Collision (5 page)

“Splendid.”

We were silent as she leaned over the flowerpots, watering while I watched.

The quiet made me anxious, so I told her, “You know, I’ve been sitting in that chair in there for hours, trying to spot some nature.”

She stood up straight and looked over at me. She seemed confused. “Okay?”

“But not one thing has walked in front of the window. Not even a bird.”
Liar.

“Is there food out for them?”

“Food?”

“Yes. It’s in the entryway closet. Birdseed and corn. You understand? Food?”

“I know what food is. I just didn’t know there was some for animals. Or that I had some for the animals. You know, to feed them with. I didn’t know that part.”
Bail, dude. Seriously, you’re dying here. Bail!

“Well, let’s go have a look-see.”

Nevermind, don’t bail just yet. Look-see? Seriously, could this chick get any more adorable?

She put the water canister on the ground and walked around the side of the guesthouse. “Yes. See, there’s no seed. Go fetch some food, and we’ll put it out for them.”

I ran back to the house, threw open the closet door, grabbed the two bags, and ran back to her before she could disappear again.

“Oliver tries to keep the bird feeders full, but it’s early summer, so I’m sure the birds are going through it fairly quickly.”

She opened the container, and I poured the seed inside.

“So you’re a nature lover?”

“Yes,” I lied. “Love it. Practically a tree-hugger.”

“A tree-hugger? What is that, a type of religion?”

“No. It just means that I recycle and rent fuel-efficient cars.”

“Bravo. I suppose we should all do our small part to save the planet.”

“Right on.”
Right on? If my fans heard me, they’d be embarrassed they ever found me attractive.

“Well, if you love nature, then you’ve come to the right spot. There’s a lot of it around.”

“I’m stoked about it.”

She couldn’t contain a small chuckle at my ridiculousness. “Stoked? Right then.” She closed the feeder and hung it back on the branch. “All right. Now you simply spread the corn around and then go back inside. You’ll see birds and deer before you know it.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

After giving me a pat on the shoulder, she walked toward the main house.

Don’t let her walk away. Say something.
“Did you bring the groceries?”

She turned to face me. Again, she seemed confused. “Yes. I took some things from the main house. Was there something else you needed?”

“No.”

“Splendid.”

As she started to walk away again, fear crept in that I wouldn’t see her for another two days, so I walked up behind her and called for her attention, “Uh, Kei?”

Her body turned my direction.

“Want to eat dinner together?” I asked.

Again, she looked confused. Evidently, it was her only emotion when she was around me. Not that I could blame her. I was acting like a complete douche bag.

Her head ducked slightly, and she nervously scanned the yard like someone might catch us talking and she’d be in trouble or something. “It was my understanding that I was to be leaving you alone.”

“Only when I want to be. I don’t want to be alone for dinner.”

“You’re certain of that?” she said with a cock of the head and a raise of the eyebrows.

I nodded.

“Well, I can’t tonight.”

“No?”
She’s turning me down? Who does that?

“No.”

Apparently, she does.

“It’s Monday, and Mondays are a day of prayer and fasting for our ministry team.”

“Oh. How about tomorrow night then?”

“You’re serious?”

All I could do was nod.

“All right,” she said with a shrug. “Come over when you’re ready. We’ll see if we can cook something up.”

“I’ll be there.”

Yeah, I’d be there. It would just be a matter of holding off long enough to show up at a decent time instead of at the crack of dawn. As it was, I’d have to keep myself entertained for several more hours and the majority of the next day.

Trudging back into the guesthouse, I swept the binoculars off the ground, sat down in the large chair, and waited for nature to put on a show.

C H A P T E R

5

When I walked in for dinner the next night, Kei had pulled out a jar of spaghetti sauce and a packet of noodles. I made a mental note to make all future menu selections myself.

We talked while making dinner and discovered that we had some things in common. We both liked history—she, European and African; and me, American. We also both loved music, but she was more into older pop type stuff and I liked the newer artists. She vowed to sway me to her kind of music. I told her she had her work cut out for her.

She told me she traveled back to the States every year for a few months during the summer and a week or two over Christmas holiday to visit Oliver and his family, but this time, at last minute, found out that Oliver and his wife, Mariah, were stuck in Japan on location. A monsoon had passed through and delayed filming and they weren’t sure when or if they would make it in time to see Kei during her visit. Instead of losing the money on her ticket, Kei said she decided to go ahead and come anyway. It would be a chance to relax and contemplate her future.

Apparently we had that goal in common too.

“A part of me wishes I would’ve just gone to Japan to visit them. I’d love to travel the globe, and Japan would be fascinating.”

“Where’s the one place you want to visit most,” I asked.

“All of Europe.”

“All of it? That’s not really one place.”

“I beg to differ. It’s one continent, isn’t it?”

“But I didn’t ask which
continent
you wanted to visit. I asked—”

“Start in Ireland and travel all the way down to Greece. I’d take all the time I could, soak in every moment of it and see everything imaginable.”

“I still argue that it’s not one place, but I hope you get a chance one day.”

“Thank you.” She looked me up and down. “You know, it might take a bit of effort, but you should try to raise the money to come to Africa sometime. I’m certain you’d love it.”

I shook my head and laughed, and when I did, it looked like she was watching my hair.

“Why are you looking at my hair?”

Her face flushed a little. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to ogle. It’s been awhile since I’ve been around a man with that much hair on his head. And it’s blond, no less. I have to keep myself from reaching over and running my fingers through it.”

I laughed and leaned the upper half of my body toward her. “Feel free.”

“No, no. I don’t want to frighten you off.”

“I’m not sure you could.”

“Not that it’s anything creepy. It’s only that people keep their hair extremely short at home.”

“So you consider Uganda home?” I asked before pulling a string of spaghetti out of the water and putting it in my mouth.

“That’s where my heart is.”

“Why?”

“It simply is.”

I looked at her and scowled.

“You honestly wish to know?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

She put the lid on the spaghetti sauce and sat down at the table. “When I was a child, we lived in several different places in Africa. But once the story of Northern Uganda leaked out, my parents felt called to relocate there permanently, so we did.”

“Will I sound stupid if I ask what the story is with Northern Uganda?”

“Not stupid. Uneducated or too privileged to bother possibly, but not stupid.”

My ego bruised, I dropped the tongs on the counter and shrugged.

“I was teasing. Hardly anyone in the States knows about it. Trust me. You aren’t alone. Believe it or not, men, women, and children being massacred by the millions doesn’t seem to be worthy of much news coverage in the States. It largely goes unnoticed.”

I sat down across from her, with my hands on the table. “So then, enlighten me. What’s going on over there?”

“Ugandans have been at war for approximately twenty years with a rebel army led by a man named Joseph Koney. He calls his army the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA for short.”

“So they’re Christians?”

“They’re heavily into witchcraft, among other things. Some people over there say they’re Christians, but they worship a lot of different gods, so I wouldn’t really classify them that way. The general consensus is that they aren’t Christians; they just call themselves that.”

“Who makes up their army? Other Ugandans?”

“Yes, but they’re mostly children.”

I sat back with a jolt. “You’re kidding.”

“No. They raid villages and grab the children and kill the adults. The children are forced to become soldiers and are murdered if they don’t comply.”

I didn’t respond, which seemed like it made her uncomfortable. She looked down at the table and picked up a fork. “I’m sorry. Where was I?”

I leaned forward. “Children are forced to kill…”

“Oh, yes.” She set the fork back down and looked up at me. “Entire villages have been destroyed, and God only knows how many people killed. There isn’t a family in Northern Uganda that hasn’t been affected by the loss of a loved one.”

“The government doesn’t provide any protection?”

“They try, but the LRA is a guerrilla army. They hide out in the trees and grasses and then show up out of nowhere.”

“There’s nothing that can be done?”

“One of the ways they’ve tried to help is to create what are called IDP camps.”

“What does IDP stand for?”

“Internally displaced persons. They’re essentially thousands of huts squeezed into a small area. The thought is that if they combine people together, they are easier to protect.”

“Is it working?”

“To a degree, but the problem is that people live by the land. Most families had to leave their homes and their crops, and now they have no crops to tend. Most of them have lost their homes, much of their families, and their purpose, not to mention a way to provide for themselves.”

“When can they go home?”

“Things have calmed down to the point that they’re trying to get people back to their land, but once they go back, they realize that their homes have been destroyed. Their crops are dead, and it’s too difficult to rebuild. Many families have been forced to return back to the camps. It’s a vicious circle.”

“So what does your family do there?”

“We spend a lot of time in the camps, doing whatever we can to help. We provide medical care, pray with people, help other mission groups that are there, whatever needs to be done. And then, of course, we perform church services, introduce people to Christ, show them that with him comes hope, even in their circumstances.”

“And they’re welcoming to you?”

“When we first started going into the camps, it was odd because most of them had never seen white skin. Add that to the fact that I’m a carrot top, and I’m beyond rare. The children were especially shocked to see me. It’s hard to explain, but no matter where I go, people stare at me.”

I sat back and chuckled.

Her brow crumpled. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not saying they stare because they think I’m attractive. I’m just rare. I’m not being prideful. I’m not high on myself or anything as such.”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking you were.”

Obviously embarrassed again, she stood and walked back to the stove to check the noodles.

“Keep going. I want to hear more,” I urged.

“Enough about me. What about you?”

“Nothing to tell. Come on. I want to hear more about what it’s like for you over there.”

She turned off the burners, threw the colander into the sink, and poured in the pot of pasta. “Are you going to snicker at me?”

“No.” She gave the colander a shake. “I really want to hear more,” I said.

“Well then…I can’t go anywhere without mobs of children following me.”

I put two plates on the counter. “I bet it’s pretty overwhelming.”
It certainly is for me.

“Yes.” She ladled the pasta onto the plates, and I added the sauce. “It’s especially overwhelming, seeing as how I know that I’m nothing special and I don’t deserve that sort of attention. Someone else has told them there’s something special about me or it’s that I’m
mzungu
. It’s not because of who I am as a person.”

“Maz what?”

“
Mzungu
. It means ‘white person.’” She grabbed the plates and put them on the table. “I don’t know if any of this makes sense.”