Page 60 of 5+Us Makes Seven

I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to break any more until that moment.

“Okay kids,” I said as I set the book aside. “I’ll tell you a story about Miss Nattie.”

Nineteen

Natasha

“Natasha! Come get me!”

“I’m coming, Imani! You better run!”

“Natasha! Over here!”

“Kali! Zoya! We have to split up!”

“Natasha! They’ve got me!”

“I’m coming, Imani! I’m coming!”

I ran around with the kids through the mud streets of the village I was in. Bria was full of life and I hadn’t heard gunfire in days. It was refreshing, to see these kids laughing and smiling. Their mothers were outside talking up a storm with their neighbors while cooking dinner, and no one seemed to be looking over their shoulders.

My first few days in Africa had been a whirlwind. Even though Clark was insistent on me taking one of the yurts they had set up for the team, I wanted to sleep in a mud hut within the community. If I was going to be helping them and reforming them in some way, I wanted to be a part of them. I wanted the kids to feel free to come to me when they wanted to work on something. Whether it was their speech, their occupational therapy, or their mathematics homework.

I wanted them to feel as if I was a part of their community.

“Catch me, Natasha! Catch me!”

“You run too fast. I can’t keep up!” I said.

I would be up before the sun, walking with the women to get water from the river. Then I would help them get back to their huts before making my way to my office. From sun-up to dinnertime I would see patients. Children who weren’t walking even though they were four years old and kids who couldn’t speak because of tongue ties. Children with autism whose mothers couldn’t understand why their children were possessed. Education was what I came armed with. All the families needed was a bit of education in order to help raise their special children.

But whenever I laid my head down at night, I thought about Carter and the kids.

I missed them terribly. Every time something amazing happened, I wanted to call them. I wanted to video chat with Carter and tell him about all of the things that had already improved in the country and all of the children who were beginning to trust me. I wanted to bring the kids I played with in to introduce them to Carter’s kids.

Hell, part of me wanted them to fly out and come see what I was doing.

But every time I thought about reaching out, that last encounter came flying back. How angry and upset the kids were with me and how destitute Carter had seemed. His kiss had been hot on my cheek, but the look in his eye had still been angry.

He was angry at me for leaving.

Which meant I didn’t have any right to reach out and disturb his life again.

Life went on like that for two months. I would walk to the river, come back, help kids, then play with them in the community until I collapsed. Exhaustion was beginning to drag me under earlier and earlier, to a point where I was falling asleep at my desk sometimes. Headaches would set in and Clark would be there with Tylenol to help. He would keep telling me I was taking on too much. That my role here was to educate and that needed to be a priority over everything else I was doing.

I closed my eyes every night and thought of them. How much they would enjoy the African sunsets and the campfires the community held for celebrations. I was decorated in things the women made me, and they taught me the dances of the tribes they had fled in order to seek refuge. But the turning and the twisting and the gyrating made me sick one night, and Clark had to intervene in order to make sure I got some rest.

But the sickness didn’t go away and the headaches got worse. Chugging water didn’t work and keeping out the sun didn’t help. My skin was burning easier than usual and the sweating became astronomical.

There was something wrong. So I booked an appointment with Clark to figure out what the hell was going on.

“What have you been eating lately?” he asked.

“The usual. Rice. A bit of jerky meat. Last week there were some vegetables that made it into the community from the market.”

“What vegetables?” he asked.

“Plantains and some common beans.”

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