Alexandria of Africa (16 page)

I settled into the dust with my back against the trunk. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the paper bag. I guess this only made sense. I was working like some guy on a construction site, so why shouldn’t I eat like the common man? Maybe I should learn to spit and whistle at pretty girls, too … that was what they did, wasn’t it?

Ruth was the first of the girls to appear from the kitchen building. She was holding a bowl in her right hand and using the fingers of her free hand to eat from it as she walked. She settled down into the dirt beside me. I looked into her bowl. It was filled with white rice and some yellowish beans. It just might make my lunch look good.

I opened up the bag. An orange, already peeled, a bottle of water, and a pita, with … white rice and yellowish beans inside.
Sigh
.

“Do you want some orange?” I asked.

“Thank you.”

She took the orange and pulled off a slice. She offered it to me. She then took a second section and passed the orange to another girl who had sat down beside her. We were now in the centre of half a dozen girls. That girl took a piece and handed it to the next girl. Soon the last slice was taken.

“Your hair,” Ruth said. “It looks very … very … not as nice.”

“That’s being generous. My hair is
hideous.”

“What is ‘hideous’?”

“Terrible, awful, disgusting, like a witch.”

“Witch?” she said, shaking her head. “You mean like sorceress,
kizee?
No, I wish
I
had hair like yours.”

“And I wish I had cheekbones like yours,” I said. “A lot of models would kill to have your facial structure. I can just imagine how pretty your eyes would look with
makeup and … wait …” Maybe I didn’t have to imagine.

I reached over, grabbed my backpack, and pulled out my makeup bag.

“Could I do your eyes?” I asked.

“Do what with them?”

I laughed. “Could I put on makeup, the colour and shading around my eyes?”

Ruth giggled. She said something to the other girls and they all started laughing.

“Yes,” she said.

First I pulled out my eyeshadow. I opened the case and tried to decide which colour from the palette would be the best. I needed to do something that would complement her red uniform but also highlight her eye colour. I held her face in my hands and turned her head slowly. Her eyes were beautiful. They were a deep shade of brown with little flecks of gold. Gold, that was it, I’d play off the gold, but first I had to add some highlights.

I took the brush—my best Mac brush made of the finest of horsehair—and dabbed it against white. I ran the brush lightly underneath her eyebrows. She giggled and squirmed a little.

“Don’t move or I won’t be responsible for the outcome.”

I applied another light coat. The white was very vibrant against her skin. I put the brush down. Next I needed an eyeliner. I rummaged among the dozen different eyeliners in the bag. I did a quick mental calculation—each was worth between twenty and forty dollars, so, on average, thirty dollars. That meant I had close to four hundred dollars’ worth of eyeliner in there. What I didn’t want to think about was what four hundred dollars would mean to these people.

So, which was the right eyeliner? I’d originally thought black, but realized that wouldn’t provide contrast. Besides, unless you were an emo-kid, that was overdone and totally boring. I selected a brown one, from the Sephora line.

“Close your eyes and hold still.”

I took the eyeliner and drew a thin line along the edge of the eyelid, as close to the lashes as possible. Very nice. I did the second eye. Funny, this was like working with a big Barbie doll—a big black Barbie doll. Didn’t Barbie have a black friend? I couldn’t remember her name, but I was pretty sure Malibu Barbie would have had a lot of trouble finding a black friend in Malibu.

The other girls all crowded in for a better look. They seemed fascinated by the process.

I picked up the brush again. It was time for the gold. I dabbed the brush, and in the space between the eyeliner and the white eyeshadow I applied a thicker coat of gold. I tried to be as gentle as I could. This was looking very good.

Next step, mascara. Her lashes were thick but I could make them thicker.

I put the eyeliner pencil back in the bag and selected my best mascara.

“Open your eyes really wide. This might tickle a bit.”

I pulled out the applicator. As I brought it toward her eye she started to pull away.

“Stay still or I might accidentally poke you in the eye!”

She held tight and I started the top lashes. It went on very easily, but that was one of the benefits of top-of-the-line makeup.

Next I wanted to put on some concealer—did I have
anything that would match her skin? I looked at her face. There were no places where concealer was even needed. Her skin was even and blemish-free. How fair was that? Maybe living in a mud hut was like having a continual mud bath.

“There, you’re done,” I announced.

She opened her eyes. All the other girls started to laugh and smile and point and crowd all around.

“Here,” I said. I pulled a mirror out of my bag and handed it to her.

She moved it around until she could see herself. Her smile got even bigger.

“I look … I look … 
beautiful.”

All the other girls laughed hysterically, and the boys came over and looked, and then the little girls who had been sitting elsewhere came running over to look as well. I backed away as Ruth became the centre of an evergrowing throng of kids.

Another girl—she looked as though she might be in Standard Eight too—tugged at my hand.

“Me next? Please?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes. You next.”

Renée walked over to me. I started to get up off the ground. What was this all about? I’d just taken a lousy two-minute break from work, and now she was going to get all up in my face about it?

“It’s okay, don’t get up,” she said.

I wasn’t going to listen to anything she told me to do, so I did get up.

“You don’t have to lecture. I’m ready to get back to work.”

“No. that’s okay. You deserve a break. You’ve been working very hard today. As hard as anybody here.”

“I’m just doing what I have to do, that’s all,” I said.

“Alexandria, I know you’re trying to make a point, but nobody is asking you to kill yourself. All this work must be hard on the nails.”

I didn’t know that she’d noticed. Even with work gloves, I’d busted off two nails on my right hand and a third on the left. I’d have them fixed first thing when I got back to civilization. Wait, was she being sarcastic?

“I’m actually here to extend an invitation to you,” Renée said.

“An invitation from whom?”

“From one of the local chiefs. He wants you to come for supper.”

“Why would he want
me
to come for supper?” I questioned suspiciously.

“I think it was the suggestion of his daughter, Ruth.”

“Ruth’s father is a chief? So that makes her like … like a princess,” I gasped.

“They would just call her the chief’s daughter, but that analogy works.”

“I’ve never had a princess for a friend before.”

“Neither has she,” Renée said. “Sorry, that one
was
a shot.”

“Calling me a princess isn’t a shot. It’s almost a compliment,” I sniffed.

“The choice is yours, but you should know that it would be considered impolite for you not to accept.”

I tried to think what supper would be like. Would we eat in their
castle
, that little hut made of mud and dung?
Could I stand the smoke in the air and the smell of cow dung? And what would they feed me?

“And you’d let me go?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to say yes or no.

“I keep telling you, you’re not in jail. You could leave with Ruth at the end of the day, and I’d send Nebala to get you at the village after supper to walk you home. If that’s what you want?”

“I’m not dressed for company.” I was wearing jeans today, of all things—okay, they were DKNY, but they were really filthy!

“I don’t think they’ll notice. So?”

My options were to go back with the others in the truck and eat what everybody else was going to eat—and it would be good and normal and nice—or go with Ruth and eat a mystery meal while squatting in the dirt.

“I’ll go with Ruth.”

“Good. Take along a bottle of water. You can eat whatever they cook, but whatever you do, don’t drink the water, understood?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not planning on drinking anything that doesn’t come from a bottle.”

We entered the village. It was still a muddy mess but somehow it didn’t seem as bad, or as smelly, as I’d remembered it. Lots of ladies were sitting in front of their huts, but I didn’t see Ruth’s mother. I waited outside while Ruth and the rest of the kids ran into their home. Ruth quickly re-emerged.

“My mother is not feeling well. The baby is coming soon.”

“Soon, like right now?” I gasped.

“Soon. A day or two, or a week. Soon.”

Soon was good. Today, right now, was bad. Very bad.

“We have to get water,” Ruth said.

I’d forgotten that having supper meant somebody, Ruth, had to fix that supper. It wasn’t like she could just go to the refrigerator, or turn on a tap, or give an order to the household staff to prepare something. Maybe I
was
more of a princess than Ruth. My house certainly was a castle compared to hers. Actually, the cabana for our pool was more castle-like.

Ruth came out of the hut with two large yellow plastic canisters slung over her shoulders. She barked out an order—I could tell by the tone of her voice that it was an order even if I didn’t understand the words. All of her sisters came out or stood up or walked over. Each grabbed a canister, including one little girl who was almost as small as the canister itself.

“Do you want to wait or come with us?” Ruth asked.

“Come with you.” The alternative wasn’t particularly pretty, or particularly pretty-smelling.

We made our way across the muddy field. I was super-careful not to step in anything other than mud. We left behind the corral and the fence and immediately swung to the right, away from the road and toward the hills. Up ahead were other girls also carrying brightly coloured water canisters. Some had them slung over a shoulder or on their backs. Some of the older girls had them balanced atop their heads.

It struck me then that it was just girls. Where were the boys? I didn’t see any at first, and then I noticed some older boys walking beside us, but at a distance. Instead of carrying water canisters they all were holding spears.

“How come the boys don’t have to carry water?” I asked.

“Not a boy job. They need to walk with spears.”

“How is that going to help us get water?” This seemed so unfair. The girls were like pack animals and the boys just wandered around playing with weapons.

“Not help to carry, but help to get.
Askari.”

“They’re guarding us? From what?”

“The water hole isn’t just for Maasai. For all the animals. Zebras, gazelles, antelopes. And where they go, lions follow.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Lions? Going for a walk in the heat and dust was one thing, but lions? Maybe I should have stayed with the smell, instead.

“These boys will protect us. Lions run when they see Maasai.”

“But these are just boys!” I protested.

“You see boys. The lion sees Maasai. Don’t fear.”

Ruth took me by the hand and I walked away with her. The ground was rough and there were more trees and small mounds—big enough to hide a lion. In the near distance the hills were larger and covered with shrubs and bushes—big enough to hide an
elephant
. At least with an elephant I’d be able to see it coming and I could run. How fast could something that big move, anyway?

Ruth shrieked and jumped into the air, and I shrieked as well, shocked, struggling, looking all around. And then there was laughter. Her brother was standing a dozen steps behind us, and finally I realized why he was laughing. Lying on the ground right by Ruth’s feet was a large chunk of dried-up cow dung. He’d hit her in the back with it. Ruth bent down, picked it up, and whipped it at him! It caught the side of his head with a glancing blow
and shot past. Now all of the girls, including me, were laughing at him, and he didn’t look nearly so amused.

“Can he really throw that spear?” I asked Ruth.

She yelled out to him and he trotted over, scowling and brushing the cow dung from his hair as he came. She said something else to him.

“I told him to hit the cactus,” she explained.

He drew back his spear and threw it toward some cacti a dozen yards off to the side. The spear shot straight into the largest upright shoot, splitting it in two! He ran off proudly to retrieve his spear.

I didn’t know whether I should be surprised, impressed, or just feel a little bit safer. What I did know was that I was really glad he’d only thrown a cow pie at us.

There was a definite downward slope to the land. We were headed toward a little gully. I could see the bottom, where it started to slope up on the other side, but I couldn’t make out even a thin line of water down there. Soon we were walking on what had obviously once been the river. Loose sand shifted underfoot, and I could see a high-water mark on the side of the rocks. This was, during the rainy season, I guessed, a wide, fast-moving river. Now it was all dried up … all dried up except for some muddy spots in the middle … and there were kids standing in the mud … no, that couldn’t be right … they were filling up their water containers from the water in the mud puddles!

I stumbled forward, swept along by the wave of kids carrying canisters. The mud puddle was at the bottom of a trough, a depression that had been dug into the sand. It wasn’t much bigger than a backyard pool. There were two girls at the bottom. As they filled each container they passed it up the slope to another girl, who passed it up higher until it reached the flat, sandy bottom. I watched as
they filled a dozen containers. The water looked dark and dirty. It
was
dark and dirty. How could it be anything else?