Chai Tea Sunday by Heather A. Clark

Author:Heather A. Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2012-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

16

The next morning, I was anxious to speak with Hasina. The day before had been busy. Given Hasina had to leave the classroom early, I hadn’t had a chance to thoroughly speak with her and I was anxious to continue our conversation about teaching the children. I wanted to learn more about the lessons she was using and ask about my role to understand how she thought I could help.

I stuffed my backpack with a few of the supplies I had brought with me from home — markers, activity books, construction paper, stickers, a few rulers, some Play-Doh, a package of pipe cleaners and four bottles of glue. I didn’t know where Petar or Kiano were and I hadn’t seen Mama Bu since Sunday as she was still nursing her niece back to health, so I grabbed some fruit from the kitchen and headed out the door.

When I got to school, I walked into an empty classroom. I was hoping Hasina would be there, since she had arrived so early the day before, but the classroom was still and quiet. The shared textbooks we had used throughout Hasina’s lessons the day before were piled neatly on her desk. The dusty wooden floor the classroom had been built upon was still marked with the prints of shoeless children.

Not knowing what lessons we would be covering that day, I wasn’t sure how I should set up the classroom. Instead, I took my seat on one of the unbroken benches and waited for Hasina’s arrival.

Forty minutes later, I was still waiting. I could hear the children playing in the field and I wondered if it was typical for Hasina to be late. I had heard Petar joke about “Kenya time,” which coined the consistent way Kenyans showed up late for everything, yet Hasina didn’t strike me as the type of teacher who would approach the classroom in such a lackadaisical manner.

I left the classroom and wandered through the orphanage back door to find Johanna finishing up the dishes.

“Good morning, Johanna. Have you seen Hasina? She isn’t in the classroom and I expected her to be here by now.”

“No, no, Miss Nicky. Me not know. Here, I get Jebet.” Johanna wiped her hands on the tea towel that was hanging off her shoulder. Her eyes seemed weary, yet she forced a wobbly smile onto her face, revealing a large gap between her two front teeth. When she smiled, her nose turned even more upwards than it already was, giving her an almost cartoonlike quality, yet she was still pretty in her own way. Beautiful, even.

I clasped my hands together and tried not to be nervous about meeting Jebet. She was just the orphanage director, after all. What did she have over me?

But when Jebet and Johanna walked into the kitchen, the room turned icy cold. The orphanage director’s persona instantly juxtaposed Johanna’s calm and gentle demeanour, and the pair looked like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde standing next to each other. Sweet and sour.

Jebet’s

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