Chai Tea Sunday by Heather A. Clark

breakfast, speaking through his bites.
    â€œSpeaking of our plans, we will leave in half an hour,” Mama Bu said as she took Kiano’s empty plate from him and carried it into the kitchen to wash the dishes. She filled the sink with cold, soapy water. I jumped up to help her.
    â€œWe will start by showing you around our land. Then we will walk into Ngong town. Does that sound alright with you?” Mama Bu said, scrubbing the dishes, which she handed to me to dry. She pointed to the various spots in the open cupboard where each dish went. “I will show you where Kidaai is, as well as the market. And later I will take you to the slums. It is always sad to see, but I think it is needed for you — many of the children you will be teaching are from the slums. You need to see the reality of where they come from.”
    â€œIs Kidaai in the slums?” I asked, anxious to learn more about where I would be working, and suddenly nervous about having to go into the slums of Ngong every day.
    â€œNo, Nicky. Kidaai is very close. It is about ten minutes up the road, near Ngong town. The slums, well, they are about twenty minutes past that by foot,” Mama Bu answered. She scrubbed the thin plastic kitchen counter with vigour, careful to wipe every inch before hanging the cloth over the sink. “The little ones who need help get taken from the slums, or other places, and put into orphanage care. They are the ones you will be teaching.”
    â€œHow long have the kids been in the orphanage?”
    â€œIt really all depends. Some have been there for only a few months, while others have been there for years. I think the youngest Jebet has right now is three. The oldest is about eleven, or so.” Mama Bu took a pot from the sink and put it away in a cupboard. “The biggest problem Kidaai has right now is that the kids do not stick around past that age. They all seem to run away when they reach the age of eleven or twelve. It is really very sad — they almost always end up back in the slums.”
    Puzzled, I wondered why kids would leave the comfort of an orphanage, only to return to the devastation they came from. “Why would they do that?”
    â€œOh, many different reasons, I guess. Some are acting out and . . . how do you say it . . .
rebelling
? Others think they can take care of themselves. Many do not like Jebet — she is the orphanage director — so I wonder if they do it to get away from her. Others have family back in the slums, and they leave to go and find them. But mostly the older kids don’t want to stick around because they don’t like caring for the younger kids all the time. It’s too much work for them.”
    I nodded, wondering how much work they were actually doing. “And why don’t they like Jebet?”
    â€œShe is pretty tough on some of the kids,” Mama Bu said sadly. She wiped her hands on a tea cloth, then smiled, clearly wanting to change the subject. “Now, shall we go? Let’s walk around our land and I will show you some of our trees and gardens. We have got plenty of it, compared to most.”
    â€œSure. Sounds great!” I grabbed my backpack from my bedroom and stuffed it with things I’d need that day, including a granola bar, hand sanitizer and a bottle of water from the plane. Plus one of the three big bottles of sunscreen I’d stuffed in my suitcase. My fair skin had always burned easily and I was paranoid of turning into a lobster after a few minutes in the African sun. I knew I’d be slathering on the thick sunscreen many times per day and I hoped no one would make fun of me.
    The brochure I read at the airport warned visitors to carry their backpack on their front, so I slipped my arms through the straps and carried it like I was a kangaroo and it was my joey.
    â€œReady?” Mama Bu asked, when she saw me.
    â€œDefinitely! Let’s go.” I was ready to take on the world. Or, at