Alexandria of Africa (8 page)

Or feel them so they know where you are and come looking for you
, I thought. Wasn’t it best not to let the snake know you were around so it wouldn’t spit at you?

“Look, Alexandria, for better or worse you are going no place right now. Later today if you want to make that call I’ll ask Nebala to bring you up to the top. Right now, let’s just get some lunch.”

I
was
hungry.

“And you’ll have a chance to meet our other guests,” she said.

“Guests—is that the word you’re using to describe your prisoners?”

“There are no prisoners here.”

“Fine. How many people are here who are being forced to be here?”

Renée held up one finger.

“One other?”

She shook her head. “Just one. You. Doesn’t that make you feel special?”

I
was
special. “Just how many people are here?”

“Twenty.”

“But if they’re not being forced to be here, why are they here?” I asked.

“I’ll let them tell you their stories themselves,” Renée said, and I followed her into the compound. Really, what choice did I have?

Defeated once again, I followed Renée along a little cobblestone path. I was sure they were just trying to scare me with that snake business, but whatever, I was still going to stay on the path and walk heavy. Hundreds of dance lessons instantly washed away and replaced with a walk like a Neanderthal.

I heard voices and laughter and singing before I saw anybody. We rounded a corner and there were people seated under a large thatched roof. There were tables, and a big fireplace was set into the one wall of the building. It was some sort of outdoor dining room.

I did a quick count: twenty-three people. A few of them were older so they were probably the staff. A few more females than males. They were so busy that they didn’t seem to notice us. They all wore T-shirts and shorts and sandals. The girls all seemed to have their hair in ponytails or tied back with bandanas. Apparently, here Renée was a fashion icon.

“Renée!” somebody shouted, and everybody stopped talking and yelled out greetings. A bunch of kids jumped to their feet and rushed over, and she was enveloped in a group hug. I moved off to the side to make sure I wasn’t caught up in it.

“Hello!” a girl said to me. “I’m Andrea, but my friends call me Andy!”

“Yes, hello.” I assumed I’d be calling her Andrea. Perhaps if she put on a little makeup and did something with her hair they might actually realize that she was a girl and not a boy named Andy.

“Everybody!” Renée yelled out. “I’d like you to meet Alexandria!”

There was a roar of yells and greetings and they started to rush toward me. If anybody even tried to hug me I’d hit them with my—first Andrea and then two other girls wrapped their arms around me! Didn’t these people know anything about personal space? I tried to break free but a few other kids joined in and I was trapped in the middle … in the middle of a group hug … how disgusting was this? And somebody, or more than one person, had some serious need for deodorant.

This was all awful. It had been bad enough when I’d thought I was entering a jail. Now it felt more like a cult—a cult that had
absolutely
no style. If you were going to blindly follow somebody, at least make sure that they were somebody named Dolce or Gabbana.

Renée rescued me from the crush and introduced me to the other staff. There was a Jessie, a Robin, an Alex, and a Dave. Cute. Everybody had a cute little name, and they all pretended to be so friendly and happy to meet me. I wasn’t there to pretend.

“We’re going to have everybody introduce themselves
and say a few words about why they’re here,” Renée announced. “Let’s start with our newest guest, Alexandria.”

My eyes widened. I knew what she trying to do, make me look stupid by giving me no notice. It wasn’t going to work. Public speaking was just about having confidence in yourself, and I had even more of that than I had money.

“As you know, my name is Alexandria … Alexandria
Hyatt
. “I said the name clearly. In Brentwood my last name was known. They didn’t look as though they recognized it. “I’m almost sixteen. I live in Brentwood, California. My favourite colour is taupe, although aquamarine matches my eyes perfectly. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Why are you here?” a girl asked.

“I really didn’t have any choice. I had to come,” I said without thinking. Now I was thinking: if I was the only one who had been ordered to come here by the courts, maybe I shouldn’t have told everybody.

“I had no choice either,” a boy said.

Huh? But I’d thought I was the only one who had been forced to come. Had Renée lied to me?

“When I found out about the needs of the people,” he continued, “I knew I
had
to come here.”

Others kids started clapping and hooting. I knew we weren’t talking about the same thing, but I wasn’t going to say anything to correct it. Let them believe what they wanted. What did I care? It wasn’t like I knew any of them or would ever see them again once my sentence had been served.

“Now that we know a little about Alexandria, who’d like to share their story with her?” Renée asked.

A dozen hands shot up into the air.

“Sarah, why don’t you start?”

“Hello, my name is Sarah, and I’m from Boise, Idaho, and I’m here as part of a group from my church.”

“Could all the members of the group stand up, please?” Renée said.

Nine other people got to their feet. There were four guys and five other girls. The guys had short hair and the girls wore sensible shoes. They all had that look, that … 
church
look. Apparently, I
had
wandered into a cult.

“We had a speaker from Child Save come and speak to our youth group. We learned about children who had no fresh water or schools to go to, and we decided that since we had so much, and they had so little, we wanted to help. We raised almost twenty thousand dollars to help build a school.”

Everybody started clapping and cheering. Of course I just clapped along.

“And then,” Sarah continued, “we raised funds to have ten of us come here to do the actual building and to meet the children we were helping.” There was some more clapping as she sat down.

The other members of the youth group took turns introducing themselves. They all shared a bland sameness, and the names all blurred together. There was a Kelly and two Taylors—one a boy and one a girl—and a Todd, Tim, Jimmy, and two Britneys. Tim I might actually remember. Give him a better haircut—he looked like his parents still cut it—and he might have had some potential. Not that he’d be up to my dating standards, but, anyway, better.

Another girl stood up to talk. I was pretty sure she wasn’t a church kid. She was older, dressed with a little more style, and her makeup wasn’t half bad.

“Hello, everybody. Hello, Alex,” she said, looking directly at me.

“It’s Alexandria,” I said coldly. Nobody except my closest friends would ever call me that, and she wasn’t about to become one of them.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend. My name is Chris. Well, I guess really it’s Christina if we really feel a need to get formal … or pretentious.”

I bristled. Was she seriously taking me on?

“I came here to help, but also to learn, and to help prepare myself for a career in international development,” she said.

That certainly sounded snooty, although I didn’t know exactly what “international development” was.

“I’m in my third year of university … on a scholarship … and one of my professors felt that this experience would make me an even better student.”

Would it be impolite to vomit?

“I have studied the people of this region fairly extensively and I am familiar with their culture and customs. And, of course, I can speak some Swahili.”

She finished up her little speech. What I’d really learned was that she was a pain—a showoffy, pretentious, annoying pain.

The next person got up and started talking. I stayed focused on Christina as she sat down. She was clearly the best-looking girl there. At least, she was until I showed up. I should have expected that she wouldn’t be pleased to have me around. It wasn’t going to be easy for her to share the spotlight. Who was I fooling? With me around it wasn’t about sharing. I was going to keep the whole spotlight to myself. I’d have to keep a close eye on her, though. If she was smart enough to instantly size me up as a threat to her alpha status, then she was smart enough to try to stay top dog.

Person after person stood up and talked. Different names, different faces, different voices, but the same basic story. The same basic sermon. If they were pretending to be saints for my benefit they could stop wasting their breath and my time. I was hardly listening, and what I did hear didn’t impress me. At least I had an excuse. I
had
to be there. These people were so stupid that they’d made a choice. I couldn’t even imagine that. Didn’t they have any better place to be, things to do, or people to hang with?

One of the staff got up, thanked everybody for sharing, and then told them it was time to leave to get back to work. Everybody practically jumped to their feet. The way they were acting, all excited, you would have thought she had said get back to the
spa
instead of work. Reluctantly I got up too. My legs felt wobbly.

“You won’t be going with them this afternoon,” Renée said. “I think you need to unpack and rest.”

I felt so grateful I almost said thank you.

“Your luggage has been brought to your tent.”

I was glad I didn’t have to bring it all down … did she say
tent?

“Excuse me? I’m staying in a tent?”

“We call them tents, but really it isn’t like you’ll be camping.”

“That’s good, because I
don’t
camp.”

“It sounds like there are lots of things you don’t do. Lots of limits you place on yourself. Come and see before you judge.”

I trailed behind her along the path. I was tired of following her. We rounded a corner and there was a cluster of large green tents. It was easy to see which one was mine because my luggage was on the front step. The bright pink
of the suitcases and forest green of the canvas looked rather striking together. I never would have placed those colours side by side, but it was something to keep in mind for the future.

We stepped up onto the wooden deck of the tent. The canvas formed a roof and there were two folding chairs sitting outside.

“The tent itself has a concrete floor and there are electrical outlets,” Renée said. She opened the zipper and pulled back the canvas door. She stepped in and I followed behind and … wait … there were clothes on the bed, and they weren’t
my
clothes.

“This has to be a mistake. Somebody else is already in this tent.”

“Your roommate.”

I gasped. “I have to share this tent with somebody?”

“Two beds. Two people.”

“I
don’t
share.”

Renée smirked. I hated that smirk. “This is the only unoccupied bed in the whole camp, so I think that your choice, once again, is limited. Do you want to spend time discussing this further or do you want to unpack and take that shower?”

“I want to shower.” Seventeen hours in the air and six more in a dusty truck had made a shower my top priority, over almost anything else imaginable.

I looked around the room. “Where is my shower?”

“Your shower is down the way in the big cement building.”

I gasped again. “You aren’t telling me that I have to share a shower with every other person here, are you?”

“Not everybody. Just all the girls. Two stalls for the boys and two for the girls. Common showers.”

That all seemed so … so … 
common
. In my whole life I’d never had to share a bedroom, shower, or toilet. Maybe jail would have been better. Then I remembered the stainless-steel toilet in the middle of the holding cell. Down the way would be better.

I shook my head. “Right now I just don’t care. I just want to get into a hot shower and stay there for a long time.”

“You can do that now, but not in the morning.”

“I can’t?”

“They’re shared, remember. If you’re in there too long you’ll be keeping other people waiting. As well, we have a very small water-heater, so if you take too much hot water other people will get none. That wouldn’t be fair.”

Fair had nothing to do with this. Getting what I wanted did, and there was only one way for that to happen. I’d get up early and take the first shower. That way it was guaranteed that I’d have hot water, even if I was the only one who did. I just needed to know how early
early
was.

“Renée, what time do people generally get up in the morning?” I asked sweetly.

“That depends on how long it takes for them to get ready. Some people just splash some water in their face and throw on some clothes.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” I said, wondering if she got the shot. “But what time is breakfast and what time do we leave?”

“Breakfast is at seven and we try to be on the road by seven-thirty.”

“No, seriously.”

“Seriously.”

“Do you have any idea how early that means I would have to get up in order to be ready to leave?” I questioned.

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Is this negotiable?” I asked.

“Feel free to talk to the group. We try to have discussions, build consensus.”

I tried not to smile. I was pretty sure I could talk this group into doing pretty well whatever I wanted. This would be no challenge.

“Although I have to warn you that this group is pretty gung-ho.”

“What does that mean?”

“Enthusiastic. Yesterday they wanted to stay at the school working at the end of the day, and they were talking about getting out even earlier this morning so they could get to the school earlier and begin work.”

I was struck by the terrible thought that if I brought it up I could end up leaving even earlier. Maybe I shouldn’t be so confident about what I could talk them into doing. These kids were a little odd, certainly different from the people in my school and in my group. Odd kids might have odd ways of thinking.