The Red Kitchen by Barbara Clarke

Author:Barbara Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2020-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Bright and early the next morning, Afiya came in her Land Rover with two men and unloaded shovels and hoes. She walked off the plot for the garden, had Robert put a stake with a red flag at each corner, and with a minimum of instruction set us to our task. The plot was covered with “weeds” to be dug out: marigolds and other flowering plants. I thought about the six-pack of marigolds I’d paid at least two dollars for at home and here we were tossing them into a pile. With eleven people digging and clearing, the garden was ready for planting by the afternoon.

“Time for one more activity,” Afiya said, after complimenting us on our “work ethic,” which made Tessa laugh out loud. Robert had disappeared shortly before lunch with Robin who had a blister on her hand. Monica joined them since she was allergic to dirt or physical labor. We didn’t bother to ask. The eight of us who were left followed Afiya to another location on the compound where two men were mixing cement. “We will have a small open-air classroom here for the children,” she said. “We have to make the floor before we set the posts and put on the roof.”

With the men from the village doing most of the work, all we did was carry buckets of cement slurry to where they were pouring. After the men had smoothed the surface by dragging a flat board across each section, we all smiled. “Now for your names,” Afiya said, beaming at us and our willingness to work. We took a stick and carved our initials into one corner. “Well done,” she said.

We smiled and pointed toward the two men. She told them in Swahili to write their names too. One man made a large X and the other his initials. “You as well,” Craig said with a chuckle, as though this was too much fun. Afiya knelt down and wrote AFIYA. Jambo, we all said as we went up to our dorms for a shower. “Nothing like ice-cold water to build character,” we always said when we headed into the bathroom.

A few days after the garden work, Afiya gathered us into the living room. She told us that she had received her social work degree at the university in Nairobi. “You men will mainly help with some construction projects so that we can finish the center. You women will split your time between working at the hospital, visiting women’s groups in nearby villages, and teaching in the schools.”

The district hospital where I’d be working was a six-mile-roundtrip walk. On our first tour, we passed by a large deserted room that was padlocked. Inside sat a huge generator, a gift from a Danish NGO, covered by a dusty tarp. We learned later that the hospital administrator, Sister Bygone, had failed to grease the palms of Nairobi officials to get it approved. There it sat, leaving the hospital to rely on lanterns and candles in the wards and offices.

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