Reasons to Be Happy by Katrina Kittle Page B

one of those!) would detach them and they’d blow away.
    The van began to pull forward. “Wait!” I cried, digging in my pockets. I handed the girl a fistful of the bright, fake-looking money I’d exchanged at the airport the night before.
    “Whoa, Hannah, that’s a lot,” Kick said.
    But I placed the money in the girl’s hands. Her skin was remarkably cool in this heat.
    “ Medasi, medasi, ” she chanted as we pulled away. Thank you.
    “You okay?” Aunt Izzy asked me, looking back from her shotgun seat next to Ben.
    I nodded, but the image of the girl’s face was permanently seared on my brain.
    • • •
    We finally got out of Accra, heading north for Kumasi, farther into Ghana, farther from my life. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing, getting farther from my life. My life was pretty sucky, but at least I knew it. Every single thing I laid my eyes on here was strange and unfamiliar to me.
    A young girl walked with a wooden tray of shiny red tomatoes balanced perfectly on her head. I wondered if she had friends she trusted. Did she wonder Am I pretty enough? Thin enough?
    • • •
    In Kumasi, people surrounded our van like my parents were on board. It had been a while since I’d experienced this kind of fanfare, and it had never before been directed at me . Little kids ran up to touch me then ran away. Everyone called out “ Obruni! ” to us: “ Obruni , hello!”
    Obruni means white person. I’m not sure what language it is, since there isn’t one official language in Ghana. Even a little boy in his mother’s arms cried out the greeting like a kid might say, “Santa Claus!” It was kind of funny, but also incredibly weird. I mean, I can’t imagine calling out, “Hello, black person!” when I saw one at home.
    While Aunt Izzy and her team unloaded equipment onto the sidewalk at the orphanage, children tugged on me, asked me my name, wanted me to take their pictures, wanted to touch my skin and hair. When someone patted my butt, I wheeled around, but it was just a little boy, maybe five years old. He then patted his own butt as if he was trying to see if I felt like he did. Thick heavy traffic crawled past us, everyone looking to see what the commotion was.
    “Sister, sister,” one man in a car sang at Pearl, leaning out his window. He didn’t call like to get her attention; he said it more in an admiring tone, the way someone at a museum might look at Starry Night and say, “Van Gogh, Van Gogh.”
    Pearl smirked a bit but tossed her braid as she hefted camera equipment in the brigade from van to orphanage door. I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
    The man, stuck in traffic, raised his voice. “Oh, please, Miss Fatty. Give me one look.”
    I gasped. How rude. “What a jerk,” I said.
    But Pearl laughed. “It’s a compliment, sweetie. Calling me ‘fatty’ is the same as someone whistling back home.”
    I looked at Ben, who nodded. I also noticed he looked at Pearl with appreciation.
    “Ghana is good for my ego,” Pearl said.
    Children surrounded me, pressed their hands on me, asking if they could have my camera, my watch, my shoes. My claustrophobia tipped toward meltdown.
    I ran into the orphanage, after the team, afraid to be left in the crowd alone.
    • • •
    Inside, I couldn’t shake the dream-like blur. Constant noise, chaos, like I was getting live streaming video from about fifty different sources. The heat pressed me down.
    Aunt Izzy’s team filmed and interviewed orphans while I hovered and watched. Their stories made me feel that limbs-might-detach sensation again.
    • • •
    During a break, Kick said, “Maybe our scope is too broad. We could do a whole series on Darfur alone.”
    “Or Sierra Leone,” Dimple said.
    “Or Congo or Rwanda or Zimbabwe,” Aunt Izzy said, eyes blazing. “But that’s the point . This whole continent is turning into a land of orphans! I want to do that story. The bigger story.”
    Next, they talked to children who