Reasons to Be Happy (10 page)

“Sister, sister,” one man in a car sang at Pearl, leaning out his window. He didn’t call like to get her attention; he said it more in an admiring tone, the way someone at a museum might look at
Starry
Night
and say, “Van Gogh, Van Gogh.”

Pearl smirked a bit but tossed her braid as she hefted camera equipment in the brigade from van to orphanage door. I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

The man, stuck in traffic, raised his voice. “Oh, please, Miss Fatty. Give me one look.”

I gasped. How rude. “What a jerk,” I said.

But Pearl laughed. “It’s a compliment, sweetie. Calling me ‘fatty’ is the same as someone whistling back home.”

I looked at Ben, who nodded. I also noticed he looked at Pearl with appreciation.

“Ghana is good for my ego,” Pearl said.

Children surrounded me, pressed their hands on me, asking if they could have my camera, my watch, my shoes. My claustrophobia tipped toward meltdown.

I ran into the orphanage, after the team, afraid to be left in the crowd alone.

• • •

Inside, I couldn’t shake the dream-like blur. Constant noise, chaos, like I was getting live streaming video from about fifty different sources. The heat pressed me down.

Aunt Izzy’s team filmed and interviewed orphans while I hovered and watched. Their stories made me feel that limbs-might-detach sensation again.

• • •

During a break, Kick said, “Maybe our scope is too broad. We could do a whole series on Darfur alone.”

“Or Sierra Leone,” Dimple said.

“Or Congo or Rwanda or Zimbabwe,” Aunt Izzy said, eyes blazing. “But that’s the
point
. This whole
continent
is turning into a land of orphans! I want to do
that
story. The bigger story.”

Next, they talked to children who looked like the ones in the geography film, who had hands, arms, or eyes missing. Their stories made my skin buzz. I listened to four of these interviews before I began to fantasize about a binge. I had three pastries from the hotel wrapped in napkins at the bottom of my backpack, along with a Luna bar.

After three more interviews, the buzzing was just too much. Sweating, woozy, and leveled, I went in search of a bathroom.

When I found it, I stood on the slanted stone floor, listening to flies buzz in the rough troughs. No door, no water, no toilet paper.

A binge and purge in Africa was going to be very hard to pull off.

115. Being safe

116. Having a home

117. Never having been physically harmed by anyone

118. Having my entire body intact

That night, in a new hotel room, sharing a double bed with Aunt Izzy, I couldn’t sleep.

I realized I’d gone four days without a binge or purge. Was I fatter? The hotel’s room didn’t have a mirror, so I couldn’t even look at myself.

Trying hard not to jostle the bed and wake Aunt Izzy, I reached down for my duffel bag. In the dark, I groped around until I felt my mother’s pink cashmere sweater. I pulled it up to my cheek and breathed deep. Even with the ever present smells of Africa all around me—palm oil and smoke—there she was. The lemon scent of my mother.

What was my dad doing right this minute? Thinking of my mother too? Thinking of me?

Did he miss me? I missed him.

• • •

We began our long drive to Tafi Atome in the morning. We stopped, hours later, for lunch, where I ate red-red—a stew made from cowpeas (what they call black-eyed peas) with red palm oil, tomatoes,
really
hot peppers, and onion.

Market stalls surrounded the roadside café—pyramids of oranges and coconuts, hills of limes, plastic flip-flops, used empty cans, rabbits strung up by their feet, chickens hanging in bouquets of three, whole goats, goat heads, goat legs, a pig.

I even saw a stall selling ingredients to make voodoo fetishes. Ben explained that Vodun is a real religion, but the idea we have in our heads of voodoo dolls and witch doctors all came from Western movies. I was already heat-dazed, my senses stupefied, as I gawked at buckets of vulture heads, monkey paws, monkey
testicles
, parrot wings, and dried chameleons. Coiled dead snakes, tongues of who knows what, horns, bats. Hooves, quills, a cheetah skin.

I watched people bargain over these items—the lemons, the tin cans, the dog heads—an aggressive process with lots of huffing, high-pitched cries of indignation, and people storming away from each other only to be called back. It made me afraid to buy anything.

I saw shiny bead necklaces I wanted to buy—not to wear but to disassemble for my cities. The bright colors tugged on me. I heard my mother’s voice say, “Our Hannah is a magpie.”

An African man saw me looking and said, “Ah, sister likes the beads, yes?” He tried to draw me closer, but my heart pounded and I scurried back to my aunt. The bargaining stressed me out. Why couldn’t there just be a fixed price?

“Sss! Sss!” a woman hissed at me—when a Ghanaian wants your attention, they hiss, kind of like we do to shush someone, but just an
s
, not an
sh
. “You like the beads? Mine are better. See.”

I was so relieved to drive away from all that wheeling and wheedling and demanding.

As we pulled away, I caught a last, longing glimpse of the beads as they flashed in the sun.

• • •

Later that day, after the highways turned into red dirt roads, we finally reached Tafi Atome.

The village—only the size of a football field—sat plunked down in the middle of the rain forest, nothing more than two main dirt streets with three shops, a visitor’s center, and one restaurant. The school was the biggest and best structure, and the village water pump—in the schoolyard—marked the center of the village. Residential homes stood on the outside edge of the two main streets; smaller roads lined with houses disappeared into the jungle.

As Ben parked in the schoolyard, he honked the horn, and people came running from all directions. The villagers and the film team greeted each other by name.

The second I stepped out of the van, a monkey snatched the sunglasses off the top of my head (and a few strands of hair with it)!

Villagers and the film crew laughed as I turned red with anger.

The village had created a sanctuary to protect the Mona monkeys that lived there. You could’ve fooled me that the Mona monkeys were endangered; the little brats were everywhere. Small and dark—the size of house cats—with white faces and bellies, and long tails, they leapt onto roofs and branches of trees, playing, wrestling, tumbling with each other.

I watched my favorite pair of sunglasses go from tin roof to tin roof and then into the dense trees. Izzy shrugged at me.

I tried to let it go when Modesta, one of the main subjects of the documentary, approached the van. Aunt Izzy had followed her for three years now. I felt like I already knew her, I’d watched so much footage of her already—a leggy dark black twig with luxuriant lashes any movie star would envy framing her enormous eyes. She wore an oilcloth print wrapped around herself, tied at one bony shoulder. Her smile was million-watt when directed at my aunt.

They hugged each other.

When Aunt Izzy introduced me to Modesta, Modesta’s beam vanished. She nodded and looked at the ground.

“Why don’t you show Hannah the house?” Aunt Izzy asked.

Modesta turned and walked into the house. I had to run to follow her.

I’d already seen some of this house—a cinder block building painted bright blue with salmon trim—in the footage from previous trips. What made Tafi Atome special compared to the other villages was that they’d given an entire house to the orphans who could not be absorbed into relatives’ homes. Eleven orphans lived there—a big number when you considered the small size of the village. All the orphans attended school. Everyone in the village pitched in for their clothing and food. Modesta was the oldest, so she looked after the smaller ones.

She walked through the house, not really explaining anything, hardly looking at me. Great. I had to travel half a world away for another girl not to like me?

The small rooms inside were lined with cots, some bed rolls on the packed dirt floors. Although the beds’ blankets were threadbare in places, each bed had been neatly made. “It’s really very nice,” I said, trying to get her to show me a hint of friendliness.

She nodded.

I didn’t notice a bathroom, but I found out later that none of the houses in Tafi Atome had running water. I looked around, noting the absence of outlets and light switches.

Back outside, on the porch, Modesta crossed her arms over her flat chest and looked out at Kick and Dimple playing football—what we call soccer—with several of the children. More than eleven kids were playing, so I didn’t know how to tell the orphans from the kids with parents.

The van was gone. I wondered where Ben had gone.

My stomach growled.

I clamped a hand over my belly. “The lion wants his dinner?” Modesta asked.

I laughed. She didn’t even crack a smile.

It struck me that I hadn’t felt
hungry
in a long, long time.

I felt
good
.

I didn’t have a headache or that awful hangover feeling. I wasn’t tired.

This was all new.

Aunt Izzy and Pearl came up on the porch to talk to Modesta, other children following them. I sat down on the wide concrete edge, wondering why Modesta didn’t like me.

I was surprised Izzy and Pearl didn’t film. They seemed content to hang out and chat with children on their laps. When Dimple grew tired of the football game, she joined us too. The kids asked us questions, about the U.S., about Ohio, about our politics, about California.

“California?” a young boy named Rafael asked, pronouncing all five syllables. “Do you know any movie stars?”

I froze.

I couldn’t make eye contact with any of the film team.
Don’t give me away. Don’t give me away
, I begged in my head.

“There are movie stars everywhere in Los Angeles,” I said. “You get used to it. They’re just regular people.”

“You are so lucky,” Rafael said. “I would like to meet Will Smith. Or Matt Damon. Or Caleb Carlisle.”

How did Rafael know these names? Where was the closest movie theater to Tafi Atome?

“You are so lucky,” Rafael repeated. “Tell me the movie stars you have met.”

Dimple took out a small recorder, which distracted him. The kids sang songs for us, then laughed when Dimple played their own voices back.

It grew dark, and I did everything I could to suppress the snarling noises in my belly, keeping my arms pressed hard across it. Parents began to steal up to the porch and, with gentle whispers, summon their children home for dinner. The cook fires and delicious aromas wafting through the dark violet sky tortured me and my empty stomach.

I recognized our van’s puttering noise approaching through the darkness. The children remaining on the porch all cheered, and I realized our team was feeding the orphans tonight.

Ben and one of the older orphans—a tall, serious young man named Philomel—emerged from the van and carried cardboard boxes up to the porch. Everyone got a “tray” of newspaper holding rice, fish, and fried yams, all covered in a spicy tomato sauce.

I couldn’t remember the last time food had tasted so good. I remembered Izzy’s advice to savor each bite, to truly taste each flavor. I wanted to scarf down the entire tray, but recognized I was full when there was still plenty left. Rafael and the others devoured my leftovers.

Modesta and Philomel made the children wash their hands and faces after the meal, and as they came scampering back from the pump one by one, I saw them going through our trash bag, taking empty water bottles and an empty film canister.

After dinner, we walked to the visitor’s center, where it seemed the entire village had gathered for drumming and dancing. I still couldn’t get a smile from Modesta, but Rafael carried my white plastic chair for me on his head. He balanced it there with one hand and took me by the hand with his other, leading me to the drum circle. A Dutch couple was there—they were staying in someone’s guest room—and a German college student who had paid to camp in the yard of the visitor’s center. And us.

We set up chairs in an aerobic circle around an eye-stinging fire, and the men—including tall, serious Philomel—played huge, chest-high drums.

The women and children danced in a circle around the drummers. Most of the women were draped in brightly colored oilcloth. They became a kaleidoscope to my travel-bleary eyes as they jumped, turned, and twisted in the dusty circle, their skin glistening.

One woman danced with a baby wrapped to her back. I watched in amazement as the baby never stirred or cried through the bouncing, jostling, and noise.

Dancers gestured for us to join them. The Dutch couple and the German student jumped right up. So did Pearl and Aunt Izzy. I scootched down in my chair and tried to be invisible.

The weird thing was, the music made me
want
to dance. I wanted to move after spending most of the day in the van. But…but what? It had become my habit to hold back? To be chicken? To worry about what others might think?

I watched the Dutch couple. They looked silly. But did anyone care? Was anyone mocking them? Of course not. All the faces smiled, white teeth flashing through the dark.

I thought of those beads I’d seen at lunch.

Because of those beads, I let two village girls pull me into the circle.

They shouted their names over the music. One was Ekuba. Her friend was Beauty. Had I heard that right over the music? Beauty would be mocked back home for her wide hips and the rolls around her middle, but she really
was
beautiful, I thought, with her dimples, her long lashes, her sweet smile.

The music was wild—the drums like your own pulse amplified. I watched Ekuba and Beauty trying to copy their steps and turns. I actually got into a groove and felt I had a rhythm. I lost myself. I found my trance. Just like with my DRH.

Only I didn’t feel nothing.

I felt something better: I felt joy. I felt life. I felt happy.

Modesta’s gaze met mine, briefly, and I thought she might smile, but she whirled away.

When the music stopped, I dripped with grimy sweat. I
stunk
, but since I could also smell every other living being in the immediate vicinity, I didn’t figure it mattered. I stepped outside the circle of chairs to catch my breath as the drummers began pounding out the next song.

In the dark, away from the heat of the fires, smaller kids played hide-and-seek on the outskirts of the circle. One used me to hide from the others.

I looked up at the purple sky. “I am in
Africa
,” I whispered.

A goat brushed by me.

“I am
dancing
in Africa, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a village, in the middle of the jungle.”

There
was a reason to be happy if ever I’d had one.

I vowed to be braver. To
do
the very next thing that scared me.

Eventually, the drumming ended.

Rafael materialized from the darkness, my chair on his head, and took my hand again. I tripped over a goat and her kids in the shadows, nearly falling. The goat baaed at me.

Modesta’s voice came through the darkness. “Sister goat says cross words to you.”

The children giggled.

Rafael led me and the rest of the team back to the van. Izzy began explaining where everyone was staying. We’d be in private residences, with people who’d volunteered to host us. Izzy and I would stay with one of the schoolteachers.