with flies and mosquitoes buzzing persistently around her face or deceptively delicate ants forging a trail up her back during a relaxing nap under the Serengeti sun, it was wearing a watch or following someone else’s schedule.
She unfolded a handwoven, flat-weave rug over the dusty, red earth that flowed through the small Maasai village enkang and beyond its thorny fence, then stretched out on her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. The tribe’s oldest child, Adia, sat down next to her. At thirteen, she was making huge progress with her fourth-grade-level reading and writing. Pippa was proud of her.
“I’m ready and listening,” Pippa prompted with a smile. Adia was used to her relaxed teaching style. Of course, she sat up and gave the lesson more structure when they were writing or doing math, but reading was different. Reading was meant to be enjoyed. She wanted the kids to see that.
Adia opened the book to her marked paged and began reading. Her musical lilt drew Pippa into one of her favorite storybooks. The girl had a future ahead of her, so long as her father agreed to let her leave home and continue her education beyond what Pippa could offer. Trying to teach the children of the Maasai and other local tribes—particularly the young girls, who weren’t always given the opportunity—was a lot for one person. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only teacher who was trying to help. Some well-known people from the university...some who were born in these villages...had programs to teach and give back. But a few people and a couple of programs weren’t enough to teach all the rural children in Kenya and the children in the tribes around here were counting on her. She needed more money to help them. She was spread thin, traveling on different days to different enkangs. At some point, the girls had to be given the chance to move beyond her limitations.
She closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun as she listened. It felt so much better not to have her watch on. Who needed clocks when they had the sun and stars? Who needed alarms and schedules when all they had to do was listen to the diurnal rhythm and sounds of wildlife announcing everything from daybreak to dusk to the coming of rain?
Rain, fluid. Earth, solid.
The simple facts flashed through her mind the same second that the ground rippled against her like a river current against the belly of a wildebeest trapped during the floods.
She stilled and pressed her palms against the rug, her mind registering fact and logic. Earth. Solid. She glanced around. Adia’s rhythm hadn’t faltered. The others in the village were going about their routines.
The herdsmen had taken their cattle and goats out to pasture, and the enkang’s central, stick-fenced pen, where their goats were kept safe from predators at night, stood rigidly against the backdrop of the Serengeti plains. Women were laboriously mashing dried straw with cow dung and urine for the mud walls of their small, rounded inkajijik. Simple homes made with what the earth offered. The solid earth.
Clearly, she’d imagined the ripples. No one else seemed fazed. Maybe the sun was getting to her. It had shifted in the sky, stealing away the shade that the branches of a fig tree had offered. She took a deep breath and sat up, brushing off her hands, then pushing her curly hair away from her forehead.
“Is everything okay? Should I stop reading? Did I make a mistake?” Adia fingered the rows of red and orange beads that graced her neck, then smoothed her hand across the vibrant patterns of her traditional wrap dress.
“No, no. It wasn’t you. I need to get out of the sun.”
There was no point in frightening the girl. Unless... No, she doubted it. She hadn’t felt a tremor in forever. Sure, they happened here. She’d studied geology as an undergrad. She knew all about the earth’s tectonic plates moving.
She’d felt mild quakes in the past. The Great Rift Valley ran through western Kenya, including the Maasai Mara and the area where the Serengeti ecosystem lay and merged across the border into Tanzania’s famous Serengeti National Park. There was more earthquake activity in that region, but minor events happened here, too. Even to the east in Nairobi.
But what had happened a minute ago had been a different, odd sensation. Nothing had shaken. No one else had noticed. Most likely, the sun had made her dizzy. She got up and sat upright next to Adia.
“Okay, you can keep reading. Let’s get to the end of the chapter before we stop. That way you can write me a summary for next time.”
Adia looked down uncomfortably and bit her lip.
“What is it?”
“I shouldn’t ask you for more.”
“Adia, if you need something, ask me.”
“I can’t write a summary. A goat ate the pencil and paper you gave me. I set it down to help my sister when she fell down. And then the goat ate it.”
Pippa gave her a reassuring smile. If this had been anywhere else and a student had told her teacher that the dog had eaten her homework, she would have been accused of making up stories. But this wasn’t anywhere else, and Adia was as honest and conscientious as a kid could be, which meant a goat really had eaten her pencil and paper. She placed her hand on Adia’s shoulder.
“Not to worry. I have some extra supplies in my jeep.” Pippa reluctantly pulled the watch out of her pocket. She glanced at the time and stuffed the watch away again. “I didn’t realize how long we’ve been sitting here. You are reading so beautifully, you made me forget. And you’re at my favorite part in the book, too. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve read or heard the story, I still feel my heart race when Captain Hook hears the ticktock of the crocodile approaching.”
“Me, too,” Adia said. She smiled and marked her page. “Thank you for teaching me to read.”
“You’re a fast learner. You can do anything you set your mind to. I hate to leave. On my next visit, you can help me teach the little ones, then we can talk about what I mentioned last time.” Pippa sighed as she stood. This is why she hated schedules. It didn’t seem fair to end class right when a student found his or her stride. Not that this was an official class or standard school, but still. She could remember the day Adia had read her first words when she was nine. Pippa hadn’t been teaching formally back then, but she had been donating books to some of the local Maasai villages her entire childhood.
She had taught a few of the kids to read back then because she wanted to. It made her happy. But it took years for her to realize teaching was her passion.
Adia and other children had missed out on lessons when Pippa left Kenya two years ago and spent a year traveling and studying in Europe—an escape she had needed after having her heart broken. But she was glad to be back home this past year. And dedicating herself to teaching children who otherwise had no access to education was more rewarding than she ever could have imagined.
She wanted others to read their first words, too, which was why making it to the tourist lodge on schedule mattered just as much. She had an arrangement with the lodge and the guided children’s hikes she provided there allowed her to earn money for teaching supplies. She also hoped to save for a small schoolhouse—or school hut—where she’d be able to teach children from different homesteads all at once, rather than losing so much time driving long distances across the savanna.
The problem was that tourist schedules weren’t sun—or Africa-time friendly. Five minutes late and they’d start complaining. Five minutes late was nothing around here, but add an hour or two and she’d have no customers at all.
She had found that out the hard way a few weeks ago. No one had even cared about the fact that a male ostrich had decided to challenge her jeep. And then she’d inadvertently driven too close to a rhino and her calf in the brush. She’d made her escape only to hit a piece of scrap metal in the middle of nowhere that resulted in her having to change her tire. No doubt, the lodge director and tour group parents had thought she was making up stories when she’d finally arrived at the hotel.
The trumpeting of elephants in the distance shook the air as if to give her a warning that she would be running late soon.