Alexandria of Africa (9 page)

“It would certainly be an interesting talk,” Renée said.

I hated that word
interesting
. It could mean almost anything.

“I get the feeling you’re a very persuasive speaker,” Renée said. “I’m willing to bet that you are usually able to talk people into doing lots of things, aren’t you?”

She gave me a little smile. I knew she meant that as a shot. Fine.

“Well,” I said, “I guess it’s like they say … it takes one to know one.” I smiled back.

I tried to do a little mental calculation. If I laid out my clothes the night before that would save me at least fifteen minutes. I’d need an hour for hair and makeup and I was
planning on at least fifteen minutes in the shower. I didn’t really need to eat breakfast. Losing a little weight wouldn’t be my worst African souvenir. This might be the chance for me to actually
become
one-fifteen rather than just
claiming
to be one-fifteen. That meant that to get out by seven-thirty I’d have to get up at … quarter to six. Okay, that was just insane! I’d been up that late but I’d never gotten up that early!

“This is really not possible. I’m warning you right now that I am really not a morning person.”

“I guess that explains everything,” she said.

“Do you get paid to take shots at me?” I asked.

“No, that I do for free. Have your shower and a nap and we’ll see you at supper.”

I sat there thinking through my morning routine. If I wanted to look my best I had no choice but to get up that early. But, really, what did I even care what these people thought? None of them had the style or the class to even know what I was doing or wearing or what I looked like. I could just sleep in and … no, I couldn’t do that. Regardless of their lack of style, I still had standards. I still had myself to impress.

I tried to nap but it just wasn’t happening. Instead, I was just lost in thought. All of this, everything that was happening, was so surreal that I kept playing it all over and over in my head.

I heard the zipper on the tent open. Time to meet my roommate. I sat up and—

“It’s you,” I said. It was that
awful
Christina person.

“It is. Very observant.” She slumped down on her bed, right on top of the clothes and belongings that littered the surface.

I looked at her as she ignored me. She was covered with mud and dirt. Perfect way to climb into your bed.

“You’re filthy,” I said.

“And tired. But at least it’s a good tired.”

I wasn’t sure what that even meant. “What were you doing?”

“Mainly mixing cement.” She sat up and threw her legs
over the side of the bed so she was facing me. “Do you have any idea how much work is involved with mixing … wait, what am I saying? Of course, you wouldn’t have a clue.”

That was clearly meant as an insult. I took it as a compliment instead.

“I was also plastering, and I helped to put in a window. The building is almost three-quarters finished.”

“Were you building a house?” I asked.

“A school. That’s what we’re here for … you knew that, right?”

“Of course I knew.” Of course I had managed to block out what they’d been blathering on about earlier.

“I’d better take a shower and get changed before supper,” she said. She got up, grabbed another “Change The World” T-shirt, a towel, and a little toiletry bag, and started for the door.

“How long do we have before supper?”

“About forty-five minutes.”

I jumped to my feet. “Then I’d better get ready too.”

She gave me a questioning look. “What else do you need to do?”

I smiled. It was too late to make a better first impression, but I wanted to be completely stunning the second time around.

“I want to touch up my makeup, and I really need to straighten my hair. This humidity is playing havoc. Do you know where I can plug in my straightener?”

“I think Nairobi would work.”

“No, no, you don’t understand. I want to know where I can plug it in
here
at the camp.”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. The generator is only turned on for a few hours each night, after it gets dark.”

“And this generator thing matters because …?”

She gave me a Renée-like look. “The generator produces electricity, and your hair thing needs electricity to work. Unless it’s battery operated.”

“But that would be ridiculous.”

“Not nearly as ridiculous as bringing along a hair-straightener to the middle of the Maasai Mara.”

“Ridiculous is not having electricity. Everybody has electricity.”

“Everybody in the world
you
come from.”

Yeah, like
she
was from the middle of a desert.

“Out here it comes from a generator—for those few who are rich enough to afford one. But I guess you’d know all about being rich.”

The way she said “rich” was like it was some sort of dirty word. I wasn’t about to take that from her.

“I imagine to the local people we must all seem rich,” I countered.

“We are. Rich beyond their wildest dreams.”

“But at least some people come over because they really want to help.”

“Yeah, that’s true of
some
of us.”

There was no mistaking that statement. She was one of the “some” who came to help and I wasn’t.

“But here’s a thought,” I said. “How much better would it be for the people here if, instead of us coming over and doing a little bit of work, we just sent the money for our airfare instead? Can you imagine how many people would have been helped if you had simply sent your money over here instead of sending yourself? The difference would just be amazing!”

She gave me the dirtiest, coldest look imaginable, said something else under her breath, and left the tent. I had to
stop myself from laughing out loud. Bonus points for me. Not only had I shut her up, I’d sent her away! But enough about her. I had something really important to worry about—my hair.

No electricity meant no curling iron, no hair-straightener, not even a blow-dryer. I could do wonders with just a blow-dryer if I had to. These people had thrown proper hair care back to the age of the dinosaur! But what could I do? Renée was right, this wasn’t a prison … I knew that because prisons had electricity.

Despite my best efforts I was the last to arrive for supper, and almost every seat was taken. I scoped the scene. There were only two open spots. One was beside Renée and opposite to Christina—I could see why nobody wanted that spot—and the other was squarely in the middle of “Church Town.” Talk about limited options. I assumed that room service was out of the question so I quickly thought it through. Sitting by Renée and Christina would show them that I wasn’t afraid of them. But it might also give them the mistaken idea that I actually liked them. I’d have to risk that. I couldn’t have them smelling fear.

There was only one positive to all of this. At least I could make an entrance. I straightened my scarf and then, slowly, walked into the dining area, my heels clicking against the wooden floor. I tried not to be too obvious about watching as heads started to turn my way.

“Alexandria!” one of the church girls yelled out as she got to her feet and wildly waved. She gestured to the open seat at her table.

I guess the choice was made for me. Slowly, deliberately, like I was strutting the runway, I glided across the room. No earth-shaking “snake walk” for me. I didn’t need to look to know I was being observed. Any boy who wasn’t looking at me had some gender confusion issues he needed to work out. Hair-straightener or no hair-straightener, I knew I looked good.

“You probably don’t remember all of our names,” the girl said. “I’m Sarah.”

“Of course I remember you,” I lied.

They went around the table once more and introduced themselves. I repeated each name in my head. That was the best way to put names with faces. And they all had perky names to go with their perky smiles. They reminded me of the Mickey Mouse Club. But then again, that was where Britney and Christina and even Justin started out before they made it big time. I’d be willing to share a pair of mouse ears with Justin any day.

I listened with one ear tuned to the conversation going on around me while still eavesdropping on what was being talked about at the next table. Different table, different people, different words, but the same attitude. These people were all seriously buzzed and wired. The whole place was like a gigantic cheerleading squad minus the matching uniforms. Although, quite frankly, there were so many “Change The World” T-shirts that it might as well have been the uniform.

Personally I thought my choice of clothing was a dozen notches above this crowd. I had on an ivory-coloured silk blouse and forest-green safari shorts. I was glad I’d gone with low heels instead of the high ones. It was a nice contrast to the sneakers and sandals worn by everybody else, but not too provocative. Maybe I should
have added the darker-green linen jacket to the whole ensemble just to draw out the overall colour—

“Alexandria?”

I startled out of my thoughts.

“Do you want tea or coffee with supper?” Sarah asked. She gestured over my shoulder. There was a waiter standing there holding two pots.

“Could I have a sparkling water instead?”

“Water?” he asked.

“Yes. Either Perrier or Evian would be fine.”

“Tea or coffee,” he repeated.

“I want—”

“I’ll get it,” Tim said as he bounced to his feet. Right, Tim, the almost-acceptable candidate for a bit of harmless flirtation. He raced across the room and returned with a bottle of water and handed it to me.

“This is just water,” I said, with a bit of a pout. “I want
sparkling
water.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim said.

“That’s the best they can do here,” Sarah explained. “At least with the bottled water you won’t get sick. That’s why we can’t drink from the tap here, because the water might be contaminated.”

“Contaminated?”

“There are lots of parasites in the drinking water. Even water taken from a spring, which is where we get it here. You’re not even supposed to brush your teeth with the tap water.”

Ack!
I had already rinsed out my mouth with the tap water. “What if you only did it once?”

“It’s probably okay,” Sarah said. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Yeah, you’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Tim said. “They just want you to be really careful, that’s all. Here, feel my hand,”
he said as he laid it down on the table in front of Sarah and me.

Wow, that was random. What in the world did that have to do with the drinking water?

“Gosh, I can’t believe how rough it is,” Sarah said, as she ran her hand along his.

Yeah, except I was pretty sure she wasn’t the one he was aiming for with that little invitation.

“Check it out,” Tim said to me.

Yes, right again!

I quickly ran my fingers over his palm. It was like sandpaper.

“I even got a couple of calluses.”

Charming.

“I bet you won’t forget your work gloves again,” Sarah said.

“Not likely, but I wasn’t going to miss out on all the fun of building the school!”

Physical work
and
fun
were two concepts that I didn’t normally put together in the same sentence, unless there was irony, dark humour, or sarcasm involved.

“Did they run out of gloves?” I asked, hopeful that they wouldn’t have a pair for me and I could avoid working.

“We’re supposed to bring our own gloves,” Sarah said. “You did bring gloves, didn’t you?”

I shook my head.

“But it was right there in the information package.”

There had been some preachy, long-winded email they’d sent that was an automatic delete. “I really didn’t have time,” I tried to explain. “I didn’t even know I was coming until about a week ago.”

“But how did you have enough time to raise the funds for the trip?” one of the girls, Andrea, asked.

“I didn’t raise funds. My father just wrote a cheque.”

“Your father must be rich!” Sarah exclaimed.

Well, duh!

“Not rich. Just comfortable.” I wasn’t supposed to brag about how much money we had, but compared to almost everybody else that I knew, yeah, we were rich.

“My father says that Donald Trump is rich,” I mentioned.

“Yeah, he is rich, for sure,” Tim agreed.

Now was the time for the bragging part. “And he’s truly a very nice man.”

They all stopped eating, mid-chew, and looked at me with a curious blend of surprise, doubt, awe, and confusion.

“You know Donald Trump?”

“I wouldn’t say I know him well. I’ve only met him a few times. And I’ve been over to his home, well, at least
one
of his homes, the spacious penthouse he owns on the Upper East Side of Manhattan … very nice. Either he has great taste or a great designer.”

“But how,
why
, do you know him?” Tim asked.

“My father has done some business deals with him.”

“That is so cool! Hey, did he ever say to your father, You’re fired!’?”

“You obviously don’t know my father.” I chuckled. “He didn’t work
for
The Donald, they were more like partners.” My father being the very junior partner, but these guys didn’t need to know that.

I could tell by everybody’s expressions that they were seriously impressed. A little name-dropping goes a long way, as long as you drop the right name. I made a mental note to strategically drop a few more along the way in the coming weeks. Realistically, this group was so out of the mainstream that I could claim to know just about anybody
and they wouldn’t even have a clue if I was making it up. The secret to telling a lie is to keep it simple enough to remember, but to add just enough odd details to make it credible.

“I don’t know what I can do now,” I said. “I didn’t bring gloves, and it isn’t like I can buy them out here.”

“You could use mine,” Tim offered.

This was where I wanted him
not
to help.

“That’s sweet, but you need yours. If those calluses get worse you might not be able to work at all, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.”