here to help — them and the Njines, their host family who lived a kilometer down the road from the slum school. This was her first step towards changing the world.
---
Tamera knew the moment they settled on board the plane from Dubai to Nairobi that something was wrong. All the bags Hannah had with her- did she really need them? The activist tried to push that and Hannah’s perfectly styled hair out of her mind- after all, the two of them went back – were best friends in middle school. Tamera and Hannah always dreamed about Africa together. Now, fresh out of college, they both made it there. But presently, Tamera couldn’t help but feel that her mission had been intruded upon. She did not have high expectations for Hannah, who was raised in an upper class American bubble.
Today was the first time the sisters took them to their school. Tamera was about to get her Masters in Teaching and was hoping to teach secondary students; instead, the girls were placed at a school of over 200 primary students. As the youngest of her family, Tamera had never been around little children enough to relate with them. Hannah, on the other hand, loved playing games with children. She squealed as soon as she found a group of girls playing jump rope and immediately jumped in. “Tammy, jump in!” she beckoned. Tamera refused; her long legs always got her tangled in the rope. After getting out of breath, the little girls swarmed around Hannah, braiding and playing with her soft hair. Tamera watched as Hannah engaged them in one of her gospel outlines from a track she always carried in her pocket. Tamera wanted to play with the kids too, but she couldn’t keep from scrunching her face as Hannah went through concepts the children could only perceive in their own language. The little girls did look confused, but the track had pictures, so they all huddled closely around Hannah, pressing against her, touching her hands, her feet, her face, her dress and her hair. Tamera had nothing to show. She only had class time to make a deep impression, but that was even worse than recess.
Hannah beamed at Tamera on the way home. “Wasn’t that fun?” the cheerful evangelist said lightly, overcoming her cohort with giggly energy.
“It would be better if we taught in the same classroom everyday.” Tamera qualified.“There’s no way we can form relationships with 200 kids. We can’t learn all their names.”
“I know some names!” Hannah chirped. “Ruth, Naomi, Deborah, Serona, Joy...”
Tamera hurried Hannah home, knowing the Njines were waiting for them. After cold showers and a change into clean clothes, everyone piled into Baba Esther’s Land Rover- Tamera, Hannah, Mama and Baba Esther, their twin girls, Esther and Charity, and their friends Ruth and Paul. Tamera was pressed against Hannah’s sweaty elbow the entire ride. She kept nudging Hannah to move over a few inches, but Hannah was too busy letting the twins climb over her to notice. After two towns, they drove through bumpy hills and valleys filled with African trees. Hannah kept craning her neck over Tamera to see if she could spot any wild life anywhere. There was none to be found- only cows and goats led by Masai in their red plaid and vibrant jewelry. Tamera sighed as Hannah kept crying for her stupid giraffe. Excited for their new friend, the twins started yelling as well.
The scene grew more beautiful as the roads became narrower and drifted around what the Njines told them was the southern part of the Rift Valley. “THIS is Africa!” Hannah squealed in a voice which made Tamera wince. But even she had to admit that this was also her “romantic” view of Africa before they came here; now Tamera really did hope to see a giraffe. Instead, the car took a turn into the “Rift Valley Country Club.” The girls both hid a gasp when they saw the sign. Hannah was excited - she never thought she’d go to a country club in Kenya. As they got out of the car, she chattered about her childhood- The Essex Country Club with her family and everything she did there. Her tennis lessons, swim team, dance, fencing. Esther and Charity were enthused- they were starting golf lessons soon. The Njines asked Tamera what she had done and she welcomed the interruption when a group of Masai people danced for their table, which would’ve been great, Tamera thought, if they had seen them in their actual home. Hannah squealed in laughter, like she already forgot where they were just hours before. Throughout dinner, Tamera interrupted her laughter, whenever possible, to tell the Njines about the impoverished conditions of the slum the family lived down the road from, but never entered.
---
They squeezed into the bright orange frame of matatu 34. The aisle was narrow and the ceiling was low, making Tamera hit her head almost every time she tried to crawl on board. She had no problem letting Hannah take care of the money. She did not feel the need to deal with the matatu conductors- they always tried to charge them double, associating their skin color with their wealth. Hannah knew to handle them- “Hapana!” she barked. “We give you thirty shillings, like everyone else!” Out of her huge, embarrassingly sequined bag she presented two coins. .
The girls nearly ran down the dirt roads to get to the Otiende compound where the sisters were waiting. They started down the trail, through a garland of flowers where men without jobs were hired to tend. The sisters greeted the men with a cheerful “habari zenu,” to which they replied, “mzuri sana!” The girls emulated the sisters in sing song vocals. Sr. Marie Rose engaged the men in dialogue neither of the girls’ Kiswahili was proficient enough to understand. However, one man was friendly enough to soon break out in English:
“Why are you Americans here?” His stern eyes looked Hannah in the face. “You so rich, you just touring through! This is where we live.” With a fearful zealousness, Hannah reached in her bag for a track, but Tamera interrupted before she could grab one.
“We’re here because we do care.” Tamera quipped. He turned towards the plainer girl.
“Ah, but you don’t care,” his chalky teeth spat. “You pass through and go on home.” The activist cast her eyes down to the dirt with nothing to say. Hannah looked at the man and noticed that his face was nothing but honest. “Jina nani?” she inquired, with the best smile she could force.
“My name is Peter!” the man exclaimed, surprised at Hannah’s attempt. “Na wewe?”
“Jina langu ni Hannah and this is Tamera.” The girls smiled angelically.
“We are not like all Americans,” the activist started again, enunciating her words articulately, so he could understand. “We want to help Kenyans like you and that is why we are here!”
“You want to help? Me?” His mustache curled up with his yellow teeth.
“Sure we do! That’s why we’re here!” Tamera said, starting to sound enthusiastic as Hannah, who nudged her, silently trying to communicate.
“I better get your contact info!” Before the girls had time to say anything, Peter dropped his tools and ran quickly to his tin house, searching for a scrap of paper. His house was swamped by sewage. He wondered what it’d be like if he ever made it to America.
Hannah looked at Tamera as if to say “Look what you did.” They were told many times not to give their contacts random Kenyans they met. Tamera looked back as the sisters and the girls started moving down the path. Peter sprinted to catch up. His hands flung excitedly in the breeze, gripping a dirty piece of paper. “Do you have a pen? Do you have a pen?” he cried. America was no longer so far away. Tamera looked at him anxiously, not knowing how to respond.
“No, I do not have a pen on me,” she lied. She carried one in her small journal and pen in her dress pocket.
“Oh. I should get back to work,” The man’s sleeve-torn shoulders hunched over, his disappointment not covert.
“So sorry.” Tamera really was. It was out of her hands- she did not even have any available shillings or food to loan out. The man hung his head down as the girls moved on. Hannah wanted to talk to him about the gospel but as she was reaching for a track, the sisters crooned to him in Kiswahili something she couldn’t understand. The man gazed at the girls and left. They moved down a steep red hill, hiking up their skirts to keep from falling flat on their faces.
-----
After a tiring hike, the girls grumpily arrived through the bright blue gates. Hannah wanted to throw up; Tamera wanted to go home. The evangelist and the activist. There for different reasons, now feeling similar tension. While the real school lessons went on, they were led into their own quarters and fed cookies and quencher, which none of the school children had to consume – the privileged wezungu planned their English lesson and sat in silence, while voices of children rung out in song. They were in recess. Hannah did not join them for jump rope. She looked up at her partner, who was busy focusing on the corner of the room. With a deep breath, she tapped Tamera’s shoulder.
“Do you have something against me?” She wanted to ask that for so long. Tamera glanced at her and didn’t say anything. She couldn’t think of how much she disliked Hannah at this point. Everything she disliked her for, she proved to be - another lousy tourist American. The girls were silent. Tamera blew her grainy wispies out of her face as she tried to digest the cough syrupy cherry flavor of the quencher. Hannah did not touch hers. Her graceful hands tucked in her head to say a prayer. The sisters ducked into the room. “Huruma,” they called Hannah by the new name they had given her. “Don’t you want to go play with the kids?” They didn’t have a name for Tamera. Hannah declined and the girls sat in silence until the sisters came back, retrieving them to teach their lesson.
----
They didn’t spend any superfluous time at the school; the sisters ushered them in and out. As they left the bright blue gates, the girls walked in between the two sisters- the barrier between them and the world of Kibera. The curious activist asked her ministry partner what she was praying about at the school. She said she realized she was ashamed to be an American. She had good intentions, Tamera recognized as she herself did not think of good things. Her head sulked as her foot sank deep in the soggy ground.
“Sorry!” chirped Sister Marie Clarence as Tamera picked herself up from the sticky mire she meant to cross over. Her long, khaki skirt did not have enough give for her to fully extend her legs over that awaiting pit. One of her black Reeboks was drenched in sewage, but only the fringe ends of her skirt got the rest. She managed to kick some of the slime off her shoe so she could carefully step down the boulder without slipping. “No wonder David asked God to give him straight paths,” Hannah sang light-heartedly. “Not a bad thing to say,” Tamera reflected. The evangelist spoke of Psalms where crooked and narrow paths with pits and muddy mires were often referenced.
Tamera had to watch every single step as they treaded boulders and crossed over hollow (or filled up) sewage creeks where the dogs and the hens made their home. Some of these “creeks” had footbridges, which were hubcaps, sticks, broken banisters, thin sheets of metal. Every step she took mattered, and because of this, she seldom looked up to observe the hot tin-roofed homes or the local life. Nor did she notice anyone who begged for food or money. She only saw what her feet saw.
Hannah made observations about everything. Her head looked forward, not stooping down. All Tamera could do was glance quickly at a person, nod and say “habari yako” and look back down before they had the chance to say “mzuri!” Hannah played with the children, greeting each little one with a “Sasa” to which they replied “Fite!” A dozen children stormed the girls in a “How are YOU!” chorus. Hannah laughed heartily, swinging their hands and ruffling their hair. The sisters smiled warmly at “Huruma.”
Closer to the outskirts of the housing developments, Tamera saw a little girl scolding her friends. Moved to reach a troubled child, she cried “SASA!” as friendly and enthusiastically as she could muster. In a deep, womanly voice, the girl hollered back “SOME ARE POOR!” Tamera’s face turned crimson as she realized the girl’s “friends” were her children.
Tamera’s head hung further down, knowing she wasn’t lovable as her cohort. Flies swarmed around her and did not swat them off. Part of her wanted to fall on her face, emerging the rest of her body with he sewage mud. Her tall and strong frame cringed low, and presently she felt small and weak. Hannah’s hearty laughs ruptured through her brain and Tamera nearly fell in a ditch- but Hannah and Sr. Rose Marie grabbed the back of her shirt, pulling her back. Hannah noticed her partner’s eyes swelling with tears and held her hand.
They were just about to leave the tin houses, ducking under wet laundry, which dripped incessantly on their heads. Tamera’s heart hung heavy as she thought back to Peter. A lady, doing her laundry, observed her wet foot. She said something, but Tamera kept walking, looking straight ahead. Then she did a double take; “Did she say something to me?” she asked Sister Marie Clarence.
“Yes. She asked if she could wash your shoe off.”
“Sho-should I say yes?”
“Ndiyo.” Tamera smiled, a little flustered, and shyly approached the lady to accept her offer. The lady, with her decorous changa wrapped around her head and her knees bent, dunked her own, slightly clean rag into the soapy water and meticulously washed all of the mud off Tamera’s shoe. She used the same water for her family’s clothing to wash the girl’s foot. The girls stood wondering how much water she actually had available for use. Hannah wondered where her clean water came from. She washed the shoe until the blackness of it shined, and then she went on to her other shoe, which was just a little dusty. Tamera looked at her, into her black shining eyes, and saw God. Her eyes lit up, her feet felt the rhythm of African drums. A new sensation warmed Tamera from head to toe. She thanked the lady- the usually low tone of Tamera’s voice was raised to a shout:
“Asante Sana! Mungu akubariki!” Her lips stuttered over this last word. The Kenyans roared in laughter. The lady cried in exuberant glee, “something something Kiswahili!?” Tamera shook her head, grinning at the lady.
“I know only kidogo Kiswahili!”
“Kidogo!!” The sisters and the lady had a good laugh over that one.
They were all laughing as the girls, armed with their English lessons and inadequacy, attempted to hike back up the steep, mountainous hill. Tamera could hear the echoes of children singing in loud, nasally English in her head. She started to sing to herself as she tripped over the hill. Hannah and the sisters joined her- each voice, uniquely different, all joined into one.


Glossary
Wezungu: white people
Bwana Asifiwe: praise the Lord
Jina langu ni: My name is
Na nimeokoka: And I am saved.
Salama: peace
Wetatu- children
Habari: How are you? (general use)
Habari yako: How are you? (directed from one individual to another)
Habari zenu: How are you? (directed at a group of people)
Mzuri (sana): I am (very) good
Ni wewe Bwana: It is only you Lord.
Matatu: a passenger van used as a bus
Chai: Does not refer to spiced chai tea, but Kenyan tea is called chai
Na wewe: and you?
Sasa: slang greeting to a child
Fite: child’s response to sasa, literally means “fit”
Huruma: Mercy
Ndiyo: yes
Asante sana: Thank you very much
Mungu akubariki: God bless you
Kidogo: a little