Collision (24 page)

The only thing that made the drive manageable, apart from Kei, of course, was the children. As the van drove by homes, children would look up from playing, notice we were
mzungus
in the van, and then excitedly wave. Most would yell what sounded like, “Bye,” but they drug out the
e
part so it was more like, “Byeeee.” Kei had been right. They were adorable. It was the children of Uganda that captured my heart, and they gripped a hold so tightly that I knew I’d never forget them. Not as long as I lived.

The little ones, too young for school, played in front of their homes. They wore only a shirt or only a cloth diaper, and many times, their parent was nowhere to be seen. When we saw other children, they were walking along the sides of the road and wore matching school uniforms. They sang songs and laughed but, like the little ones, would wave and smile as we passed.

I’m pretty sure I spent at least four hours taking pictures out the window, waving and saying, “Byeeee,” over and over again. I wished we could stop. I wanted to touch them, maybe hold a few, but Kei told me I’d get my chance soon enough.

The four of us talked easily during the first half of the trip. Gregory and Benjamin asked a lot of questions about America, and I asked a lot of questions about Uganda. But with one announcement, all of the levity stopped.

“We’re at the Nile,” Gregory said.

“Can we stop and look,” I asked.

Gregory and Benjamin exchanged glances. They looked nervous.

“Only for a moment,” Benjamin said with a heavy Ugandan accent. “But if you see men with guns, run back to the van.”

I gulped. “Men with guns?”

“They’re soldiers,” Kei said. “They protect the Nile, and they take their jobs very seriously. They don’t want people stopping near the bridge. If this bridge is destroyed, so is access to the north.”

I nodded.

Gregory pulled the van over and told us all to “do our business” while we were out. “Men on the left, Kei on the right,” he added.

I grabbed my camera, threw the strap over my head, and slid out of the seat once Kei had.

As told, we quickly did our business, and then I made my way to the riverside. It was nothing like I’d ever pictured the Nile to be. After all, it was the river that Moses was put in as a baby. I’d imagined a calm river with tall reeds or something. Instead, at least where we were standing, it was a raging river, rapids that any whitewater rafter in the States would love to take a trip down.

I snapped several photos and then posed for a few with Kei, taken by Benjamin. Out of the blue, Gregory yelled for all of us to run back to the van. I didn’t bother asking any questions. I just did what I was told and hightailed it as fast as I could. It made Kei laugh. God how I loved hearing her laugh again.

After the van was moving, I spotted two angry soldiers with machine guns pointing our direction. Luckily, they let us pass without any problem, but it wasn’t until we were totally over the bridge that I let myself breathe again.

And then there, just on the other side of the river, were two large groups of baboons.

“When you see the baboons, it starts to get a little iffy,” Kei whispered.

“What gets iffy?”

“We’re in the north.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve now entered a war zone.”

“We’ve what?”

“The LRA will only go as far as the river. They don’t ever go beyond it.”

I looked into the large grass that lined the roads. It was taller than most men, wonderful camouflage for someone wanting to hide.

“You mean there could be rebels out there.”

“Yep. Trust me. We won’t be stopping until we get to Gulu. Don’t expect to hear anything more from Gregory until we get there. He needs to concentrate on driving, and Benjamin’s going to be keeping his eyes on our surroundings.”

I took her hand in mine again and tried to keep my wits about me for the rest of the drive.

C H A P T E R

18

Thirty minutes outside of Gulu, the sun set. With no electricity, and therefore no streetlights or lights in the homes we passed, other than the car headlights, it was pitch dark.

Gregory picked up the pace a bit, and Benjamin sat in his seat and prayed in a soft voice. Even Kei stopped talking. I’m not going to lie; I was scared out of my mind.

Finally, lights appeared in the road in front of us, and the occupants of our van started talking again, my sign that we had reached Gulu and they felt like we were safe.

We hadn’t been within the city limits for more than a couple of minutes before the van pulled up to a large, stone wall with a metal gate. Gregory honked the horn. Within seconds, the metal gate opened and we drove inside.

After nineteen hours on planes, six hours in airports, and a seven-and-a-half-hour drive, I was finally at the mission house, and I was exhausted and hungry.

After I climbed out of the van, I was greeted by everyone, but it was mostly a blur. There were so many names and faces, they didn’t all stick with me. Kei’s parents were easy to spot and remember, though. They were the only other white-skinned people of the group.

Just inside the front door, there was a table full of food: rice, potatoes, beans, flat bread of some sort, and several different kinds of fruit, all carbs. My trainer would’ve had a fit . While everyone talked, I made a plate of food, sat in the nearest seat, and waited for everyone else to join me.

I made the mistake of sitting directly under a light. It was a mistake because there were thousands of bugs flying around the light, which meant they were also flying in my face and landing on my food. I tried to swat them away without being obvious, but I didn’t do a very good job. Kei noticed, and she was sitting across the room, laughing at me.

While I ate, I watched the others around me and realized why Kei ate the way she did. Most of them ate with their fingers. They shoveled the food in quickly and were done before I’d made it halfway through my plate.

While I ate, two younger boys carried my things into the house. Kei instructed them to take the bags to my room and then followed behind them, leaving me to finish eating alone. A few minutes later, she popped her head around the corner.

“You ready for me to show you to your room?”

I was ready to see my room, and I was ready for a moment alone with Kei.

I followed her down a short hallway and past a flight of stairs. “Those stairs lead to my room and the girls’ guest room. The door to the right of the stairway is the loo. It’s a squatty, so it takes some getting used to.”

A squatty?
It didn’t take much imagining to figure out what that meant.

“And here’s your room.” She opened the door and let me walk inside. There were four sets of bunk beds, all empty but one. “We don’t have any other guests right now, so you have the whole place to yourself. I picked this the bed for you. It sits under the window, so it gets a breeze.”

I looked around the room as she talked. There was no one else there. We were alone, and we might only be that way for a few seconds.

She walked toward my bed, but I caught her by the hand just as she passed in front of me. She stopped and looked at me.

“I missed you,” I whispered.

She smiled briefly. “I think I missed you more.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

Just as I started to reach for her face, a voice came from the hallway, causing her to pull her hand from mine and bend over to pick something up. Just then, Gregory walked in.

“Is the room to your liking?” he asked.

“It’s wonderful. Thank you. And thank you for doing all of that driving today. I know it had to be a long day for you.”

“We’re blessed to have you join us here. It’s the least we could do.” He turned his attention to Kei. “You go now, Kei. I’ll show him what’s what.”

“I’m not supposed to be in the blokes’ room,” she whispered before turning around to face him. “Thanks, Gregory. Be sure to tell him about the netting.”

“I’ll show him.”

He stood waiting for Kei to leave the room, and he wasn’t going to budge. She kissed me on the cheek and then walked away without another word.

Gregory gave me a quick rundown and then left the room and shut the door. I was alone in a mission house in Uganda. Weird. Even weirder? I’d come all that way to see a girl I’d only spent two months with.

It felt amazing.

C H A P T E R

19

“Cabot?”

Kei’s voice woke me from a very unrestful sleep. I’d tossed and turned all night. Anxious to see more of Uganda…and more of Kei.

I rolled over and opened my eyes.

She reached over, slid her hand under the netting, and ran her fingers through my hair. “Good morning, blondie,” she whispered with a smile.

“It is a good morning.”

“Hurry up and get dressed. Then come to my room. I want to show you something.”

“Okay.”

She’d barely made it out the door before I was out of the bed, throwing off the clothes I’d slept in and jumping into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

I took the stairs two at a time and arrived in time to see her roll up the mosquito net that protected her during the night and tie it to the bamboo stick jammed in the corner of the bed. She also rolled up the bed mat, tied it with an old piece of yarn, and put it on the end of the bed frame.

“So this is your room, huh?” I asked.

She turned to me. “It is. Not much to it.”

I looked around at the bed, dresser, and trunk. They were the only things in the room, other than a small mirror that hung above the dresser. I walked to the dresser and looked at a picture that was stuck to the mirror. It was a picture we’d taken during our campout.

“I love that picture,” I said. “It’s the screensaver on my computer.”

“Honestly?”

“Yep.”

“Come on,” she instructed.

We walked to the patio and took a seat in plastic chairs. Even this early in the morning, the air was warm and moist.

“Rainy season has come to an end, and wintertime is just around the corner.”

The sun had barely risen, but the small street that sat next to the mission house was already filled with children dressed in their bright blue, khaki, and white uniforms. They seemed anxious to start a new day of lessons at school, and they sang songs in their native language of Acholi as they walked along the road.

“You’ve got a rather large smile perched on that face of yours,” Kei said.

“Can’t help myself.”

“
Amosi
, Kei.
Amosi
, Cabot,” a housemother I met the night before, said warmly as she walked onto the patio.

“I’m very well, Jasmine. How are you?” Kei answered.

“Well.”

“Good morning,” I welcomed.

She walked on to the patio and revealed her beautiful, joy-filled smile. Her white teeth shined brilliantly against her practically midnight-black skin.

“
Chiyo nade
?”

“I woke up wonderfully. How about you?” Kei asked.

“Likewise.” She handed each of us a mug of tea and small biscuit before turning to leave.

I took a sip of the hot liquid.

“There she is, Cabot,” Kei whispered.

“There’s who?”

She pointed toward the wall across the yard. “Beatrice.”

I set down my tea and biscuit and leaned forward in my chair. “I finally get to see Beatrice,” I whispered.

The little girl climbed into the small, blue, plastic tub, and her mother started to bathe her. At almost two years old, she’d almost outgrown the shallow pan.

“I’ve been watching her bathe every morning since her mother laid her in it the first time and poured the cold water over her tiny body. Beatrice wasn’t impressed and cried during the cleaning’s entirety. But now there she sits, playing with the water.”

Her mother stood bent over at the waist and scrubbed Beatrice’s pudgy body with a rag. Strapped to her back with a piece of cloth was an infant.

“They look just like the picture,” I said. “You captured it perfectly.” I shook my head and looked over at her. “I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I’m seeing this in person.”

“That’s why I woke you. I didn’t want you to miss it.”

“Thank you for realizing I’d want to see it.”

“You’re welcome. I feel it’s the perfect introduction to my life. It’s the first thing I see every morning.”

“It’s perfect, the perfect way to start a day.”

My heart was happy, maybe the happiest it had ever been.

“Greetings, brother!”

We stood and peered over the railing in time to see a man greet Daniel as he walked through the front gate.

Their home was a complete dichotomy—a two-story brick manor with a beautiful green yard but protected by a green metal gate that was attached to a cement wall. The top of the wall was lined with broken glass soda bottles that had been cemented into place to keep anyone from climbing into our little slice of innocence. It was a time of war, and her parents took every precaution necessary to protect their lives.