The Faces of Morokoshi, a photo essay
Photos by Span volunteers Grace Proctor, Kai Staats, and Chris Emmel.
Moving Toward Sustainable Solutions
Food for Thought
According to the teachers and through general observation at Morokoshi, we believe roughly 10% of the nearly seventy preschool children arrive in the morning without having eaten since the prior day. In addition to the obvious issues surrounding malnutrition in the early, foundation years of physical growth, these children are less capable of learning and do daily show signs of listlessness and disconnection from the activities in the classroom.
The mothers of these children are very poor, too often without food nor income to sustain even the basics of daily needs for themselves or their children. Many are single, for all practical purposes, their husbands not living at home or not contributing to the family in a meaningful way.
A school lunch program is a means of addressing this issue, granting at least one meal a day to each child. In the U.S. the National School Lunch Program was initiated during the 1930s and then formalized in the ’40s as a means of making certain every child received at least one meal a day.
A quick Google search for “school lunch program” +kenya demonstrates how many external organizations are now providing food to the children in Kenyan school systems as the Kenyan government does not now (to the best of my knowledge) nor will likely carry such a program in the near future.
Therefore Span volunteer Grace Proctor and Steve Muriithi, owner of Morokoshi, initiated the Learning Lishe Program, a school lunch program. The Lishe Program begins with the “shamba” (Swahili for “farm”), rented land adjacent to Morokoshi which was planted with corn and beans early this spring as a means to long-term, renewable food source for immediate consumption, seeds for replanting, and sales of excess (if any) to the local market.
The women who work with the Lishe Program last week harvested the first crop of beans. I have been informed by Steve that due to poor rainfall, the crop is ample only to be used to reseed the field for the next season. We hope the corn (planted in the same field with alternating rows) will harvest with better results, but it too needs substantially more rainfall than what has arrived to date.
For now, Grace, Steve, and the teachers (who prepare the fire and food) have dedicated themselves to providing one cup of porridge for each child each day at the cost of $50 USD per month, or $600 per year to feed seventy children once each day.
The Transformation of Goals
Chris and I came to Morokoshi with intent to upgrade the solar PV array which Rie, Cameron, and I installed in May of 2008, and to build a composting toilet.
What could have been a two to three day project required ten, but ultimately we completed the upgrade of the PV array (I will share more about this project in a later blog entry; yes, the solar panel frame really is pink) which now boasts 8 panels for a total of 260 watts, a BlueSky solar charge controller, and Magnum Energy inverter resulting in the rejuvenation of the batteries to some degree, and vastly improved power delivery and duration.
At Steve’s request, it was our second goal to build a toilet for the growing student population. While unlined pit toilets are the norm in Kenya, Chris and I desired to provide a toilet which eliminated contamination of the ground water, improved sanitation, and provided safe, organic fertilizer. Our research shows that waste from a single human can support roughly 250Kg of food-crop per year. We conducted extensive research prior to our departure, brought printed documents and educational material, and shared these with Steve.
Yet the maintenance of a composting toilet is far greater than that of a pit toilet, if it is to be safe as it resides in close proximity to food preparation and the classrooms. While a pit toilet is certainly not the ultimate answer, the potential of massive disease outbreak of a poorly maintained composting toilet seems a higher risk.
Steve, Chris, and I spoke extensively on the subject, pacing the area behind Steve’s house, between the new slab for water tanks and the clothes line and the outdoor shower. Ultimately, after many evenings of conversation, Steve decided to build a test composting toilet on a small, family scale to determine if it was applicable to the school as a whole. Chris and I agreed to this approach and are eager to support his effort, with additional research and designs.
This level of conversation set in motion the process of reconsidering our goals at Morokoshi. It was a complex array of adjustments and refocusing, even debate as to what is in fact the best use of our limited time as volunteers.
Sustainable Solutions
For me, personally, in the first few days at Morokoshi, I came to realize how easy it is (and has been in the past) for any volunteer to arrive in a cloud of dust–hammers pounding, saws cutting, and drills whirring with unbridled passion to complete projects confined by impossible deadlines in challenging situations. But in the end, it is far too possible to spend little time with the very people we as volunteers come to support. Volunteers go home with photos of finished projects and smiling faces on the day of completion, but if the hard question is asked, Did we truly solicit change?
In many places (Morokoshi is an exception) volunteers return the following year to find a project exactly as it was left, or in a state of decay, or disassembled altogether. To provide opportunity for sustained change, there must be a complete buy-in, involvement, and support by the same people who are the recipients of the well intended project.
To use the ancient phrase, Did we provide a fish for a day or teach how to fish for a lifetime?
The Unfolding of a Systemic Solution
Our conversations began with the core concern for the children to receive one good meal a day. From there, the domino effect took hold, for the best means of feeding the children is through local production of food. To raise vegetables in any quantity requires a dedicated, dependable source of water. In Kenya, this is becoming more difficult to obtain for deforestation and changes in weather patterns are quickly leading to unreliable rainfall.
However, even chaotic weather patterns may produce ample water if captured and stored for when it is later needed most, delivered as a managed commodity.
This process lead to a discussion of reuse of gray water, water used for washing clothes, dishes, and floors, which lead to a discussion of how to move water from a catchment source the place where food is being grown using the natural force of gravity.
Now, this is where it got fun.
Chris, who has professional experience as a surveyor in Colorado, and I built a home-made surveyor’s level using 2 boards, duct tape, 2 screws, a 6″ metal pipe, 24″ rebar, a rock for counter-balance, iPod with a level app, camera, and bright orange lid to a plastic container.
Chris, Grace, and I surveyed Steve’s property and the adjacent ‘shamba’ to determine the potential flow of water in an improved, planned water shed. I then built a spreadsheet which calculates the quantity of water which may be captured with each centimeter of rainfall given a particular number of centimeters of rainfall.
With this, we calculated that we need 12,000 liters (4 x 3,000 liter tanks) to support the basic needs of 80 students, teachers, and Steve’s family during three months drought. We also determined that to capture and store ample water to support one acre of crops was cost prohibitive, even physically impossible. Therefore, any water for raising crops in an open field must come from natural rain fall supplemented by irrigation from a bore hole, which is on average a $30,000 USD proposition.
We realized that if we were to control the growing environment, the light, humidity, and water (from source to recapture), we could solve the greatest issue we faced–the ratio of liters of water to kilograms of crops. That is how the greenhouse was born, the need for a controlled ecosystem in which we recycle, reuse, and rejuvenate.
In my next entry, I will showcase how we built the greenhouse with the assistance of more than thirty women from the Nina Agricultural Initiative. It was amazing …
Midnight Chills
Three Times Too Many
It was a challenging journey, both physically and emotionally. But this I have come to expect from Africa. There were maybe four or five days that I was not struggling with my health. There were a few days I just wanted to go home, to something familiar, something that felt safe.
I can live from a backpack for months without a single thought as to my home in Colorado, but when every drop of liquid in my body is lost to four hours squatting over a pit toilet in the rural farmland of the Rift Valley, it is all I can do to remain positive. I repeatedly explored the deep, rich Milky Way overhead to remove myself, even if for just a few minutes at a time, from my midnight excursion to the outhouse.
Three days of Cypro antibiotics and my digestive system regained composure. But with my immune system knocked flat to the ground by the intense therapy, I was hit with a low grade bronchitis which even today, five weeks later, lingers.
Malaria
Just three days before I was to leave for Ghana, I was hit with malaria. It seems my decision to forgo the anti-malarial Malarone for the days I was taking Cypro was a mistake, or perhaps my immune system was just not strong enough even with chemical assistance.
Just the same, I was sitting on my foam bed in the wooden post-house, adjacent to Steve’s home. It was 11:30 PM. I was answering email by way of my AT&T cell phone tether. At 11:45 I felt a chill in my lower back and pulled a blanket over my shoulders; not unusual for the cool Rift nights. Five minutes later, I was truly cold and my legs cramped. I uncrossed them. By midnight, I was shaking so violently that it was all I could to do power-down my computer and crawl under the covers.
By 12:15 am I was wearing three layers on my torso and a winter cap, wrapped tight in a sheet and two blankets. I was very scared. The muscles in my back were constricted as though I had fallen into a glacial lake. I tried to remember the breathing techniques I learned as a child in Nebraska, to help me fall to sleep in cold winter nights where a wood burning stove was our only source of heat. I tried yoga as a means to relax, to keep my body from restricting blood flow. But nothing worked. I sweat and shook and remained terribly cold no matter what I did.
By 1:30 am I had regained enough control of my fingers to text my mother and brother, “Please call me. I need help.” My mother received the text, called my brother who ten minutes after my message, called. I tried to maintain control, but was sobbing when I answered, “I … I don’t know what is happening. I can’t sto– … stop shaking … I, I think I have malaria.”
I don’t know if this was a relief or more of a concern, for Jae later told me that when he received my SMS he thought I had been kidnapped and my mother feared I had been thrown into a Kenya prison. Guess they both assume the worst. Rather have malaria than spend a night in a Kenyan prison.
Jae jumped on Wikipedia and read the description of the initial symptoms of malaria, yellow and typhoid fevers. While they all shared some similarities in various stages, what I was experiencing was most likely malaria. We reviewed them again, to make certain.
I just wanted to sleep, but Jae was bold in his insistence that I go to the hospital. I finally agreed, realizing that if by chance it was not Malaria, early intervention was imperative. I took four Malarone to knock the assumed parasites from my blood stream. But if I had malaria, Malarone would not remove them from my liver, for it is a prophylactic which forms a protective, chemical barrier around the liver to keep the parasites from entering. Once inside, Malarone cannot assist, however, a strong dose can clear malaria parasites from the blood stream and disable their rapid reproduction.
Some material I have read states that malaria never leaves the human body, instead lying dormant in the liver until the next infestation. Subsequent material, particular to the drug administered by the doctor later that morning (see below), states that malaria can in fact be destroyed completely by proper treatment.
I made my way the door, fumbled with my shoes and headlamp and rickety stairs, and woke Chris with a shaky voice. It was 2:30 am. Chris woke Steve who called his friend who had a car, the man whom we often rode with on the way home from the Top Market in Nakuru. When he arrived, I was wearing a down jacket borrowed from Steve, my polar fleece, a long-sleeve shirt, and a knit cap. I was prepared for a snow storm, and yet oscillated between chills and overheating every twenty minutes.
On the drive to the hospital the combination of a sleepless night, uneven (to say the least) roads, and extensive dehydration resulted in my vomiting on the side of the road. I grabbed my headlamp to see if I had lost the four Malarone tablets, but they appeared to have been processed beyond the stomach, which was good. I am afraid I was not in the best of spirits for I cursed at Steve and Chris once (maybe twice), demanding some personal space. My apologies to you both.
At the hospital I was met by two young clinicians who conducted the basic heart rate and breathing tests. After a short interview, I requested an immediate blood test, but was denied for there were no technicians in the hospital. I stated I could conduct a basic analysis myself, if given access to a slide and microscope, for I recalled the shape of the deformed cells which I photographed through the eyepiece of the microscope last year when Rie was struck with malaria the prior year. The lab was locked, and so I had no choice but to wait five or more hours.
I remained at the hospital until 7 am when a technician arrived. Steve had gone home, but Chris remained, sleeping on the couch (thank you my friend). I was given a hospital bed adjacent to the clinician’s office. Steve returned at 8 am and shortly thereafter my blood was tested. The doctor saw me at 9 am and while my blood stream was clear of parasites (likely due to the Malarone), all symptoms pointed to malaria. He gave me an Italian made drug (Co-Arinate FDC, comprised of Artesunate 200mg, Sulfamethoxypryazine 500mg, and Pyrimethamine 25mg) which after one horse pill each day for three days cleared my body of the infestation.
By noon Chris and I had returned to Morokoshi and with slow movement, a long-sleeve shirt and sun hat, I assisted with the greenhouse construction. As I was to leave for Ghana in less than 48 hours, I worked to help Chris and the women of the Nina Initiative complete the effort.
I resumed the Malarone treatment on the fourth day and just yesterday concluded the course. Some remnants of bronchitis remain with me, but the best means of healing is just letting my body fight it, rebuilding my immune system one day at a time.
Thank you Chris, Steve, and Jae for helping me, supporting me, and giving me the confidence I needed in such an unexpected event.
500,000,000 Cases per Year
For those of you who have had malaria, which is a good portion of Africans, you know how scary the first bout can be. But what is not commonly known is that malaria sometimes crippled Europeans from their attempts at in-land conquests and it is malaria that remains a greater cause of death than AIDS the world over, with 350-500 million cases and more than 3 million deaths per year, causing long-term health detriment and economic stagnation to the African continent, Central, and South America.
The Writer’s Starting Block
Late to bed, Late to rise
I went to bed late last night, after a hot bath well past midnight. I do not remember walking from the tub to my bed, lying down, nor falling to sleep. I awoke this morning at 8:30 (unusually late for me) fully cognizant of my desire to begin to capture, in writing, the time Chris and I spent in Kenya this month of July.
After two weeks back in the States, I remain without clarity for what to write nor even where to begin, but each day I have been processing, coming closer. It seems then that this morning I am creating the ideal environment in which to invoke the emotions and memories. I have surrounded myself with the comforts of home, sitting on the floor, leaning against a folded futon. At the same time, I recognize the irony in this when one of my first entries will be about the lack of food in the Rift Valley.
I enjoyed a bowl of oatmeal with Colorado honey, blueberries, raisins, and a sliced banana downed with a mug of ginger tea which I made from grated ginger root boiled with honey, cinnamon, and a touch of finely crushed red pepper. If there were just one drink which I would readily consume each and every day it would be home made ginger tea or kombucha, the stringent, ancient Chinese drink made from a carefully crafted growth of Acetobacter (acetic acid bacteria) and yeast. Once you get over the living cultures floating in the jar, it’s quite good.
I crave the satisfaction of sweet spice. The burning sensation of ginger reminds me that what I consume was not processed nor frozen nor sterilized with radiation and preservatives. It is living food for living bodies, like yogurt, fresh fruit and vegetables.
Listening to Car Talk on NPR and then Enigma, Enya, and Flynn. I am ready.
Perhaps a good place to start will be a story we can all relate to, even appreciate in retrospect; a story of playing host to nasty parasites, ancient survivors which thrive within us, wreaking havoc on our bodies, social structures, and economies …
Update from Morokoshi, Kenya
It is always so difficult to write the first of what may be many entries concerning an adventure, event, or story. This, my fifth time to Africa is no different.
I came here with my good friend Chris Emmel of Fort Collins, Colorado, expecting to build a composting toilet, run water pipes to a new hand-washing facility for the more than 60 children of the Morokoshi preschool, and upgrade the solar PV system.
However, just half way into this journey I am opened to an important realization: well defined projects, the construction of buildings or donation of computers may not be as important as listening, sharing, planning, and overall system design for long-term, sustainable solutions.
In fact, it is possible that the completion of a project is more rewarding to the volunteer than of value to those for whom it was constructed. This is a very, very hard thing to recognize, and even harder to admit for as volunteers, we want to go home and feel that we accomplished something. Sometimes the intangibles, the knowledge shared and relationships built are more important than the brick and mortar.
After two weeks here, at the farm of Stephen Muriithi and Morokoshi School outside of Nakuru, Kenya, I see that Chris and I will not likely leave with as much dirt beneath our finger nails as we had intended. But what we are learning and what we have shared will lead to a future of improved communication and education between SpanAfrica and its Grassroots Partner Organizations.
I am eager to share more, but for now, please take the time to review SpanAfrica volunteer Grace Proctor’s Facebook page about Morokoshi.
Educating Esmé: A Teacher’s Diary
As an avid listener of NPR, I thoroughly enjoy my cross-country travel as a time to immerse myself in focused education and stimulating entertainment. I have this past few years, with the advent of Sirius satellite radio, found my ability to learn via listening alone vastly improved. And with that, I cannot get enough–I could drive for a dozen hours a day for a week on-end if only to have that focused time without interruption to listen and learn.
In recent years I feel as though I have graduated from U.S. Economics 210, Middle Eastern Politics 200, and Culinary Arts 104. While Click & Clack have invoked my laughter for over ten years, Garrison Keillor and Scott Simon have given me stories which I will remember for a lifetime. Michele Norris, Liane Hansen, Diane Roberts, Will Shortz, Nina Totenberg and a host of equally talented, rich voices have woken me each and every morning for as long as I can remember … voices that have accompanied me on countless road trips in the South West and coast-to-coast, across the U.S.
Coming back from Phoenix last week, there was a story which is worth sharing, for it was perhaps one of the most engaging hours of radio I have enjoyed in this past few years. It is the story of Esmé Codell in her first year of teaching in the Chicago public school system. Read by Esmé, it is emotionally moving, thought provoking, heart wrenching, and hilarious. I cried, laughed, and wanted to rewind to hear it all again.
Return to Kenya
In just 2 weeks time, I will return to Kenya to work for three weeks at the Morokoshi school, outside of Nakuru.
My friend Chris Emmel and I will focus our efforts on upgrading the solar PV system with an improved charge controller, inverter/charger, batteries, 2 more panels, and heavier gauge wire. We also hope to build a composting toilet for the now greater than 80 children, and an improved water catchment and purification system.
This trip comes as fruition to a 4-month reorganization program Rebecca, Cameron, Brad, and I have undertaken in preparation for the expansion of SpanAfrica. It’s been an exciting time, to gain so much support and see new potential open for those grassroots organizations with whom we work in Africa.
And yes, we are in need of substantial funds to enable all of this to unfold as planned. To date, we have raised just under $1000 of the minimal $7000 required. [link to fund raising pages removed].
The Stars’ Embrace
Preface
As dreams go, they are in many respects out of our conscious control, even if lucid dreaming. While individual choice may be available, the context, the dreamscape in which the dream unfolds is often presented to the dreamer, a call to adventure, a risk of the unknown.
In this particular dream, I was at the very opening granted a background of strong emotion but few facts, only enough to enabled me to understand the otherwise bizarre terrain and conditions in which I found myself.
I have inserted my photos of the lava flows below Kilauea, Big Island, Hawaii, taken in 1991 and 2006.
Marooned
I stood a half dozen steps behind Karaen and Chao. Both of them already stripped of their field gear, they wore only light, grey-white pants and a darker, tight, short sleeve top made of the same, synthetic fabric. Chao wore his shirt tucked into his pants while Karaen long ago gave up the regimen of dress code and as I watched, removed her shirt altogether. She stepped back from the fierce heat as it now reached out and tore at her bare chest, burning the ends of her long, black hair. The river of molten rock that passed just to their front, ten meters broad and seemingly just as deep, cut through a red rock canyon uninterrupted by anything living or even reminiscent of life.
I was not prepared to watch someone die whom I had come to care for so deeply. So many years in training, living within nearly impossible, cramped quarters, and then exploration of this relentless alien world. Our time together as brothers and sisters, as superiors and lovers left us without need for additional words, our decision set in motion days prior.
It reminded me of too many times watching a loved one pack her things in what I cognitively knew was the last goodbye, but inside so many words continued to press against the back of my throat with desire to reconnect and try again. If only I could present the missing solution, the one we had not yet discovered, maybe then we would find a way to stay together, a way to survive this hostile world, to ignore the reality of our situation. There is always a way, I told myself over and over, there is always a way.
Our base camp, our shelter, our rations, and our communication back to Earth had been completely destroyed. We had what we could carry on our backs and in our hands, no more. We tried to repair what we could find of our equipment, but there were only the three of us now, with no hope for assistance from an orbiting ship, for it had long ago left for the voyage home. It would be years before anyone would know what had become of our mission, the time required to communicate far greater than the time we had available under any scenario we had explored.
Now we sat on the edge of a fast, smooth lava flow moving as a river of silver and black by day, orange and red by night. The surface swirled slowly with eddies and bubbles of varying temperature and chemical composition. We had been transfixed for countless hours, without conversation, the two of them steadily moving closer, me remaining further behind, still seeking resolve for a debate long since settled.
Suddenly, Karaen took the final few steps to the river’s edge. She didn’t look back to me nor to her right, for we had said goodbye days earlier. I could see that the heat of the river was already burning her bare skin, but she felt nothing then nor when she dove headfirst into the flowing fire. She was nearly instantly consumed, without struggle, without a sound. Only the momentary breath of a dragon as the thick surface of the flow was broken, the molecules of her hair, skin, muscle, bone, and DNA fully consumed.
I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. I wrapped my arms around myself and twisted from side to side. This is not how it was suppose to end. This is not the dream we had shared. The final three astronauts of a failed mission stranded on a barren, red stone planet whose bold blue sky met undulating cliffs cut not by running rivers of water and life, but by magma which had found its way to the surface through relentless pressure and little concern for time.
To my front and right, my final companion did not appear to notice when the lava river was momentarily satisfied by the sacrifice of a human form. He sat on the edge of a rock shelf, palms down at his side pressing to the stone, arms flexing in preparation. His head low and stare forward, he dangled his bare feet above the fire. I did not understand how he could tolerate his position, just a few meters above the surface, for even at my distance I involuntarily turned from side to side, my arms unwrapping in order that my hands could shield my face.
Chao raised his head, looked out to the other side of the fiery river, and for just a moment his body was lifted from the rock shelf and suspended from his shoulders. He kicked his legs out and then his body lept down into the lava. Feet, legs, torso, and head disappeared without struggle, a torch of light and sound shooting from the momentary opening his form created.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. The spirit is set free through the fire of rocket propulsion, energy to explore the stars. But in the end, it is the original creative process, the one that formed the stars themselves which recalls even the most independent soul, demanding, ‘Return to me and I will consume you.’
I stood there, alone, weeping, shifting to one leg and then to the other. I repeatedly walked toward the river of lava and away again when the heat became too intense. While completely illogical, I scanned the river bank, hoping to see my lost companions resurface. I wanted to join them. I did not desire to be alone, completely alone. I tried to let go, to run and jump without concern for the pending moments of pain. But I could not. My legs simply would not carry me to that end.
After an hour, maybe more, knowing I would never again find warmth in the embrace of another human nor share a conversation with anyone but myself, I reached down, lifted my backpack, took what remained of my companions’ rations, then turned and walked up the undulating hill of nearly seamless red stone.
Our orbital surveys had shown traces of flowing water in the highlands, and in my mind I pictured fields of green. To this place I would go. Even if it did not exist, I would try. I tightened the familiar straps over my shoulders and linked the waist belt to hold my only chance of survival tight to my body, I climbed up, away from the heat and the fire and the loss, to the intangible sky above the darkening, red horizon.
© Kai Staats 2009
The River’s Edge
I was sitting across from the order pickup counter, in the third from the end of a double-sided row of booths that ran the length of this one-room, inner city diner. The main entrance was to my back. To my left, across the isle and along the outside wall of the restaurant, another row of booths, each filled with anticipating or recently satisfied patrons.
The original construction was likely ’50s or ’60s, but the vinyl seats were relatively new, the tile floor repaired so many times that fewer original pieces remained than those which were replaced.
I sat facing a large, multi-pane window at the end of the restaurant opposite the entrance. I took note of the river, brown and gray, whose surface was without substantial features. It ran parallel to the outside wall of the restaurant, from left to right. The river’s bed was maybe eight or nine feet lower than the city grade, its banks gently sloped, brown leaves over green, a confused mid-state between winter and spring. The water was cold in the overcast light, low clouds obscuring any view of the sun and sky.
I was with two men, business associates I believe, for we were wearing button-down shirts tucked into our pleated slacks. The man seated across from me had arrived with a long rain coat, the kind that is worn over a suit in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York. He carried a briefcase which rested open on the end of the dining table, adjacent to the partition between our booth and the one on the other side. This dream did not provide much detail for the man to my right, seated on my side of the booth.
Through my small portal to the outside world, I lost focus on the intent of the meeting. My business associates spoke to one another, waving hands and tapping fingers on printed figures whose sheets lay scattered between three times filled yet half empty cups of coffee and small plates which held the remains of a quickly consumed lunch.
I did my best to pay attention to the conversation, and yet I remained transfixed to the water whose swirling brown eddies carried white bubbles and debris through elliptical orbits eventually overwhelmed by the rules of gravity and flow. I looked down to my hands on the table, then up to my associates’ faces, giving a well-timed, polite nod of approval to something I did not fully comprehend; then back to my front and again the window.
One of the eddies broke open, water thrown to the sides as a woman’s head broke the surface and rose from the river. Just a dozen feet from the bank, she struggled to bring herself upright, exhausted and I could only imagine, very cold.
I stood half way up from my seat, as far as the confines of the table would allow, holding myself upright with my hands as much as my legs.
The woman found purchase in the river bottom and half walked, half pulled herself toward the shore. She looked back over her shoulder with some difficulty, reaching to take the hand of a child whose body just broke the surface. The young girl could not have been over the age of twelve years.
As they pulled themselves onto shore, the river continuing to flow over their bare feet, I noticed that both were wearing dresses that I would place in the 1700s, something now found only in theater or a movie. Plain, worn, and tattered from work and wear. Their hair was wet, gray and brown and streaks of black intermingled, as though they had been in the river so long to absorb its color.
I had stood fully now, sliding from the end of the booth. The woman and child lay on the river bank, grass and leaves beneath their palms, knees and sides. I noticed the translucent nature of their dresses, the cloth soaked and clinging to their shaking bodies.
As I watched them gain their feet, I realized with some level of disbelief that it was not the dresses that were transparent, but the woman and girl themselves, for I could see the bank of the river through them.
The girl clung to the woman’s hand and thigh, the skin of her outstretched hands as colorless as the dress. The woman turned, looked over her left shoulder away from the child, and stared directly at me from across the river, up the bank, and through the diner window. Even at this distance, I received the moment of her stare as though she were standing before me. I received anger, pain, and fear, causing me to intentionally hold back my own emotion.
I quickly looked back to my associates, to the two men at my table. They saw my face, followed my stare out the window, and back to me again.
The man across from me, his back to the diner window and river asked, “What’s wrong?”
“There,” pointing to the window which overlooked the river, “a woman and child just came out of the river. I, I think they nearly drowned. There, look, can you see them?”
Their heads turned quickly to the window, as did a few others in the restaurant having overhead my statement, or curious for what we witnessed outside. The two men rose from their seats and quickly followed me to the window. Those seated in the last booth recoiled with discomfort as we pressed ourselves to the window, one of the men kneeling on the edge of their booth.
But no, they did not see them, nor now could I. I aggressively pressed myself to the window, forcing the others, which now included a woman who sat at the last booth, out of my way. I looked frantically from side to side, scanning the full bank of the river that was visible to me.
“They’re gone. God, what could have happened? I need to go see if they are alright.”
I turned back to face the restaurant. A good majority of its patrons were now looking at me and the commotion by the last booth near the window. It was oddly quiet for a restaurant. Even the waitresses had stopped serving. Someone mentioned calling nine-one-one, but posed it more as a question than a command.
I hurried back to our booth, intent on gathering my things. My associates walked behind me, quiet, unsettled, I was certain. I paused for a moment, questioning what I had seen, not certain now of my own integrity of my own experience.
The man who sat to my right slid past me and into the booth. As I stood there, not certain what to do, I lost my balance, stumbled and knocked an emptied soup bowl and spoon to the floor. Startled, the waitress moved quickly to assist me, as did my associate who was nearly seated, but I was already kneeling on the floor to collect the fallen ware.
The three of us saw what had happened next, at the same time, and simultaneously froze.
I set the bowl upright, on the floor, and then placed the spoon in the bowl before bracing myself to rise. I reached for the bowl, but before I could make contact, the spoon flipped to the other side as though my hand were magnetic and of an opposite charge.
I nearly lost my balance and looked up to see if anyone had noticed. They were both silent, intent upon the bowl, then me, and the bowl again. I reached again. The spoon spun a full circle in the bowl, the ladle in the center, the handle riding around the rim.
I pulled back and nearly sat down. I looked at the bowl and spoon, my hands, and then back to the bowl and spoon again. I waved my right hand over the bowl in a circular motion and the spoon spun wildly, round and round and round for as many times as I motioned with my hands, even continuing for a full turn of its own momentum.
The waitress stepped back and uttered a sound that was somewhere between a shriek and a reprimand, as though I should know better than to do such things in her restaurant.
Now one knee and one hand on the floor, I looked up. My business associate was staring with such focus that nothing I did at that moment could not have distracted him from the bowl and spoon.
My other associate, to my left, had now risen from his seated position in the booth and while leaning over the table, nearly fell when his arms gave way to the weight of his trembling torso.
I felt cold, anxious, and scared. The image of the woman’s eyes reaching mine was mixed with fear and delight. Sweat ran freely down my spine and the front of my chest. Even my neck was warm, on this otherwise cold, wintry day.
I looked up, not to any one person but across the whole restaurant. Words pressed against the back of my throat, an acidic bile that I tried to swallow. My stomach convulsed, and then I said, “They’re coming.”
And at that instant someone at the far end of the isle in which I crouched cried out, and the whole assembly of the patrons were immediately aware of the sound of dozens of footfalls, wet human feet moving across the restaurant tile.
I looked down to the bowl again, then rose up to my feet with the bowl and spoon in hand. I looked down to set them on the table, and when I looked up again the woman and child from the river bank stood before me, and behind them a dozen more pairs of women and children, some boys, some girls.
All were wet and cold with shivering pale blue gray skin, their feet bare and bodies covered with ragged dresses, nothing more. More opaque now than what I observed before, but not entirely solid, I wanted to reach out to touch the woman to my front but recalled my arm and hand afraid that I would not touch anything at all.
I was torn between wanting to jump over the booth and run or embracing them to give them warmth. But all I could do was sit on the edge of the table while I held the woman’s stare. The girl at the woman’s side held what I now know to be her mother’s hand and thigh, the same as when they crawled onto the river’s bank just moments before.
The woman’s eyes offered no greater detail now then when she was fifty yards away. I could neither feel comfortable nor turn away. I felt a great deal of emotion welling up inside. No end to sadness and despair. I don’t know why, but I said, “I am sorry.”
She looked down at her daughter, then walked past me, all of them followed, wet feet sliding across the tile floor. To the end of the isle and window they walked, and without hesitation, through the wall, to the river, and back again into the water.
One by one, their feet, thighs, their entire bodies and heads disappeared into the eddies. Small white bubbles swirled round where the last of their flowing gray, brown, and black hair submerged.
© Kai Staats 2009
Update from Morokoshi, Kenya
On 2008-12-21 Steve Muriithi, Morokoshi founder wrote:
[With] the mood of the the new year … the Japanees friend broke good news this week … want to build [a new] class through the cloth company; this was a very big surprise after an year of big struggle. This makes our plan successful.
Everything is doing great and i can see that we may succeed, our plan may even beat our time. The only thing that we should do is to make our work and management to be the best in east and central Africa.
Having a big worry of a large intake next year, now you sleep tight cause i can see that we shall be having new class desk and now we should be looking ahead for chairs and washroom. The school in Kenya open in the second week of January.
The playing field is now ready and im happy that the new kids will have a good playing ground. After X-mas i will send you the photo of how far i have gone interestingly all the money that im using is from my juice stand. It have prove to be the best.
2009-02-09
Thank you for the good work that you continue doing for Morokoshi. Cam, the letter that you wrote to the council addressing the market grievances is now at work and the council [has] started responding to our problem. i miss your way of writing and the way you can arrange things. Thank for your knowledge.
Kai, i have now doors and windows that i bought and i wish you and your team work were near to fix them on behalf of the school. i miss your good work. the school is doing well and all is well. the changes that we all believe in is now coming to morokoshi and you can see it beauty. It’s so wonderful!
