Saturday, December 19, 2020

One Thousand Shillings

One thousand shillings. That’s about 30 cents. Not much to us. Not much to a lot of people. But at the same time, it is very much. 

A few days ago I sent a boda driver to do some shopping while I stayed on the compound. We have been doing this since lockdown began in March, using the same driver every time. We give him a list and enough money for the shopping, he does his best to find everything, and then he returns with our shopping and the change, at which point we also pay him for the service. Actually, if we had known about this even before lockdown it would have been a good alternative to going into Mukono every week for grocery shopping. 

This day, the shopping was simple and nearby, so I planned to pay him less than usual. When he came back with my fruit, I gave him a five thousand shilling note and started to explain why I was paying him less and that next time he did more shopping it would be the normal amount. Quite honestly, I expected him to argue and demand more. He did shake his head, but with a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 

“You give me four thousand,” he said. I thought he meant four thousand more than the five thousand I was offering. 

“Four thousand?” I asked. 

“It is only four thousand today,” he said, smiling. 

I gave him four thousand with a bit of relief and a lot of appreciation. I smiled. “Thank you for being honest.”

It was not about the money. I would not have missed the thousand shillings. What I so deeply appreciated was the fact that even though he knows I have money to spare, he did not accept a price that would have been unfair to me. He treated me as an equal, and not as a foreign stranger. 

There is a custom in Uganda that if you hold a baby for the first time, you have to give the baby money. I don’t know where or when it originated, how far the custom reaches or what the purpose is exactly. I didn’t even know about it until we brought Patricia back to Noah’s Ark when she was a few months old and some teachers who came to see her put money in her tiny little pockets. Not everyone does it, and certainly not everyone does it to foreigners. 

Today we saw an old friend—and when I say old, I mean it both in the sense that we have known him for six years and that he is a very old man. We call him Mzee, a term of respect for a grown man. 

In our sponsorship program, the sponsors from outside Uganda pay the bulk of the cost of school for each student. The student and his or her family, however, are still required to pay for the uniform. It is a small price in comparison to the total cost of school fees, but it is still more money than what many families have. Therefore, several parents of students come to Noah’s Ark once a week to chop firewood for the kitchen to pay off the uniform. Mzee was one of those parents. 

Mzee began chopping firewood before I ever came to Uganda, when his daughter was in primary school. He chopped enough firewood to pay for her uniform. He chopped enough firewood to pay for several other students’ uniforms. And still he came. He chopped. He smiled. He went home and did it all again. He was a fixture here at Noah’s Ark. 

Mzee has one crippled hand. The fingers are not fully grown and he cannot hold anything in that hand. The work he does, he does with one good hand. The work he does, he does well. 

I got used to seeing Mzee when he came almost every day for firewood. We would smile as we passed each other on the hill. We shook hands and greeted one another, and inevitably he would ask me something in Luganda which I did not understand and we would eventually smile again and go our separate ways. It was familiar, albeit limited. He knew I didn’t know more than a few phrases in Luganda and he spoke to me every time anyway. 

As he grew older, his health declined. He started coming less often. When he came, he moved more slowly. He was always pushing an old bike that he used to carry his things—I don’t know if I ever saw him riding it. He fell ill a few times, but pushed through. 

One time after he fell sick, he stopped coming altogether. His house is about two miles from Noah’s Ark and he used to walk the whole distance, and probably bike part of it. But that became too far. I used to run past his house sometimes, but lockdown put an end to that as well. 

Today at our Christmas concert was the first time I had seen Mzee in over a year. He is a bit more stooped and held someone’s arm while he walked. Our headmaster had picked him up in the car because he would not have managed the whole way on foot. But he was the same Mzee. 

After the concert, Christian, Patricia, Elliot and I went to greet him. Even with Patricia on my hip, I knelt down in front of him, because that is what women are supposed to do and this man has sure earned a lot of respect. We exchanged the most basic of greetings in Luganda and then Christian introduced him to Elliot, whom he had never seen. Mzee motioned for Chrsitian to give Elliot to him and then the old man sat happily with a chubby white baby balanced on his lap. The old man gave the young boy a kiss on his head. It was a beautiful sight. 

After a minute he started fumbling with his good hand in his shirt pocket, and I immediately knew what he was doing. It was unnecessary, and for a moment it made me uncomfortable. If there is one thing I don’t need, it is this grandfather’s money. 

But this discomfort also gave way to a deep appreciation. As we laughed while we watched him try to pry open Elliot’s fist to give the baby the money, we were a community. We were equals. We were not white or black, young or old, educated or uneducated. He accepted us to the point of welcoming us into his culture, even when it cost him something. 

It was not about the money. Not for me. It was about friendship. Acceptance. Love. Family. Community. Fellowship. Unity. It made me feel at home. 

That’s a pretty powerful 30 cents, if you ask me. 

PC: my amazing husband


Friday, September 25, 2020

My Lockdown



IT IS THE end of March and it is 4:30 on a Wednesday morning. The insects buzz outside; the birds not yet awake. It is never silent here. If I look out the window, I can see a few gleaming spots on the horizon, like stars that have sunk too low and stuck to the morning dew of the earth. The few houses across the valley that keep an outside light on all night. There is a faint light glowing where I know the compound gate stands, hidden from my view by some nursery school classrooms. 

I sit in the corner of the library closest to the door, not by choice, but because that is where the working outlet is. It is also the darkest corner of the library, as that is where the only non-working ceiling light is. Unlucky combination I guess. I sit on the floor, also not exactly by choice, but because all the desks are piled with stacks of books and there is not enough space on them to fit the piles of homework I am preparing. 

At four months pregnant, my belly is just starting to emerge over the hem of my jeans, especially when I sit cross-legged on the concrete floor. Those who know me well recognized it before we made the announcement a couple of weeks ago; other, less-perceptive people, were surprised with the news like we were in the beginning. I haven’t yet felt the baby move or heard the heartbeat, so my visibly growing stomach is finally some physical evidence of the life we have been told is growing inside. I sit comfortably and welcome the knowledge of the little life’s company this early morning. 

Ignoring the hum of insects that have entered through the pane-less windows, I survey the scene around me. Thirteen Pringles cans are scattered across the library floor, each with a label on the side: P.1 A, P.1 B, P.2 A, and so forth, up to P.6 B. Each can holds an eraser, a pencil sharpener, one pen for each member of that group, and as many colored pencils as can fit. We have close to 200 children on the compound and we want to keep them busy and educated while schools are closed, but the government has recently made a new coronavirus rule that people should not gather in groups of more than five. 

Two hundred children divided into groups of five. Okay. 

We are doing our best. We have divided the nursery and primary school children into small groups according to class, so at most they have activities with seven people. Every day they have two activities that last for two hours each. During that time, one hour is spent on homework and the other is an activity such as art, PE, zumba, card games or music, led by a teenager or adult. It will suffice for the one month school is closed. 

I prepare the homework, which is proving to be more time consuming than I had originally thought. For one, it turns out I don’t really know what the different ages should know. When school is in session, I work with children who are behind in reading and math compared to their classmates, but I almost never work with children who are at the level they should be. How many numbers has a six-year-old learned, and does she know what she can do with them? If I tell a fifth grader to write a short story, should I expect correct punctuation? 

I pore through library books and activity books, writing on sticky notes how many copies to make of each one. I check the work that came back the day before to assess whether the work was the right level. With non-teachers as the teachers, sometimes it is hard to know if the work was beyond the level of the children or the instructions were beyond the level of the teacher. A first grade group was supposed to copy a card with some words and write the rhyming words on their papers. Instead, they all traced and colored their hands. I shake my head and move on. Eventually I will get all caught up, right?

One group is doing homework. 


Puzzles is a weekly activity.

This is how I sometimes manage to organize the homework.

This is how I usually manage to organize the homework.



IT IS THE end of May and it is 4:30 on a Saturday morning. My husband sleeps peacefully in one bedroom; my daughter in the other. Once in a while I can hear a lonesome snore or the sound of someone shifting position—with Patricia that is usually accompanied by a thunk as either she or her cup hits the wooden slats on her bed—and I find comfort in the company within my own home. 

I was always naturally an early riser. However, 4:30 on a Saturday morning is pushing it, even for me. It is not my first choice to get up before the roosters and the Muslims in the mosque, but during the week my workdays are so long that I miss my family. My time with Patricia has been relegated mostly to getting her ready in the morning, making her lunch, making her supper and getting her ready for bed in the evening. We can make quality time of it, but it takes effort. If I want to spend non-working time with her this weekend, I need to get work done before she opens her eyes and calls my name. Hence 4:30 a.m.

I see many Facebook posts of friends in America—and even people here—with photos of them and their children, saying that one benefit of lockdown everywhere is that they get more quality time with their children. I try not to be jealous, but I envy them nonetheless. I miss my child. On Sunday mornings when I need to go to school to prepare homework for all the groups, Patricia stands in the doorway and cries, shouting “Mama!” over and over again as I walk away, and it breaks my heart. 

Schools did not open after one month. There are rumors they will open soon, but no one knows the truth. We all wait, watch on TV when the president speaks, and shake our heads in disappointment when he announces more restrictions that people will likely not follow. And we do our best. What else can we do? 

Our lockdown program has not changed much. I asked a teacher to help prepare homework, dividing the groups between the two of us, and she has been a lifesaver. I no longer have to go to the library before the break of dawn five days a week, though I do still bring homework to prepare from home in the evenings after Patricia has gone to bed. I have not had a day off in nine weeks, but as soon as school starts again I will leave the libraries in the hands of others and take a week-long vacation. That should happen sometime in the next few weeks, surely.

I adjust the papers on the table so I can see all the lists I am using—the empty grid for the program next week, the children who are in band and cannot attend morning activities, the types of activities the teenagers are willing to lead, which day and time each auntie from the children’s home is available, the teenagers who are in a Friday afternoon Bible study and cannot lead activities at that time… I need a bigger table. Because the leaders in this program are from different departments and their schedules change week by week, I need to make a new schedule for the 17 groups of children every week. I have timed it, and from start to finish it takes about nine hours to put together the schedule. That is usually the whole of my Saturday. If I want family time on the weekend, it means a late Friday night or an early Saturday morning, but it is worth it. I don’t mind the work. In the beginning, the first day of lockdown when we were brainstorming what to have the children do in the one month without school, I offered to make the timetable because I do the same sort of thing in the holidays and have experience putting together those types of programs. I have yet to meet anyone here who actually likes doing it, so it was also an offer to spare others the headache of doing it themselves. I did not imagine at the time that nine weeks later I would still be doing it, with no visible end in sight. 

Christian would like me to be home more often. He says I am working too much, too hard. He is probably right, but what choice is there? Everyone is putting in extra time and effort. 

“I am not doing this out of bitterness or just a sense of responsibility,” I tell him one evening when we are having that conversation again. I am tired and in tears. “I am doing this because I love the children and I really think this structure and having a program like this is the best thing for them right now. They might not see it that way, but I am being honest when I say the main motivation behind the early mornings and late nights is love.”

At six months pregnant, my belly bumps the table every time I stand up to make another cup of tea or go to the bathroom because I have been drinking too many cups of tea. It is getting to the point where I need to consciously make space for the extra area I occupy. I still find it interesting that a few extra inches in the front makes such a big difference when navigating through doorways or between desks in a classroom. Our baby boy is growing fast, and now he contributes to my early morning work with kicks and punches and somersaults. He is a welcome companion while my other favorite people are sleeping. 

Saturday morning, 4:30 a.m.


Saturday morning, 7:30 a.m.

The timetable after one hour of work. 

After four hours...

After eight hours...

After nine hours and finished. This is the schedule for half a day.



IT IS THE end of July and it is 3:13 on a Thursday afternoon. Though it has been raining most afternoons in the last two weeks, today the sun shines bright and cheerful, a contrast to how I am feeling at this particular moment. 

Schools are still closed. There are rumors that they will not open at all this year. With each passing day and no word from the government, I believe the rumors more. It would take too much time and effort to adjust the curriculum to account for only half a year of school. In February, the beginning of the school year, would students move on to the next class or stay in the one they started this year? It can be beneficial for students to still go to school for the sake of learning even without being promoted to the next class, but no parent is going to pay school fees for a “wasted” year such as that.

Our program is continuing, but people are growing tired. I do my best to not be one of them, or at least to not show it on the outside. There is an ever-widening gap between teenagers who love leading activities, filling in where others cannot make it or volunteering to lead more activities per week than is required of them, and the ones who are uninterested, sometimes refusing to come when they are scheduled and even, on occasion, hiding from the children so they cannot be found and forced to lead. Something needs to change, and I do my best to be patient as I wait for answers and help from our management team. 

In the meantime, I am in the library. Of course I am in the library. I think I live in the library. Probably the children also think I live in the library. 

My plan for the afternoon was to prepare the homework for tomorrow so that tomorrow I can start working on the timetable for next week and hopefully, hopefully, not need to see 3:30 on a Saturday morning this weekend. But my plan started falling apart an hour ago when one leader brought a discipline case to me that he could not handle, and it has been continuing to fall apart with each leader who has come with another child who is disrupting the activity and the group and who needs to be handled by an adult, not a teenager. I have had a conversation with Robin about how to be a good friend and now he is sitting on the floor writing three ways he can be a good friend to others in his group. I have heard from Innocent about what happened with his group, talked with his leader and sent him back for his activity. Now Auntie Maggie is outside talking with a whole group of fifth grade students, and I can tell by the way she has been glancing through the window periodically for the last 15 minutes that she has been waiting for me to finish with Robin to bring this case to me as well. 

I take a deep breath and go outside to hear what the issue is now, doing my best to muster up a patient smile on the way.

“Auntie Katie, we have a real problem,” Auntie Maggie begins. That is never a good start. “Aaron has beaten Tessa because she put his homework paper next to Hasifa’s, and he is refusing to apologize.”

It sounds like a stupid reason to beat someone, so I try to confirm with Aaron. “Is that true?” I ask him. 

“Yes!” Tessa chimes in without invitation. “He doesn’t want anything of his to touch Hasifa. Even if she opens a door before him, he uses a paper to touch the door handle so he doesn’t have to touch it after her, and he won’t sit next to her in class.” 

I repeat the question to Aaron. “Is it true, what they have said?” He nods. 

“Tessa, are you okay?” I ask. She nods her head. I send the rest of the group back to class with their leader and Aaron and I find a place to sit and talk. 

“Why do you do that?” I ask point blank. 

“Auntie Katie, when Hasifa first came at the beginning of lockdown I knew she needed help. She cannot read very well and she is not good in maths, so I wanted to help her so she could do what we were doing. But every time I tried to help her she abused me or told me she didn’t want it, so I stopped.” 

I had not been expecting such an honest answer right away. He was making it easy for me. 

“How did it feel when you tried to help and she abused you?” I ask. (In context: “abuse” here means to call someone bad names.) 

“Bad,” he answered, hanging his head.

“So she made you feel bad, and now you want to make her feel bad, right?” 

Silence. After a minute, he nods his head. 

“Aaron, I know you know your Bible stories very well. Think about what happened before Jesus was crucified. What kinds of bad things did people do to him?”

“They beat him. They used a whip on him. They made him carry the cross. They spit on him and abused him.” 

“Yes, they did all those things, and even more. Do you remember what they put on his head?”

“A crown of thorns.”

“And what did Jesus do to all those people when they did the bad things to him?”

Aaron doesn’t skip a beat. “He forgave them.”

“Precisely,” I say. “And did he forgive them after they all came to him and said sorry and started being nice again?” 

“No.”

“Right again. When did he forgive them?” 

“When he was hanging on the cross.”

“Yes. He forgave them while they were still doing the things that needed forgiving. He didn’t wait for them to change or apologize. He did the right thing even when they were not.” Aaron is looking pretty humble at this point, not full of anger like he was in the beginning. “I know you are not Jesus, but he does call us to follow his example. Do you think there is any way you can be nice to Hasifa, be her friend, and show her the love of Jesus even if she keeps abusing you and refusing your help?” He nods. “It doesn’t mean that you two have to be best friends or spend all your time together. But it does mean that you need to do what you can to be nice to her, even if she is not nice back. You two are in the same group, after all, so you need to find a way to be around each other every day.”

I tell him that before he goes back to his group, I want to pray with him. He prays for forgiveness for how he has been treating Hasifa and for help in being nice to her from now on. I thank God for Jesus’ sacrifice for us and that he forgives us, and I thank him for Aaron and the lesson he has learned today. 

“Aaron,” I say before he leaves, “I know it will not always be easy. But if you find it too hard to be nice to Hasifa and to forgive her, please come talk to me. I want to help you with this, okay?”

“Okay.”

That conversation is, by far, the best part of my day. Probably the best part of my week. I rub my enormous, eight-month-pregnant belly and hope that my son will be as teachable as Aaron has been this afternoon. I do not finish preparing homework this afternoon and I do not get an early start on the timetable the next day, but it is okay. 


IT IS THE end of September and it is 4:29 on a Friday afternoon. Schools are not open. Lockdown is still in place. 

Has anything changed in the last six months? 

Well, yes. Yes it has. 

The program I was organizing (however unintentional it was that I ended up running it for 22 weeks) came to an end. I gave my bosses a date for the beginning of my maternity leave, saying I could still help where needed but would not be organizing the whole thing from that date forward, and that became the last day of said program. The children had two weeks free—a sort of mid-lockdown holiday—and then began a new program put together by the management team. They are still getting used to the new rhythm, but it sounds like it is going well and there have been some good changes. I have not been involved in a single aspect of it, which is simultaneously unsettling and refreshing. 

It was good that Christian made me set the date for maternity leave because it gave us exactly one week to prepare the house and ourselves for the arrival of our little Elliot, who surprised us by coming two weeks early. 

So now it is the end of September. I have left the compound exactly five times in the last six months. It is a big compound, but it can be stifling at times. By the time Patricia was three months old, she had traveled to three continents. By the time Elliot is three months old, I am wondering if he will have even seen the road outside the compound. But it’s okay. We are all still doing the best we can, right?






Friday, September 18, 2020

Time Travel

When I look at my newborn 

my little Elliot Mukisa

I see his 54 centimeters

and his 4.9 kilograms,

his head of growing hair

and his expanding waistline,

his perfect little bellybutton

and his skinny little legs.

I see dark eyes

that cannot focus

but look searchingly nonetheless.

I see ten fingers

that people keep saying are long

even though I don’t notice it myself.

I see him alert, and sleeping,

and crying—sometimes howling--

when food comes ten seconds too late.


But I also see

a toddler

running around behind his big sister

blonde hair, blue eyes

energy that adults envy.


I see him in a school uniform

walking down the hill

with his friends.

Friends he does not yet know

walking to their teachers

who have not yet been hired.


I see a young man

with compassion

attitude

humor

understanding.


When I look at my newborn

my little Elliot Mukisa

I see who he is

but I also see who he is becoming,

who he can become,

who he might be.

I see him now

and I see him in the future.


It is a sort of time travel, I guess.




____________________


When I look at my grandmother

Grandma Pat

Big Mommy

Patty

Pat

Patricia

(my daughter’s namesake)

I see her kind eyes

and beautifully landscaped hands.

I see her Iowa State sweatshirt

and her matching earrings.

I hear her delight

in her children

and grandchildren

and great-grandchildren

and her comical frustration

when the Cyclones make

what she considers

a stupid mistake.

I see her slow walk

though she hides the pain well

and I never hear her complaints

because in all the time I have known her

she has never offered one.


But I also see

a bride

tiny little thing

in what I think is

a hoop skirt

standing beside my grandfather

behind the cake

on their wedding day

in a cherished

family video.

Someone speaks to her

and she shakes her

finger at them

in the same way she does today

if we dare to challenge her.


I see her in her office

at the university

where every summer she would take us

to show off to her coworkers

(or maybe former coworkers;

I guess I never knew then

if she was retired

or not).


I see her on the beach

in St. Croix

basking in the triumph

of a well-executed family trip,

finding joy in

each person there,

kissing my grandfather

Big Daddy

under a palm tree in the sand,

blissfully content in

the family they have made.


I see her in the memory ward

Grandpa’s final home

(on earth, anyway)

spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth

slowly, patiently

lovingly

and I think,

I hope I can live my life

with the same kind of

care

devotion

love

patience

service

integrity

grace

that she does.


When I look at my grandmother

Grandma Pat

Big Mommy

Patty

Pat


Patricia

I see who she is

but I also see who she was

in the process of becoming

the her I know now.

I see her now

and I see her in the past.


It is also a sort of time travel, I guess.




____________________


Imagine

seeing what God sees.

He does not have to time travel;

He lives outside of time

itself.


He looks at us

and He sees who we were

before we were anyone.


He looks at Elliot

and He knows exactly

what kind of boy

and man

my son—His son—

is going to become.


He looks at my grandmother

and He knows

the parts of her life

that even she

has forgotten.


What a perspective

What an adventure

to know people in that way.


What an adventure

What an honor

to be known in that way.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Vicky's Toe

I had decided to go down to school at eight o’clock to sign in library books for some classes and get in some extra time tutoring my students. By the time Patricia was ready and I was able to leave the house, it was almost nine. Story of my life these days. 

I dropped Patricia off at daycare, went to the library and signed none book, then realized I had forgotten my planner at home. I went home to get it. When I came back to school, I found six-year-old Vicky standing outside watching some vocational students fix the tractor. 

Vicky came as a three-year-old, and from that time is was already clear she was special needs. The older she gets, the bigger the gap between her and other children of her age and the more apparent that becomes. Her knees are crooked. Though she can walk and even run, it looks awkward and uneven. She talks—sometimes a great deal—but to understand the bulk of her speech takes a keen ear and a relationship with her. And mentally… when you show her a picture of a cat and identify it, then do the same with a dog, then ask her which one is the cat, there is a less than 50 percent chance she will get it right because she could choose either animal or she could get distracted and not answer the question at all. They promoted her to primary school this year, but not because she is capable. I think no one knows what to do with her. 

There is a volunteer who takes Vicky out of school and to the special needs building twice a day, where they can play developmental games and do more hands-on activities than what she gets in school. A missionary works with her in the library developing her pre-reading and -writing skills. I don’t know if Vicky spends any time in class because most of the time when she is not with them I find her outside. 

Which is where I found her that day. 

I have tried sending Vicky back to class before, but she doesn’t listen. Usually she ends up on the swings. Rather than try forcing that again, or punishing her for not being in class, I decided to invite her to the library. At least she can look at the pictures in books. I called her over, but noticed she was limping when she walked. Her toe was bleeding, as if something had shaved off the layers of skin at the end of her big toe. 

“Oh Vicky, how did this happen?” I asked. 

She looked at me with sad eyes and said nothing. 

I’m honestly not sure what a teacher does when they see something like this. Send the kids to Auntie Deborah, the secretary, I guess. I considered telling Vicky to go there. I was way behind in my work plan for the day and she needs to learn to listen for her own good. But then I thought, “What would I want someone to do if this were Patricia?” and I grabbed Vicky’s hand and told her that we were going to see Auntie Deborah. 

She deserves to know she is valued. She deserves to know she is worth the time. 

We reached the school office. “Auntie Deborah, Vicky’s toe is bleeding. It’s not serious, but do you have a first aid box to clean it up?” 

She laughed a bit. “No,” she said. “We don’t have anything, not even a single band-aid.” 

I inspected Vicky’s toe again. It seemed stupid to go to the clinic for such a minor thing. Could we just leave it? But no, if we left it it could get infected. Better to take care of it while it is still small. 

“Okay Vicky, we are going to the clinic.” Hand in hand we walked up the hill. On the way, I asked her two or three more times what had happened, but she kept quiet. 

When we reached the clinic, we were greeted by the receptionist. “Oh no, Vicky, are you sick?” (Everybody knows Vicky.)

“Not sick,” I explained, “but she banged her toe and it’s bleeding and the school had nothing to clean it so we just want to get it cleaned up and covered.” They directed us to the treatment room, where I hoisted Vicky onto the examination table. She sat with her legs dangling off the side while we waited for the nurse. I tried to ask again what had happened, but to no avail. I contented myself to staring at a graphic poster of how to stop major bleeding. 

After a few minutes, one of the volunteers entered. “Vicky, you got hurt?” she said. It doesn’t take long for everyone to get to know who Vicky is. “Let’s take a look at your toe.” She knelt next to Vicky’s leg and looked closely. 

“What happened to it?” 

Silence. 

“Did you fall?” 

Blank stare. 

“Vicky, did you fall down?” 

She waited. 

“Okay,” the volunteer surrendered, “the first thing we are going to do is clean your toe, so let’s get your legs up here on the table.” She shifted Vicky’s position and I shifted my chair, trying to get out of the way. Vicky watched in interest as the nurse put some medical supplies on the table and explained again that she was going to clean it. She continued to watch as the nurse worked, wincing or moving her leg once in a while from the discomfort. When her brows furrowed and she started to look scared, I considered standing by her and holding her hand or giving her a hug. But would she actually like it? Would it help, or would it only make her more uncomfortable? She and I don’t have much of a relationship. Did she have a close relationship with anyone, big or small? 

I watched this six-year-old sit on the table by herself. This wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. She deserved to have someone. 

The volunteer bandaged Vicky’s toe and wrapped it in an extra layer of tape. 

“Thank you,” I said. “She didn’t wear any shoes to school so hopefully this survives the day.” 

“Vicky, let me take a look at your other toe, the one I treated last week,” said the nurse. Was this a regular thing for Vicky? Was it possible that she was hurting herself, either to get out of class or to get attention from the clinic staff? Was she clever enough for that? Or was she just clumsy? 

When the nurse was finished, I set Vicky on the ground again and she immediately reached for my hand. I was carrying two sets of keys, a mug of tea and my phone, but I juggled everything in my left hand to free up my right. I would not refuse her this.

She limped less on the way back to school. I didn’t have any more time for the library, so I passed that and walked her back to class. At the door I told her to stay in class until an auntie came for her, and she nodded in understanding. I turned to leave, but not before I saw the first smile cross her face. 

“Bye, Auntie Katie!” she said, waving. 

I smiled back. “Bye, Vicky.”