Sauri

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Mary heard her sister, Kristen, yell across her bedroom. Mary was packing.

“I told you,” Mary responded. “I’m going to help people.”

“People you don’t even know,” Kristen retorted. “What about college?”

“You’re starting to sound like Dad.” Mary had just graduated from high school a month ago.

“What about me?” Kristen asked quietly after a pause. “I need help with things, too.”

“Not like these people do, Kristen. They need help with more than boys and lip gloss and prom dresses.”

“But Mary.”

“No. I’m going. There’s nothing you can say to make me stay.”

Two days later, Mary left.

“Good evening, Miss Rosdale,” said a man with a thick Swahili accent as he spotted Mary get out of the tiny plane with her two suitcases and carryon. “You look just like your picture.”

“Thank you,” Mary said, smiling. “You must be Cole.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “I’m here to take you to Sauri.”

“So,” Mary started a bit down the road. “How long have you lived in Sauri?”

“All my life, miss,” Cole responded. “All twenty-one years of it.”

“You don’t look twenty-one,” Mary said. “You look much older.” Cole gave a hearty laugh.

“You’re brutally honest, Miss Rosdale,” Cole said. Mary smiled brightly.

“My mom always taught me to be,” Mary said. “She always said there’s no point in getting to know someone if they don’t know how you really feel.”

“A wise woman, your mother,” Cole said. “Are you as honest with her, too, then?”

“Used to be,” Mary said hesitantly. “She died last year. Cancer.”

“Oh,” Cole said. “I apologize, Miss Rosdale.”

“No. It’s fine. I know she’s somewhere better now.”

“So,” Cole started, “you actually believe all that God stuff? Heaven and whatnot?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’d like to. But there’s something strange about a God who lets my people suffer the way they do.”

“Well,” Mary said. “That’s part of why I’m here. To help people believe in something bigger than themselves.”

“You’re not going to try and thrust everything upon us like those southern missionaries do, are you?” Cole asked with a laugh.

Mary smiled. “Of course not. I think you should be able to choose what you believe. I won’t ridicule you if you do me the same favor.”

“Deal.”

They were there sooner than Mari thought they’d be. She hopped out of the truck as Cole went around to grab her bags and handed her her guitar case. She thanked him as he led her to a house made of clay. “This is where you’ll be staying,” Cole told her. “With my family.”

As she stepped in, Mary looked around. “This is beautiful,” she said. “I love your home.”

“Thank you,” Cole responded. “You can say my mother designed it. And here she is now.” A woman in a turban walked in.

“Hello, Mrs. Ombabwi,” Mary said. Cole’s mother cocked her head to the side, and asked Cole something in Swahili, in which he responded in the same language.

“She doesn’t speak English,” Cole said. “No one in the family does but me. I went to college and studied. I’m the first in my family. So I’ll be your translator.”

“Ni wewe Mary?” Mrs. Ombabwi said.

“She’s asking if you’re Mary.” Cole translated. Mary just shook her head.

“Ajabu! Lazima kuwa na njaa,” Cole’s mother said before she walked into another room.

Mary said to Cole, “This is going to take some getting used to.”

“Follow her,” Cole instructed. “She’s offering you something to eat. I suggest you do it,” he said as he saw Mary shaking her head. “It’s rude to turn down anything.”

Mary reluctantly followed. She took a plate Mrs. Ombabwi, who she learned was called Nairobi from Cole, and filled it with a yellow corn-like food.

“Asante,” Mary said, thanking her with one of the only words she knew in Swahili. Nairobi just nodded and left the room.

Cole sat down at the small table and gestured for Mary to sit across from her. As she said down, she had a thought.

She was starting a new life in a village she’d never been in. With people she’d never met. In a house in which she wasn’t familiar. This would be interesting.