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The Arrival


Nick

The dhaw moved over the water with velocity as Taji expertly jumped from side to side, pulling the mainsail taught and guiding the ship along. We could see the shoreline and I watched as the hotels that line Lamu slowly got smaller and smaller, further apart, and finally became little grass huts set further back among trees, and finally disappeared, leaving nothing but long stretches of empty white sand.

“Tourism is the main source of income,” Kat said when the hotels started dying out. “The less hotels you see on the coast, the poorer the people are.” She shielded her eyes with her palm, staring out at the palm trees that leaned over the ocean’s edge on land.

“Is there a hotel in Kiwayuu?” I asked.

Kat smiled, “There’s one in Kiwayuu, yes, but we’re going to a village just north of it, and there’s no hotel there.” She paused. “Well. There was one in Kiwayuu. It’s not there anymore.”

“The tsunami?” I asked.

Kat nodded.

“So how bad’s the damages really? They usually look worse on TV, right?” I asked.

Kat looked down at me. I was straddling the bench, facing the land. She lowered so she was straddling the bench, facing me. She stared into my eyes for a long moment. “It’s really bad, Nick,” she said. She sighed deeply, “It hit Kiwayuu and the village dead-on, it swept away everything in it’s path. The only warning any of the people there got was from Taji… who was on the beach and saw the water receding as the wave came. He knew something was wrong and ran back to tell everyone. They couldn’t do much to prepare except pray.”

“Did anyone you know die?” I asked.

“One of the Wild Heartland volunteers, a really sweet guy named Clay… and Taji’s twin brother, Tamal.” Kat hung her head, then glanced over at Taji to make sure he couldn’t hear her, “He blames himself,” she whispered.

I looked at Taji. He seemed pretty happy-go-lucky, I didn’t see how it was possible that guy blamed himself for something so major. But then again, when my sister, Leslie, died, I went through a period of believing it was my fault, too - a feeling mainly fueled by my mother’s accusations, of course - I went on doing my tour. I carried on and pushed my way through the pain I felt. To every face in the world, I was okay. Lauren was the only one who really knew what I was feeling.

The thought of Lauren caused a pain in my chest and I turned away from Taji, suddenly flooded with the feeling of missing her. I gritted my teeth and winced away the ache. She’d been the only person that had stood by me through the worst times of my life - time and time again - and I couldn’t handle the idea that something else terrible might happen without her by my side. I had to push on, had to get this done, had to get back home, and get back my wife, my life.

“Nanny has been inconsolable since…” Kat was saying, still low, but she’d turned to look ahead over the bow. “She cries at night so deeply the entire village can feel it. It’s like her sobs are the village, are the land, crying out for the blood and the destruction.” Kat looked at me and the sun caught her hair, making it bright as the water we were sailing over. Her eyes, too.

“That sucks,” I said. It was probably the least poetic response I could have had, but the only one I could muster. I didn’t have a clue who the fuck Nanny was and honestly all that was going through my mind was that Kat kind of reminded me of a blue-haired Pocahontas and suddenly I had Colors of the Wind in my head.

Kat stood back up, our conversation over.

I looked back at Taji again and he smiled and waved enthusiastically as he steered the mainsail to the starboard side, running along the frame of the boat.

We’d been on the boat for nearly four hours when my back was starting to hurt from sitting on the bench, so I stood up and stretched my arms, leaning backwards to pop my spine. Kat had sat back down in the bow, her chin on the frame of the boat, one hand leaning over the edge as though in an attempt to reach the water that sped by.

At one point, I saw a dolphin further out, jumping along the surface, his dorsal fin cutting the water as he swam. Several others followed him. I had to admit that this place was beautiful and entirely unlike anything I’d ever expected to see when I had told Kat I’d come out to Africa to help. If Lauren had known this was what this place was like, she would have thought I wasn’t being very selfless at all. It was kind of a win-win for me. I was getting the woman and a nice vacation.

Despite what Kat had told me before, I was still pretty sure the destruction in the village wouldn’t be as bad as the TV had made it sound. I was still imagining walking into a clean hotel room with running water and a real mattress with a TV and a plug to charge my cell phone with...

Another hour later and that vision was starting to fade. The first effects of the tsunami were becoming apparent along the coastline as fallen trees came into view. There were torn leaves strewn across the beach and uprooted trunks laying half in the water. It got worse and worse and soon there were artefacts of buildings on the beach, too. Scraps of wood, torn blue tarps, a broken chair, a plastic bucket. The trees were levelled, laying flat on the ground in messy, soaking heaps. People stood among them, moving them using ropes. Pieces of the wreckage started appearing in the water and Taji slowed down our progression, trying to navigate among the drifting, broken bits.

“Jesus,” I whispered as a doll drifted by in the water, naked and missing one arm.

Kat’s face was somber.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My stomach turned. I gripped the edge of the boat and closed my eyes, trying to steady myself, afraid I’d end up throwing up. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?

Every time I didn’t think it could get any worse, it did. It got steadily worse until Taji finally navigated the boat toward the shore, making his way through lumps of grass and wood. There was a short pier that had obviously been built in haste with rope and some of the fallen trees. The leaves were still attached to the trees and everything as they bobbed on the surface of the water. Taji got the boat up to the trees and tied the dhaw up, carefully climbing out and tugging ropes to bring the boat parallel to the trees.

I took hold on my suitcase handle and stood up. Kat helped me get the suitcases out as Taji started unloading the tents, running back and forth from the beach to the ship with armfuls of them. “Paka, go and show your Backstreet Boy the village,” Taji said as she tried to help with the tents, “I will get these for you.” He smiled brightly, his broken and imperfect teeth showing. I couldn’t help but think that if he had veneers he’d have a great smile.

“Asante, Taji.” Kat turned to me, “C’mon.”

I followed her across the beach, dragging my two suitcases and finally understanding that I was most definitely overpacked.





Kat

Nick followed me as I picked my way along the path that we had cleared from the village to the beach. Taji and some of the other guys from the village had worked for days to clear the path. When I’d first arrived after the tsunami, I’d had to climb over fallen trees and remnants of homes, past drowned and rotting livestock and shattered furniture, all the way inland to the village. I’d spent the entire walk terrified of what I’d find on the other end, terrified all of my friends and family here in Kiwayuu would be dead. The memory of the fear choked me up, even now, as I moved through the thick, salty woods and I knew that the things that haunted me would haunt my people tenfold.

Nick’s footsteps were loud on the floor of the tropical forest that we were moving through. I glanced back at him. He was staring up into the trees at the broken and bent branches and the sun coming through torn and tattered leaves. The forest was so much thinner than it had been. Many of the villagers said that it was thanks to the denseness of the forest that they had not all been killed; the trees had slowed some of the wave and had given them a bit of protection, the only protection they got from the forces of nature.

“There’s usually monkeys in these trees,” I said.

“Monkeys?” Nick looked at me with raised eyebrows.

I nodded. “They run wild through these trees usually, the way squirrels do back home.” I smiled at the surprise I’d had the first time I’d traveled to Africa to learn that monkeys were so common. “They’re friendly. Or they were.”

“Where did they go?” Nick asked. He glanced over his shoulders, “They weren’t washed away, were they?” He snickered, “They’d be sea monkeys if they were.” Then, realizing his joke was in bad taste, he sobered and said, “Sorry.”

“The monkeys have heightened senses,” I replied, ignoring his sea monkeys comment. “They know when there is danger.”

“So where are they now?” he asked, “Shouldn’t they have come back?”

“Probably further inland,” I answered. “Nanny says the monkeys will return once they sense that the danger has passed, but we have not yet seen them.”

Nick stared thoughtfully into the trees again as he followed me.

It’s a long walk to the village. Nearly eight miles. I always forget how long a walk it is until I’m leading someone who isn’t used to it along the pathway. Nick was breathing heavily before we reached the sixth mile. “We can take a break,” I offered, but he shook his head.

We were almost to the village when there was a crack in the woods to our left and Nick jumped about a mile. “What the fuck was that?” he cried, looking around in a panic.

I looked through the trees and saw three boys crouching behind some fallen trees. “Azizi… Mosi… Nyo… I see you.”

The boys came out, dressed only in shorts. One of them was clutching a long stick and all three of them were covered with mud. They ran over and the younger two, who were both eight, wrapped their arms around my hips in greeting. “Paka! Paka!” they cried excitedly.

Azizi, the oldest at twelve, was the one holding the stick and clearly the leader of their motley little crew. He grinned, “You’re home, Paka,” he said.

“I’m home,” I said with a nod. “Azizi, Mosi, Nyo… this is Nick. He’s come to help us rebuild the village. This is the very nice man who is matching the donations that Wild Heartlands gets.” Mosi and Nyo seemed awestruck for a moment, then quickly rushed to hug Nick’s hips as they had mine. Azizi, though, looked at Nick warily.

“Kuwakaribisha!” Mosi and Nyo cried as they hugged Nick, welcoming him in Swahili.

“Ka-wacky-bisha,” Nick attempted to repeat and the boys laughed and started running ahead on the path. Azizi eyed him carefully, then joined them. Nick looked at me, “That kid doesn’t like me.”

“He’s wary,” I said. “He’s been through a lot. His father… was not a very good man. I’ll tell you more about it later,” I added, seeing that Azizi was not as far away as I would want him to be when I told Nick the story incase he overheard.

The boys ran ahead, singing an old folk song that Nanny had taught them as they crashed through the trees to the village. Azizi waiting every now and then for Nick and I to catch up to be sure we were following along okay. We finally crested a small hill and there before us lay the damp, sodden land that was once the thriving village… now essentially a muddy cess pool.

Nick came to a stop beside me. He stared around. The people were sitting around a fire in the center on logs, fallen trees they’d dragged from the woods. There were clothes flung over branches that had been stuck into the ground in poor attempts to create tents and one measly home that had been built over the past three weeks far off in the corner of the clearing, where Nanny, the eldest in the village, now lived.

Nanny herself was seated at the fire, handing a little girl, Siti, Mosi’s sister, a piece of a mango. Nanny spotted us and she stood up as Siti started to eat the mango. Mosi and Nyo had reached the circle, shouting that I was back with Nick and the people turned, their eyes taking in Nick and I at the edge of the forest and looking to one another with excitement and curiosity.

Nanny walked over, hobbled, really, her grey hair swept up into a long braid that hung over her shoulder, her long robes dirty with mud. She stepped past me to Nick and raised her old hands up and clasped the sides of his face, staring into his eyes for a long moment. I saw Nick blink nervously as she stared, a breathless sort of awe shivering it’s way through the other people around the fire. And then Nanny smiled up at him and leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Asante,” she said lowly, “Kuwakaribisha.”