Angel of Mercy (6 page)

10

The airport in Entebbe, Uganda, was less than an hour’s flight from Nairobi, and from the air Uganda looked lush and green, different from Kenya’s stark plains and grasslands. At the airport, Heather’s group was met by two Ugandans sent by Paul Warring, the missionary in charge of the Kasana Children’s Home. After they had cleared customs, the men drove them into Kampala, the capital. As they wove their way down the crowded streets, Heather was struck by the vivid contrasts between the rural and the modern in the teeming city.

Vans and late-model cars, high-rise buildings under construction, rows of shops and bazaars lined the streets, while cattle roamed the median strips along thoroughfares where makeshift tents and cardboard dwellings had been erected. The cattle, large, reddish brown animals with expansive horns, looked more like Texas longhorns than the docile milk cows she was familiar with and seemed oblivious to the noise of city life. “So those cows are what I need to find a good husband?” she asked Ian as she pointed out the window.

“Yes, there’s your dowry.”

“I guess I’ll stay single, then. All Daddy has is cars.”

He grinned. “That’s a pity, lass.”

“Do people really
live
on the median?”

“People live wherever they can. Kampala is home to a million Ugandans, most of whom have come to the city hoping to find a better life. But there’s little work here, so they have nothing to do. They get up, grub for a day’s living, sleep wherever they can.”

The city didn’t appear crowded. It was noon, and traffic flowed smoothly. In Miami, downtown would be filled with workers heading off to lunch, and traffic would be thick on the freeways. Here the people moved in no particular hurry. Many sat on benches or in front of stores, reading newspapers and sipping coffee. Most were dressed in Western clothing, but Heather saw several women wearing colorful Ugandan dresses and carrying large bundles balanced on their heads. Blaring radios poured sound through open shop doorways. She wondered how so many survived without jobs, how they got along from day to day.

The vans climbed up a winding, rutted road into hilly terrain. The sun shone brightly under a canopy of bright blue sky, and the air felt warm, but not steamy as it was in Miami. Banana trees and thick hedges, bright with exotic flowers, dotted the roadside, where the earth had a reddish hue.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was back in my home in Alabama,” Boyce drawled from a seat behind Heather’s. “We have red dirt too.”

The vans turned down a dusty road and pulled inside a compound surrounded by a low concrete wall. A large sign announced Namirembe Guest House. The L-shaped building was made of cinder block, painted white and bright blue, with a porch that ran its length. The vans parked and everyone piled out.

Ugandan women emerged from the building and greeted Dr. Henry warmly. He turned to his group and introduced the women as friends who would show them to their quarters. Once the vans were unloaded, Heather scooped up her bags and followed a woman named Ruth into a room that she would be sharing with Ingrid and two others, Cynthia and Debbie. The room’s concrete floor was painted gray and the walls a pale green. A window with wooden shutters that could be closed at night let in warm sunlight. The beds were covered with clean sheets and old British army blankets. A wooden cross hung on one wall; a photo of an African Anglican bishop dressed in red robes hung on another.

Ruth pointed to a lone dresser and said, “You each have a bottle of boiled water. Use it for everything, even for brushing your teeth. The water closet is down the hall and turn right.”

“Water closet?” Heather whispered to Ingrid.

“Bathroom,” Ingrid whispered back.

“You should shower early because the water from the city is turned off every day to conserve, and sometimes it stays off for many hours. Hot water is scarce, so use it with care.” Ruth smiled. “And there is water in buckets by the door you can use to flush the toilets when the water is off.”

Heather had learned at boot camp about the primitive conditions she would face. She told herself that taking a warm shower and washing and blow-drying her hair every day were Western luxuries she’d willingly forgo in Uganda. It was a small price to pay for helping children who had never even seen the simple pleasures of life she and her friends took for granted.

“Dinner is from five until six o’clock in the dining hall,” Ruth added. “And breakfast is served from seven until eight each morning. We wish that all of you have a pleasant and joyful stay at the guest house. I will help you, whatever your needs.”

Once Ruth had gone, Cynthia said, “I’m crashing.”

“Me too,” echoed Debbie.

“I must write home,” Ingrid announced. “Better to do it now.”

Heather was in no mood to rest. She wanted to explore. She walked outside and took a stroll around the grounds, stopping at the perimeter wall to gaze down at the city below. She remembered Dr. Henry saying that once, Kampala had been pristine and beautiful— “the pearl of Africa.” But after decades of military rule, it looked dingy and ruined. Heather heard a whooshing sound and turned to see two men cutting hedges and grass with long, thick-bladed machetes. Their swinging, singing blades glinted in the sunlight, mowing and pruning as machetes had done since ancient times.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ian asked, coming up beside her.

“Yes, it is. And it sure beats being blasted awake on a Saturday morning by a lawn mower.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. The air smelled of freshly mown grass, tinged with lemon and charcoal.

“You smell lemon grass,” Ian said. “It mingles with the scent of the charcoal cooking fires. It’s a perfume that belongs only to the air of Africa.”

She saw that his eyes wore a distant, longing look. “Do you like it as much as the smell of Scottish lavender?”

“A hard question, lass. Both are beautiful. Scotland is my home, but Africa has slipped inside my head and heart, and I have come to love it.”

And she realized then that despite all that had happened to her in Kenya, she loved Africa too. “I’m glad I came,” she said.

“Are you all right?”

Both of them knew what he was asking her about. “I still feel terrible about the baby,” she said. “But I make myself think of something else whenever the bad thoughts come. I think about the look on the children’s faces when I gave them candy after their shots. I think about how their smiles break out. I think about trying to make a difference in their lives.”

She turned toward Ian. His red hair ruffled in the slight breeze. “On the road from the airport, I saw women walking with huge bundles on their heads,” she said. “Some had babies strapped around their waists and little children following behind them. And I saw the cows walking around with only ropes around their necks to keep them from wandering off. And I wondered why the cows weren’t carrying the bundles instead of the women. Why is that, Ian?”

A brightly colored bird landed on a tree branch and sent a shrill whistle into the sky.

“Perhaps you know the answer to that already, lass.”

She nodded slowly. “It’s because the animals have more value than the women, isn’t it?”

“Maybe not more. But a different value, surely. Do not judge them for this difference, Heather. The animals are their livelihood, and a family without a cow has no milk to feed its children. Yet they want for their children what every parent wants—an easier life, a gentler way to take a living from the land.”

Remembering what Patrick had told her on the ship, she said, “I guess a man can get another wife, but another cow . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

“You can’t measure their world by our standards. These people have lived for centuries with war, famine, pestilence, and death—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Revelation. In our countries, we believe we have conquered them, but we haven’t. It’s just that over here, we see them more clearly, more violently. That’s what frightened you so in Kenya, Heather. You saw the baby in all its beauty. You saw death in all its ugliness. You saw how the two things do not go together, and it broke your heart.”

She thought again about her parents, about how their medical skills went to fix people’s physical imperfections and make them lovely once more. But people like Ian and Dr. Henry saw beyond the outside of a person. They saw with eyes of compassion to the inside, to the dark places. Places where hate and murder and sickness dwelled. Where the Four Horsemen wielded their swords as deftly as the workmen wielded their machetes on the grass.

She bit her lower lip. “I thought I could come and work and feel good about it and go back home and put this away in my scrapbook like I do other things in my life. But I don’t think I can, Ian.”

He grinned and touched her cheek. “That’s the way it happened for me, too. I came once. It changed me. And now I come again. But this time,
you
have come.”

“And that makes you happy?”

“Yes. Because you see Africa not only with your eyes, but with your heart. Coming here is not about bringing people medicine and supplies. It’s not about doing good deeds for needy people. It’s not even about taking a man’s land and showing him how to plant it so that his crops grow tenfold. We do all these things, for sure. But that’s not what it’s all about.”

He took a deep breath. “It’s about changing lives. And the first life that changes is your own.”

She couldn’t deny anything he’d said. At the moment, all her reasons for coming seemed shallow and incomplete. They had been good reasons, but somewhere along the way, they had begun to grow roots. She didn’t know how deep the roots would go. Nor did she know how she’d ever rip them out and return to the life she’d once lived.

On Saturday, Dr. Henry took a group into the city, and while he met with friends and church leaders, the group was free to wander. The first place Ian took Heather was Kampala’s post office. “It’s the only place that has a phone line outside the country,” he explained. “If you want to call home, you’ll have to wait in line along with all the other foreigners and make your call.”

A foreigner. That was what Heather was in Africa. She hadn’t thought of it that way before, until he’d said it. But she
was
a foreigner— one who wanted to hear her family’s voices very much. “I feel like ET,” she told him wearily after an hour’s wait in line. “You know, I want to phone home, but I can’t.”

Ian grinned. “I know what you mean. And then if no one’s home, it’s a letdown. It’s my father’s habit to prepare his sermon for Sunday on Saturday, so I know he’ll be in.”

Heather wasn’t sure anybody would be at her house, since it was seven hours earlier in Miami. Her heart sank as she realized that Amber was probably out. “Well, I don’t care if all I get is the answering machine. I want to hear a familiar voice.”

When it was finally her turn, Heather stepped into the old-fashioned wooden booth and closed the door. The air hung stale and sticky. She dialed the string of numbers that would get her into the United States, then Florida, then Miami. Because of the daily power failures and lack of phone lines, she could no longer use her laptop to e-mail, so this might be her only chance to reach home for a long time. The phone rang until she was almost ready to give up.

At last she heard a breathless “Hello.”

“Amber? It’s Heather.”

“Oh my gosh! Is it really you? I can’t believe it! How are you? Where are you?”

Emotion clogged Heather’s throat. “I’m in Uganda. It’s the middle of the day and I—I have so much to tell you, but not much time to talk.” She explained her e-mail problem, then asked, “Are Mom and Dad there?”

“No, they’re out,” Amber said.

Heather felt the keen edge of disappointment. “Since I can’t e-mail anymore, I’ll have to start writing letters. Tell them—” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Tell them I love them and miss them.”

“We miss you, too.”

“I almost hung up. I thought you’d be out too.”

“I’m grounded. Dylan and I stayed out past curfew last weekend and Dad blew a gasket. Jeez, you’d think he could cut me a little slack now and then. I’m going stir-crazy around here.” Amber paused. “Promise not to tell a secret?”

“My lips are zipped.”

“I sneaked Dylan in. We’re watching videos and swimming in the pool.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Don’t lecture me. Dad is such a pain these days. Let me tell you what happened yesterday. And it wasn’t my fault either.”

Heather held on to the receiver, listening but wanting to yell,
“Stop! Don’t you know children are dying over here? Don’t you know that
there’s something more important going on in the
world than you being grounded?”
But she didn’t interrupt.

“Mom and Dad hate me, Heather,” Amber said, her voice suddenly low and sad. “I’d give anything if you’d come home. Can you? Can you just leave Africa early and come home right away?”

11

"Amber, I can’t just pick up and leave. People are counting on me.”

“But I need you,” Amber wailed. “Things are impossible around here.”

“How impossible?”

“Just yesterday, Dad took away my car keys.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s mean. And he hates me.”

“Amber . . . ,” Heather said in her best tell-me-the-rest-of-the-story voice.

“All right, so I’d gotten a parking ticket.”

“And . . .?”

“A speeding ticket too. But it wasn’t my fault. Marsha was driving my car, and she got stopped for speeding, not me. But Dad says it’s my responsibility because it’s my car.”

Heather sighed. Would her sister ever grow up? “Well, you can’t make Dad change his mind once it’s made up, so you’ll just have to live with it.”

“But school’s started and I can’t even drive to school! And he won’t let Dylan take me either.”

“School’s already started?” Heather couldn’t believe it. It seemed as if only yesterday she’d set out on the Mercy Ship. She had less than three months left in Africa.

“Hell-o,” Amber said, drawing out the two syllables. “It’s September. Don’t you have a calendar over there?”

“Life’s a bit different over here. . . . So, tell me, how are you getting to school?”

“The housekeeper’s taking me. Can you imagine the humiliation of getting out of our housekeeper’s car every day? I’m the joke of the senior class!”

“I can’t change things for you, Amber. Even if I was stateside, I wouldn’t be at home. I’d be in college and I couldn’t come running home over every crisis.” She heard Amber sigh.

“I know . . .but I can ask, can’t I? Oh, before I forget, Joanie stopped by last week. She’s on her way to college and wanted to make sure I told you she’d see you at Christmas.”

“I appreciate the message. Listen, the line for the phone is growing, so I’ve got to go. But do yourself a favor and get Dylan out of there after we hang up. If Mom and Dad catch you, you’ll be grounded until Christmas.”

There was a moment of silence. “Okay,” Amber said glumly. “But only because
you
asked me to. Before you hang up,” she added in a rush, “are you all right? Are you having fun?”

There were a thousand things Heather wanted to say, but she was out of time. “Sure. Things are fine with me. Busy, but fine. I’m glad I came.”

“How’s Ian? You still revved about him?”

“Still revved,” Heather said. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll write when I get to Lwereo. And take it easy on them, sis. They’re old, you know.”

Amber laughed. Once they’d hung up, homesickness swept over Heather. Her friends were going off to college, just as she would have been doing if she’d been home. But she wasn’t home. She was where her dreams had taken her. She was in a world more different than even she had realized was possible. She loved her sister dearly, but Amber was a child—a petulant child who had no clue that two-thirds of the world did not have the luxury of a car. Or a home. Or food on the table every day.

Heather slipped from the phone booth, back into the world she’d come so far to see.

“Where are we going now?” Heather asked as she walked with Ian down a long, narrow sidewalk.

She had waited for him to finish his call home, and then he’d taken her by the hand and said, “Come with me.”

Now he said, “We’re going to the Delta. That’s where all the cabs in Kampala wait for their fares.”

“You mean the cabs don’t come to the passengers?”

“How can they? Few phones, remember? The cabs wait in this one area and so you come to the Delta and find the cab that’s headed out to where you want to go. When people want to come back into the city, they wait at special cab stops. The cab comes along eventually and picks them up. No buses here. Cabs and walking are the way people travel.”

“They could ride their cows,” Heather muttered under her breath.

The Delta was a half-block-wide dirt parking arena filled with minivans, the cabs of the city. Ugandans milled around, some hawking their services, others waiting patiently for their vans to fill so that they could be on their way. “No van moves until it’s packed,” Ian explained. “And each van holds fourteen to sixteen people.”

Heather wondered how Amber would manage under such conditions, then decided she probably wouldn’t. She hung close to Ian as he wove through the parked vans, asking a question or two in Swahili before moving on. Eventually he found the cab he was looking for, paid the driver, and ushered Heather inside. The space was cramped, but at least she had a window seat. Again she asked, “Where are we going?”

“To the Nalongo Orphanage. I want you to meet Mother Harriet.”

The ride to the western outskirts of the city was bumpy and accompanied by clouds of dust. By the time they reached their destination, they were the only two left in the van. Ian asked the driver to wait, and the man parked under a nearby tree and turned off his engine. Immediately quiet descended.

“There it is,” Ian said. They walked toward a midsized brick building with a tin roof sitting in a large field, shut off by a metal fence. He opened the gate.

“Can we do this?” she asked, half expecting guards to jump out.

“The gate means little. It’s only a way to mark the property,” Ian told her. As they walked inside the fence, he added, “I met Mother Harriet when I was last here. She takes in street orphans, kids whose families have disappeared or been killed. I send her money to help out. Every little bit helps here.”

They entered the building, and Heather stopped cold. The place was absolutely empty. She saw a dirt-smeared concrete floor and dirty, unpainted, peeling walls. Curtainless windows let in light, and a single bare bulb hung from a long cord in the center of the ceiling. She saw not one piece of furniture. “Have they moved?” she asked.

“No. This is the home of twenty-five children. This is their main activity room.”

“B-But where do they live? Where do they sleep?”

“Their sleeping quarters are in the back. I’ll show you, but first let’s find Mother Harriet.”

They found her in a small room off to one side, sitting behind a decrepit wooden desk piled with papers. She sprang up as they entered, a wide smile of recognition lighting her dark face. She was a tall woman, thin as a rail, and she wore a faded skirt and plaid top. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf.

“Mr. McCollum!” she cried.
“Habari.”
She greeted him in Swahili. “How good to see my fine Scottish benefactor. Why did you not tell me you were coming? I would have kept the children here, instead of sending them off to school.”

“Mzuri,”
he answered, then said, “I did not know myself if there would be time to come by, so please excuse us dropping in unannounced.” He introduced Heather.

“I will make us tea,” Mother Harriet said. “Look around, then hurry back. Oh, and please see the fine dining table I was able to buy with some of the money you sent.”

She hurried off into another room, and Ian took Heather by the elbow. “This way,” he told her.

On the other side of the empty main room, they walked into a smaller room. There an old table stood, its top scratched and marred. It was quite long and fairly wide. “Where are the chairs?” Heather asked.

“I’m guessing that she couldn’t afford chairs too.”

“You mean the kids stand to eat?”

“Chairs are a luxury. It’s better to buy food than a place to sit. And the table’s used for many things besides eating. It was a good purchase.”

“I—I can’t believe they have so little.” She thought of homeless shelters back home— she’d been in a few during her fund-raising efforts. Even though the kids who lived in the shelters were often destitute, they still had a recreation room with TV and toys.

“They have safety here. That’s the best gift of all.” Ian took her hand. “Come. There’s more.”

He led her down a corridor with a series of doorways. She stopped at the first one and saw six wooden beds covered with thin, colorful woven blankets. “A dormitory?” she asked.

“Yes. The kids are separated by age. The older ones stay here.”

The walls were starkly bare, except for one window covered by aged striped curtains that fluttered in the faint breeze coming from outside. The window had no screen, so Heather knew there was no way to keep out mosquitoes—the main carriers of malaria and other diseases. Over one bed, someone had hung a tattered poster of Michael Jordan. Written on the walls surrounding the poster were threatening words about what would happen to anybody who touched it. On another bed, half stuffed beneath a thin pillow, she saw a ball of aluminum foil.

“They don’t have much to call their own,” Ian explained, following her glance. “So what they do have, they guard.”

“But a
foil
ball?” Heather asked incredulously. “How can that be valuable to a kid?”

“It’s all that’s his,” Ian said. “You have to understand that before coming here, they lived on the streets, begging or stealing food. Possessions, things a child can call his, are valuable indeed.”

She wanted to slip something under every pillow, but she had brought nothing of value with her. No candy, very little money, and a bottle of water.

Next Ian took her outside, and Heather was glad to feel the warmth of the sun. The dormitory had depressed her and left her feeling cold.

“Over here is the garden,” he said, walking her out to a large patch of cultivated land. She recognized rows of corn and cabbages. “They grow what food they can. Mother Harriet scrounges for the rest.”

“How?”

“She begs local businesses. She writes letters to church groups in Europe and America. She’s inventive and hard to refuse. But she’s got a big job. It’s not easy feeding twenty-five mouths two meals a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

“She said they were in school. Where do they go to school?”

“They hold classes at a church in town with volunteers as teachers. They walk there and back every day. It’s about ten kilometers—six miles.”

“A long walk for a child,” Heather said. She looked off into the distance and saw bedding— sheets and blankets—lying on the ground. “What’s that?”

“It’s an alternative to doing the laundry. Every few days, the children spread their sleeping things outside to catch the sun and kill the creepy crawlers in their pallets.”

“Bugs? Ugh—don’t they ever wash their clothes? How do they keep stuff clean?”

“They have no washing machines, you know. No running water, either. Water must be hand-carried up the hill from a pumping station almost a half mile away. When they do wash clothes, they boil water in pots and throw in the clothes with lye soap to get them clean. Then they hang them in the sun to dry.” He grinned. “Our ancestors did the same thing. Unless, of course, they had servants to do the work.”

She felt her cheeks flush as she realized that she had sounded judgmental. She must seem like a pampered princess to him. In truth, she could not dispute the impression. She did live a life of privilege. “You make me feel guilty.”

“Heather, lass, you’re curious. It’s fine to ask questions. And you can’t help where God saw fit to give you birth. He has blessed you, and it’s nothing to feel shame for.” His tone was kind, gentle. He pointed to a large metal tank on wooden stilts. “Recognize that?”

She’d seen one in Kenya. “It catches rainwater.”

“Right. Good until the dry season comes, then it’s down the hill for water.”

A call from the building made them turn to Mother Harriet waving them inside. “Tea’s ready!”

Back in her office, a wooden tray had been set with three cups and a china teapot. There was also a small plate holding three peeled, hardboiled eggs. “Eat. Our hens laid these just this morning,” Mother Harriet said proudly.

Heather nibbled on her egg, feeling guilty, thinking that this was one less egg an orphan would get to eat. But she knew better than to refuse. Dr. Henry had told them in one of his sessions aboard the ship how insulting it was to refuse African hospitality. She sipped her tea from the chipped china cup and said, “Thank you. It’s delicious.”

The woman beamed at her. Then she turned to Ian and outlined her efforts to raise money. Heather listened, amazed—not by her efforts, but by the refusals she spoke of and the indifference to all Mother Harriet was trying to do to help children survive. Didn’t the government care? Couldn’t she get help from politicians? Heather wanted to ask a hundred questions but didn’t. Ian was closing the conversation and standing. It was time to leave.

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a wallet. “Take this,” he said, and handed Mother Harriet a stack of folded money.

“Bless you,” Mother Harriet said. “This will help us buy food. And I will be taking the youngest ones into the clinic for shots and medicine next week. The medicine is free, but they are too young to walk so far. Now I can take them by taxi.”

She shook hands with Ian, and he and Heather walked to the van. The driver folded the newspaper he’d been reading and opened the door. Once they were on their way, Heather asked the questions she’d kept to herself before.

“The government is overloaded,” Ian answered. “Almost half of the Ugandan population is under fifteen years old. The country is awash in orphans. Only a handful get taken into places like Mother Harriet’s.”