11

Mon Ami Club

“We’ll go out to Sauri when I get back tomorrow,” Uncle Brian announced over another breakfast of green oranges, stale bread, and hot tea.

“I thought we were going today,” Hannah said. “We need to take the peanut butter crackers and protein bars. And the stuff we got yesterday. And when am I going to meet Wikis . . . Wisi . . .”

“Wilkister.”

Hannah laughed. “Wilkister! Right. When can I meet her?”

“I’ll take you as soon as I get back, I promise. But I just found out there’s medicine in Nairobi that Dr. Omundo needs at the clinic.”

“Can I go with you?” Her eyes sparkled.

“You can if you want to, but it’s a long bus ride, Hannah, and Jones really wants to take you and your mom to the Mon Ami Club for lunch!”

Hannah cheered. Uncle Brian had told her about the Mon Ami Club, a local restaurant where they could order food from a menu. No more chicken and kale.

“Okay, but wait. Don’t leave. Stay right here.” She ran back up to her room and returned with two portable chargers. “Take these. Will they work with your phone?”

He inspected them. “They might. My phone is almost fully charged this time, but I’ll take one just in case.” He winked at her. “And Nairobi’s the place to find an adapter if I need one.”

Hannah smiled. “Take both of them. We haven’t even gotten our phones to work yet.” She thought of how she and her friends were attached to their phones 24/7 at home. She did not miss hers as much as she thought she would.

“Thanks, Hannah.” She smiled. “And I should be back tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then early the next morning. Depends on the buses. There’s a schedule, but you know how that goes.” He laughed.

Realizing she was more rigid than she had thought, Hannah did not love not having a schedule. And she noticed people were not always watching the way they seemed to be at home. She remembered being on the boda-boda the other day. Feeling liberated and free, she had not been concerned about what people might think if she had fallen. No social media. No one commenting. She kind of liked it.

“So I’ll be back in the next day or two, and then Hector will be back from Ethiopia next week, and then it will be Harvest Festival!”

Harvest Festival had become like a childhood bedtime story Hannah wanted read to her over and over. “Tell me about it again, Uncle Brian,” she pleaded. “One more time.”

“No one in Sauri has died because of hunger in a whole year, and we are going to celebrate!” He explained the community food program and the concept of taking what you need and leaving the rest for others. Of their corn and beans harvests, people had used what they needed and put the rest in the flour mill for others to have. “It’s those little moments,” he explained, “that build up to something big. And we are going to have fun at Harvest Festival!” He kissed Hannah on the head and got into the truck with Jones. “See you tomorrow!” He waved as they drove away.

“Or the next day!” Hannah called back.

He leaned his upper body out the window, looked back at her and waved. “Or the next day!”

Jones returned an hour later. On their drive to lunch, Hannah pointed out where she and Uncle Brian had taken boda-bodas. Jones parked the truck along a strip of parked trucks and cars, all fairly beaten up with dents and covered with a film of dirt. The town of Kisumu reminded Hannah of dust storms that enveloped the Wild West in history books she had read. She followed Jones out the driver’s side, and as she leaned on to the door of the car to balance herself, the car door knocked into a small boy. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,” she said to him as her feet touched the lumpy dirt ground. The boy was small, about forty pounds. He did not look like the kids she had seen in TV ads to help the hungry. His stomach was not distended with malnourishment. Instead he was bony and frail with a covering of dust so thick it lightened his dark African skin. In a swift movement, he got close to Hannah and said something she did not understand. Jones quickly moved toward him and responded in a serious, reprimanding tone. The boy ran off.

“He didn’t do anything. I was the one who opened the car door right into him.”

“He did that purpose, Hannah. He ask you for money,” Jones explained. “I tell him just go home. Money is not help them.” She thought back to what Uncle Brian had said in the Nakumatt.

They walked along a strip of small shops—an electronics store with massive TVs as deep as the screens were wide and remote controls the size of laptop computers and with just a few buttons. How many people are buying TVs? There’s hardly ever any electricity. An internet café sold newspapers, served only water and juice, and had three boxy, dusty computers with thick, loose cords and a piece of worn white paper with black marker lettering ‘sorry no internet’ propped up in the window.

The ATM at the Barclay’s Bank looked exactly like the ones at home. As her mom got out local currency, Hannah felt like she was jumping between two different lives: hers and this fictional one in Kenya. Nothing seemed real.

They stopped at a restaurant with a sign, ‘Mon Ami Club’. The bar, barstools, tables and chairs were simple, carved from a light shade of wood with no texture or decoration. There was a clunky TV with fuzzy reception behind the bar showing a soccer game. A large cracked chalkboard displayed a menu of several options, including a veggie burger, broiled chicken, fried chicken, goat, and sides of kale, maize, or French fries. When the waiter came by, Hannah ordered a veggie burger, French fries and a Fanta orange soda. Her mom ordered broiled chicken with maize and a bottle of water, and Jones ordered broiled chicken with maize and kale. He drank tap.

Serving the people at the table next to theirs, a waiter stopped with a tray of food and a bottle with a label that caught Hannah’s eye—Tusker, with the profile of an elephant.

“How long have you lived here, Jones?” she asked.

“I do not live Kisumu. I live Kitui.”

“Kitui? Where’s that?”

“About 400 kilometers east to Kisumu,” he answered. “A bus ride ten hour to here. I am here because I got job as driver of ICRAF. It is good job so I take home with money to Rebecca and Anthony, my wife and my son.”

Jones explained that the land in Kitui is too dry to harvest and people are dying of hunger.

“Would you ever think about moving Rebecca and Anthony here, Jones?” Hannah’s mom asked.

He shook his head. “Our family is Kitui. Brothers, sisters, and children—cousins to Anthony. Rebecca mum still alive and live with us,” he said. “And she is old to move.”

Hannah wondered Jones’s age. He appeared young to have a child, especially one who was already six. “Do you mind if I ask how old you are, Jones?”

“I think…” Jones paused and took a drink. “About 25?” he said as if he were answering a trivia question and hoping to be right.

Hannah raised her left eyebrow and tilted her head to the right. “Do you know your birthday?”

“February.”

She smiled.

“What about Anthony? When is his birthday?”

“Anthony born in October 28 and he six years old,” he answered proudly.

The waiter put the lunches on the table. Hannah frowned at her plate of food. Instead of a bun, her veggie burger was held together with two slices of white bread. She lifted the top slice and gagged. A lump of beans.

“Is okay the veggie burger?” Jones asked.

She nodded and smiled, trying not to laugh. She heard her mom stifle a giggle and knew they were thinking the same thing. Funniest veggie burger ever.

The lukewarm beans had made the bread soggy. She picked at the beans to be polite and devoured the thick cut French fries. The Fanta orange was very sweet, like having dessert with lunch.

The waiter put a check on their table. Hannah’s mom promptly took the check and Jones thanked her. “Um, Jones?” her mom asked as she looked at the check. They had gotten Kenyan Shillings at the bank, so Hannah was not sure what the problem was. “Do you know about tipping? Back home, we give about 20% the cost of the meal to the waiter and it’s called a tip. Do you do that here?”

“Please,” he said, “leave what you can.”

Leave what you can. Hannah thought back to what Brian had said about Harvest Festival and the community food program. No one in Sauri had died of hunger in a year because people had taken only what they needed.

The total cost of lunch was 880 KES, about $10. Leave what you can. The whole bill for three meals was less than what Hannah earned for an hour of babysitting at home. Her stomach ached with stress. And mushy beans.