In a rounded corner of the hut, Katie noticed a modern saucepan balanced on a propane camping stove and a ceramic bowl with two bananas.
Cheryl and the woman spoke as Katie adjusted herself cross-legged on the mat. Only two of the young girls had followed Katie into the hut. Clearly the indicators of a woman in angst looked the same in every culture. Empathetically, the little girls stayed close to Katie as she took deep breaths and tried to calm down.
“You are welcome here,” Cheryl translated. “You may speak, rest, or eat—whatever you like.”
“Thank you.” Katie turned to the woman. “Asante sana.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Katie?” Cheryl asked.
“No. It’s not as if there’s anything that can be done. It’s crazy that he’s here, though. I mean, what are the odds of Michael being here now?”
“How do you know Michael?”
“He was my boyfriend from high school. He’s brash and arrogant. I broke up with him because he wasn’t a Christian, and he was pulling me away from my close friends and the Lord. It wasn’t a good relationship.”
“You dated him even though he wasn’t a Christian?”
Katie gritted her teeth. She wished she hadn’t revealed that detail to Cheryl. It had taken her long enough to convince Eli’s parents that she was in Kenya to serve and that she was a fine and upright choice of a girlfriend and even a possible future wife for their son. Giving Cheryl another reason to doubt Katie’s stability or maturity as a Christian wasn’t what she wanted to do.
Although, at this moment, Katie didn’t know what she wanted.
Cheryl’s calm voice washed over the moment. “It’s okay, Katie. My first boyfriend wasn’t a Christian either. If I hadn’t met Jim when I did, I don’t know what sort of life I would have ended up with. God knows what he’s doing. He is the sustainer.”
Cheryl repeated her last line in Swahili, and the older woman, along with Katie’s two little attendants, echoed the blessing. “Mpaji ni Mungu.”
“Mpaji ni Mungu,” Katie replied under her breath.
“Are you okay staying here?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Cheryl gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s all for a reason. You know that.”
“What possible reason?”
“I have no idea.”
Cheryl left with a smile, and Katie felt her shoulders relax. Part of her wanted to shake off the little girls the way she would shake off ants that had decided to use her arm as a bridge. But these girls couldn’t be shooed away. They didn’t know what catastrophic things were happening inside her at the moment. Or maybe instinctively they did. Maybe they knew something emotional and intense was happening with Katie, and they were doing what women of all ages and all cultures do in such a time — they were offering their support and comfort.
Her hostess motioned for Katie to lie down on the mat and rest. The woman had no trouble shooing the little girls away. Trying her best to get comfortable, Katie curled up on the mat and used the open palm of her hand as a makeshift pillow. She fell asleep almost immediately and woke to the sound of hushed giggling.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the hut’s dim light and to remember where she was. Two new little girls were sitting cross-legged, with their hands over their mouths, watching Katie from only a foot away. The older woman was gone.
“Was I snoring?” Katie asked.
The girls giggled again and reached over to touch her hair. Katie pulled herself into an upright position and smiled at the girls. She reached over and touched their hair. They giggled again and talked to her, pointing at her head.
“Yes, I know. It looks like my head is on fire, doesn’t it?”
The girls didn’t indicate that they understood anything she said. They playfully reached over and touched her hair and then pulled back their fingers just in case they were going to get in trouble for their boldness. One of the girls left, and the other clambered onto Katie’s lap. She touched Katie’s face with her finger and then touched her bare arm. She touched it again and again.
“Are you counting my freckles? Let me know your final count. I’ve always wondered how many there are.”
The little girl, Katie realized, was the same, thin child who had attached herself to Katie when they had arrived. She looked fresher now, undoubtedly having had a prance under the water spigot and partaking of all she could drink. Just that fast, her general appearance seemed enlivened. Clean water was going to transform this village.
“Let’s go outside,” Katie suggested. “I want to take a picture of you.”
The girl followed Katie’s lead. They stepped into the afternoon brightness, and Katie spotted Eli sitting in the shade of one of the huts, listening to two elderly men. His face was positioned toward the hut where Katie had been napping, and as she emerged, he seemed to watch her every move. She felt that he was watching out for her. Checking in on her. Making sure she was all right.
Four more little girls pranced over to Katie and staked their territory up and down her arms. They led her over to a shady spot away from where Eli was and persuaded her to sit down. She obliged and crossed her legs, making herself comfortable, expecting that they would show her how to play some sort of game.
Instead, several of the girls went to work, chattering away and meshing their narrow fingers into her hair, pulling it straight up.
“Wait, what are you guys doing? You’re not checking for lice, are you? There wasn’t an infestation of fleas in the hut where I just took a nap, was there? Why am I asking you? You can’t understand a word I’m saying.”
Then she realized they were braiding her hair. All of them, at once, as if busily readying her for the big party that night. Katie sat back and let them try their best to get her straight, silky hair to cooperate. She felt like a culturally adjusted Cinderella, surrounded by eager little chattering mice that were going to help their “Cinderelly.”
One of the girls ran off and came back with some sort of thin, grassy-like twine. Apparently they discovered that Katie’s hair was so sleek it unbraided itself as soon as they let go of it. Katie could only guess how ridiculous she was going to look with four hundred tiny braids all over her head, and each braid fastened with a bit of shrubbery.
“You girls are doing me a favor, you know,” Katie said, cracking herself up since none of them understood her. “Instead of having two guys fighting for my attention tonight, I’m pretty sure your beautifying efforts will send both of them running as far away from me as they can get. And you know what? At this point, I think that might be a good thing.”
One of the girls patted Katie’s cheek as if to indicate that Katie was supposed to hush and not move around so much or she would mess up their safari-salon techniques.
Katie sat patiently as the girls attended to their task. It was relaxing in an unexpected way. She had never done much with her hair, and she definitely hadn’t had anything done by her mother with her hair when she was a child. It struck her that ever since she had arrived in Kenya, a variety of nurturing expressions had been made to her by several women. She wondered if the experience of having that kind of love shown to her in tangible, physical ways had contributed to the way her spirit had settled itself, and she felt more quieted and calmer than she ever had.
Katie realized it wasn’t just Africa and Kenya’s beauty that had settled her spirit in such tender ways. It was the women. She had always wanted more caring, older women in her life. She wanted an attentive mother and a doting aunt like the one Christy had. She wished she had women to mentor her like Julia had done last year as the resident director. Having Cheryl in Katie’s life as a steady rock of a woman was a beautiful thing. Katie felt blessed.
That was until she looked up and saw Michael coming toward her.
“Now that’s a different look on you altogether,” he said, checking out her many braids.
“Keep moving, mister. Nothing to see here. These are not the droids you’re looking for.??
?
Michael laughed. “Oh, Katie Girl, you’ve still got it, haven’t ya? I have never met a woman before or since with the same wit.” He bent down to be in her line of sight. “Are ya doin’ better? I heard you weren’t feeling well.”
“I’m fine.”
“In that case, you look like a cartoon character.”
“Thank you.”
“Just keepin’ it real. Isn’t that what you used to tell me?”
“Well, then I must say that you look like someone who is about to walk away and leave my peeps and me to our special girl time.”
“Okay, I get it. I can take a hint.”
“Really? Sure fooled me.”
“Listen, Katie, you don’t have to be so rough on me. I got the update. You’re with the missionary kid. I get it. I was too expressive with my greeting, and I apologize. Where I come from that was a perfectly acceptable greeting between two old friends such as you and me. I thought you’d be onto that. My mistake.”
Katie wanted to say something pithy, but obviously Michael was trying to offer his version of an apology. She backed down and didn’t reply.
He took her silence as an invitation to sit across from her. “I’m not surprised that you’re here.”
“You’re not?”
“No. You talked about coming to Africa when you were in high school.”
“I did?” Katie didn’t remember that. She did remember what Michael talked about in high school. “You used to talk about becoming a film director.”
“That I did. You remembered.”
Katie thought he looked a little too pleased that she recalled that detail. “So it looks like we both got our wish.”
“I’m working my way to where I really want to be. Doing a documentary in Africa isn’t my idea of being a film director, but it’s work, and it’s a start.”
“And it’s with the BBC. That’s impressive.”
“Actually, it’s not. I’m here with the BDC, the British Documentary Company. It’s a nonprofit. My cousin had a connection and got me in. Like I said, it’s a start. What about for you? What are you doin’ here, really?”
“I told you, I’m with the Lorenzos. I’m helping out.”
“Helping out with what?”
“Whatever needs to be done at the conference center where we live.”
Michael looked surprised. “That’s not you, Katie. You’re not an assistant to anyone. You’re a leader. Why aren’t you doing something for the mission that uses your great skills?”
Katie let out an awkward sounding snort of disagreement. One of Katie’s hairstylists checked her face to make sure Katie wasn’t reacting to her hair being tugged in all different directions. When it appeared that Katie was okay, the stylist went back to work.
“What was that all about? Are you mocking my comment about your skills?”
“I haven’t found my place yet, okay? It’s probably here in the village. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Michael shook his head.
“What? You don’t think I could handle living in a village?”
“I don’t doubt for a moment that you could handle living in a village. You can handle anything life throws at you. But I heard about the fund-raiser you did at your college, how it pulled in a tidy sum. Good on ya.”
Katie wasn’t able to take his praise, so she discounted the compliment by saying, “Yeah, well, I heard that someone spiked the donations, so it wasn’t that big of a success.”
“Not from what I just heard in the interviews. Didn’t the fund-raiser motivate a group of college students to come over here? We went to the village where they worked, just two days ago, as a matter of fact. From everything we heard and saw, the college work team was a great success. Why won’t you take a little credit for being their source of motivation?”
Katie shrugged and looked down.
“I know it’s not my place to be makin’ suggestions about how you should live your life, Katie. But it seems obvious to me that you were made for that.”
“Made for what?”
“For motivatin’ people and gettin’ them to do things they wouldn’t normally do. If you want to do some good for this organization, why don’t you appoint yourself the official marketing specialist or whatever title you want? You can duplicate what you did at your school at other universities around the world. I have a contact at Queens University in Belfast. I could connect you with him, and he would be all over this sort of thing. Once they see the documentary, they’re going to be linin’ up to come here as teams. Who’s going be the one to organize all that and get the fund-raisers goin’?”
Katie felt as if a thousand fireflies had lit up at the same moment inside her imagination. The ideas were fluttering around like the flying termites, just a quick snatch away from being easily caught. She felt enlivened as she listened to Michael’s suggestions. Yes, this was it. This was what she wanted to do.
“You like that idea, do ya? Your face never lied to me, Katie. I see it in your eyes. This is what you were meant to do. It’s obvious. How did you miss it?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael laughed. “I never thought I would hear those words from your lovely lips.”
Katie bit the inside of her lower lip, thinking of all the great ways she could work on this by connecting with not only universities but also church groups. She had the template of how she and Eli had worked together to put on the fund-raiser as well as the training at Rancho. They could work together to do the same sort of program many times over. This was it! This was what she could do.
“It’s brilliant, Michael.”
He laughed again. “I’m the one who says ‘brilliant,’ remember? You’re the one who calls something like this a ‘God-thing.’”
Katie grinned at Michael for the first time that day.
“Ah, there it is. I knew you still had a smile in there for me somewhere. See, I didn’t forget everything you taught me. I remember all the God-things, Katie. I really do.”
Katie’s thoughts had run ahead to what she needed for this project. “So, we can have a copy of the documentary you’re filming, right?”
“Sure, not a problem.”
“Would it be okay if we put an excerpt on the website?”
“Yes, we can help you with that.”
“And you’ll get me the name of your contact at Queens University in Belfast.”
“Again, not a problem. He’s my father-in-law.”
“We’ll also need …” Katie stopped. “Wait. Did you say he’s your father-in-law?”
“Yes.”
Katie raised her eyebrows and stared at him.
Michael tilted his head and gave Katie a mischievous grin. “Did I not mention that I’m married?”
“No. You didn’t happen to mention that.”
“Ahh, well I am. Happily, as a matter of fact. You would like her. She’s a good one. She got me to church. I knew you would be in her corner on that.”
Katie still couldn’t believe it. “And how would your wife feel if she knew you were running around Africa kissing other women?”
“I only kiss the ones I seriously dated. Shall I add that list up for you? Three. And you’re the only one of the three I’ve seen so far on this trip, so my reputation isn’t as spotted as you seem to think.”
“It’s still not normal to greet someone with a kiss like that.”
“And I say, for me, it is.”
They glared at each other, as if they had come to a standoff. At that moment, Eli made an appearance, striding toward them with his focus set.
Katie looked up at Eli and smiled. She couldn’t wait to tell him about her breakthrough in knowing what it was that she could do for the organization.
“Everyone is gathering.” Eli’s eyes were set on Katie and her crazy hair. The girls had finished their creation, and all but one had gone across to the shade of another hut where they were busying themselves with another willing patron who had much shorter
and coarser hair.
“I told her she looks like a cartoon character,” Michael said. “And then I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. Too bad. You missed your chance.”
“Michael, don’t say stuff like that. And, Eli, don’t listen to him. He has a warped sense of humor. But here’s an interesting news flash. He’s married.”
Eli looked like he was trying very hard to swallow the words he wanted to say. The response that popped out of his mouth was, “Congratulations.”
“For what?” Michael asked. “Having a warped sense of humor?”
“Congratulations on your marriage.”
“Thanks. And for the record, Katie and I have made our amends. So in case you’re thinking you’ve come over to defend her honor, we’re squared.”
Katie remembered how Michael had a way of slipping out of his sarcastic tone and turning serious. This was definitely that sort of transition. She hoped Eli picked up on the adjustment. Katie felt more comfortable around Michael now that she realized his status, and she hoped Eli did as well.
Michael said, “You know how they say that when you know, you know? Well, it’s true. I knew. She knew. Right away. Within the first month after we met. It was all over but the negotiating. That took a year and a half.”
Michael paused, and Katie watched Eli’s expression. Eli seemed to be trying to discern if he could trust Michael or if he was being sarcastic again.
Rising to his feet, Michael turned to go. “I hope the negotiating doesn’t take that long for you two. Life’s too short.”
Katie met Eli’s gaze and held it for a moment. She wondered if all the relational bumps they had experienced the last few days were about to be smoothed out. Was this the turning point? Were they ready to acknowledge that they were a great pair? All they had to do was figure out who got to pursue his or her ideal vocation and who was going to make the sacrifice to support the other one’s vision.
If that was true, she was ready to start the negotiations with her fresh insight into how she and Eli could work together and set up a desk in the office. She already knew where they would put it — up against the wall that held their hidden valentine heart. They could get to work right away on fund-raising. This possibility hadn’t been on Eli’s radar when he made his declarations about wanting to be involved in the villages for extended periods of time. Surely he would change his mind about that now.