Chai Tea Sunday (13 page)

On the morning of my first day of volunteer teaching, I rose early. There was no way to deny it: I was nervous. And my nervousness had created insomnia. I had been a teacher for almost ten years by that point, yet my nerves were experiencing a new kind of jumpiness I had never felt before. I was concerned about the language barrier. I was anxious about fitting in, particularly given that I would be the odd white person standing out in a room of thirty-five black faces. And I was downright scared about how two teachers could successfully manage (and teach!) thirty-five students of all different ages.

I grabbed my last granola bar and headed out early. On our Saturday tour, Mama Bu had pointed out where Kidaai was and told me that she would probably see me there later in the day. She had planned on taking me to introduce me to Jebet, but Kiano had returned the night before saying that Lucy's eldest daughter had developed a high fever. Mama Bu had spent the night tending to her.

I was expected to arrive at seven o'clock and had been instructed to ask for Jebet, who would show me to the single-room school. The orphan children would have eaten their breakfast at that point and would be playing in the yard, waiting for their first lesson to begin.

I walked ten minutes up the road, choking back garbage smoke and sneezing from the dust. As the orphanage drew nearer, I saw beside the dilapidated building uniformed children running about an open field, skipping and smiling as they played. They didn't see me at first, so I took advantage of the few moments of solitude to soak up the authentic world of Kenyan children.

The children seemed happy, chasing each other on the dried grass and falling to the ground in bubbly giggles. It reminded me of the countless recess periods I had supervised over the years — with the exception of hopscotch courts, swings and slides. Instead of playground equipment, these shoeless students used feathers, sticks and discarded trash as centrepieces for their imaginative games. I silently applauded the endless innovation that I knew only children could muster.

A young girl about ten years old was the first to spot me watching them play and she ran up to me shouting the now-expected “
Mzungu! Mzungu!
” She pointed at me for all of her friends to see. Within moments, every child that had been playing in the field trampled over the dirty, dried-out ground to throw themselves at my feet. I had about twenty children — all of them in school uniform but none of them in shoes — pulling at my hands and shirt and pants and hair in greetings filled with joy.

The kids took turns shaking my hand and, as I greeted each one of them in turn, I noticed that almost all of their school uniforms were torn and ratty. The shorts and shirts on the majority of the children didn't fit correctly; some needed to roll sleeves and others were barely able to squeeze into their undersized uniforms.

The stench of the group was overwhelming and I forced myself to avoid covering my nose. The children smelled as though they hadn't bathed in months and the majority of them had filthy faces and noses that were both crusty and running with snot.

They all had matching shaved heads that were as identical as the uniforms they wore, and I found it difficult to tell the difference between boys and girls. Later, I found out that the children had their heads shaved to keep things as easy and clean as possible — but, because of this, the only real thing that I could distinguish between them was their ages. The youngest was close to five, and the oldest, fourteen.

One of the smaller children took my hand and said, “Me Gracie. How are you?”

“I am great,” I answered, exaggerating a big smile with my mouth and hands. I chose a different word in hopes of teaching them an answer other than
fine
. “How are you, Gracie?”

“Fine!” the children echoed.

“Do any of you speak English?” I asked, still holding two of their hands.

“We do!” a few of the older kids answered, sticking their hands in the air. One of them asked, “Are you teacher?”

“Yes, I am. My name is Nicky. What are your names?”

“I am Nadia and this is my brother, Ita. We speak English.”

“It is nice to meet you both. Can you please tell me where I can find Jebet?”

Wide-eyed, Nadia and Ita both pointed to the second floor of the large and decrepit orphanage. Just as I was about to ask which door I should go in to find the
mkuu
, I noticed piercing eyes so pointed they looked like slits staring down at me from the largest of the upstairs windows. I instantly knew it was Jebet. She held the sheer curtain to the right side of the window with a thick, oversized stick. Through the barred opening, the woman looked stern and ominous as she cast her browbeating stare onto the group of us standing in the field. She shook her head slowly from side to side and I could practically hear her hissing insults.

I raised my hand in what I hoped was a welcoming wave, but the woman darted to the side of the window and out of my line of sight, marking her departure with the clash of her stick against the metal-barred window.

“Hello?” I called, entering the orphanage through the red front door. As I pushed it open, paint peeled off and fell to the floor.

“
Ndiyo
?”
A voice called back.
Yes? A skinny woman wearing a dark blue apron emerged from what I could only imagine was the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel filled with holes. “Oh!
Karibu
! You Nicole?”

“Yes, I am Nicole. I am here to volunteer in the classroom and help teach. Are you Hasina?”

“Oh no, Hasina no help in kitchen. She teach in classroom,” the woman replied. “I am Johanna. I help with cooking and cleaning for orphanage. Jebet told me that you coming this morning to help teach.” Johanna smiled at me and pumped my hand up and down energetically as she introduced herself. After the chilly stare of Jebet, I was grateful to meet a smiling face.

“Do you know where I can find Jebet? I was told to meet her here this morning.”

“She not down yet. Still sleeping in her room. But I can show you to class if you'd like?”

“Yes, thank you. That would be great!” I knew I couldn't avoid Jebet forever, but was admittedly relieved to have postponed my first face-to-face encounter.

Johanna took me on a route through the orphanage and out the back door. As we passed through the crumbling kitchen, its stone walls decaying and in desperate need of repair, I noticed a stack of dirty plates piled high in an oversized, square sink. In the centre of the room, a bulky pot with a cinched waist held a round bowl-like top. Upon eyeing it, Johanna pointed to the ceramic pot and told me it was called a
jiko
. “We use it to prepare food. It make cooking easy and cheap.”

I followed Johanna through the back door. It swung awkwardly outward on two broken bottom hinges.

We continued through a dusty backyard passageway to a separate, self-standing building with a shingled red roof. We walked through the open door frame of the school into a single classroom where a short black woman passed out papers to a row of empty desks.

Watching the woman, I was transfixed by how much the scene reminded me of my own classroom: a teacher passing out papers in an empty room in hopes that proactive preparation would help create focused learning once the kids came in from playing. Yet the differences were as glaring. No kids' paintings hung on the crumbling cement walls, the thick globs of bright red and purple brushstrokes still drying from that morning's art lesson. There was no seasonal bulletin board filled with influences from that month's traditions and festivities, and no sand or water stations littered the classroom. No chalkboard hung at the front of the room, and there certainly was no bookcase filled with Dr. Seuss and Robert Munsch.

It was simply a dirty, bare room. Squished together rows of rectangle tables were used as desks. Lining the tables were benches, some broken and some not. All were scrunched together in an attempt to ensure that as many students as possible could fit into the classroom. At the front of the room was a small desk with three drawers lining each side of the chair. I assumed it was Hasina's. The top of the desk was bare with the exception of a tub of chewed pencils and nubby erasers.

The petite woman looked up from distributing the papers and smiled at me, her almond-shaped eyes crinkling in the corners. “Hello there. Might you be Nicole? I've been expecting you. And I'm so glad you're here to help.”

“Yes, Hasina, I am Nicole, but please call me Nicky. I'm excited to be here. Can I help you pass out the papers?”

Johanna gave a little wave and quietly exited out the door we had come through, her English not strong enough to keep up with the conversation.

I took the stack of blank papers Hasina handed to me and placed them side by side along the front tables, mirroring the Kenyan teacher's squished spacing.

When we were finished, Hasina retrieved a handheld bell, reminiscent of what my mother would give us to ring when we were in bed with the flu and needed her attention. Hasina motioned for me to follow her outside where she rang the bell high and loud. Within seconds, the children I had seen playing in the field came stampeding by us like the running of the bulls. Shrieks of laughter trailed behind them as they took their seats.

Hasina rapped a flat stick at the front of the classroom to get the students' attention. I looked around, wincing at how mashed together the students were, sitting side by side on the benches. For the most part, the older kids sat together at the back of the classroom and the younger ones gathered at the front.

“
Sabalheri wanafunzi
,” Hasina opened the day, bidding her students good morning. Thankfully, I was standing beside an English-speaking preteen who took one look at me before whispering the translations in my ear. The girl looked to be about twelve with breast buds revealing the onset of puberty. I smiled, quietly thanking her.

Hasina continued by giving the pupils the
habari za asubuhi —
in English, the morning news and messages. She explained that school would let out early that day because she had to leave to attend a meeting. I waited for the children to jump up and down, clapping and cheering at the prospect of trading in school lessons for playtime, just as they would have back home.

But not one of them responded the way I was expecting. If anything, some of them looked a bit disappointed. Even more surprising, complete silence continued to fill the room as Hasina went over the morning announcements. Somehow, the teacher was able to continue to hold the undivided attention of all thirty-five students. I admired her proficiency; classroom management was a skill that I constantly worked at mastering.

I wondered if Hasina was going to introduce me next, but instead she updated the class on one of the younger students, who was absent from school. Iman would not be returning to school on that day, or in the future. Johanna, who had shown me through the school, would tell me later, in confidence, that Iman had been with the orphanage for two years, but that his uncle had unexpectedly visited Kidaai and retrieved his nephew to work on his land. The uncle hadn't wanted Iman until he was old enough to tend to farm work; he had no use for his nephew when he was young and weak, but wanted him back now that the child was old enough for man's work. At seven years old.

Now Hasina waved for me to join her at the front of the class. I stepped forward and waved at the class, bidding them hello in Swahili. They smiled and waved, but still remained perfectly behaved.

“This is
Mwalimu
Nicky,”
Hasina said, “Teacher Nicky. She will be with us for the next little while, helping you to learn.” Hasina bounced back and forth between English and Swahili, wanting to make sure both the younger children and I understood.

“Now, let's begin our studies,” Hasina continued. “We will start this morning by continuing our social studies discussion on the countries of Africa. Yesterday we spoke of Kenya, and learned all about what surrounds us, including our location within the African continent, our cultures and what animals roam throughout our land. Today we will look at other African countries.”

I took a seat at the back of the class and observed the children. Hasina seemed to connect directly with the seven- to nine-year-old students, their eager faces nodding and taking in what she was saying. But the youngest students looked lost. And the older students, bored.

The twelve-year-old that had translated for me earlier ignored what Hasina was saying, silently rolling the sides of the blank paper sitting in front of her, shutting out her surroundings. I suspected it was because she already knew what was being taught.

Hasina crossed to her own desk and removed a small stack of thin textbooks, almost all of them falling apart at the seams. “We share the books as we only have eleven,” Hasina said to me in English, handing ten of them to me so that I could randomly distribute the books throughout the class. I passed them out and the children quickly clustered together to share the book closest to them.