My Readers

The flies were better under the big tree because of the steady breeze. We carried a tiny wooden bench and a thick plastic sheet for sitting. Nalamai was there first, with her two month old. Kokoo hobbled along with us.  Soon Helen joined, her tiny one wrapped in a pink and white lesso. Finally, Nalotuesha sidled up, her seven month old also in arms, a grin on her face. It was good to see her so happy.

A crowd of brown kids, somewhere age two to six, buzzed around like flies, leaning, peeking, touching, looking, poking, whining, digging in the dirt, fighting over sticks, always moving, like kids do. The three babies slept, fussed, nursed and slept, fussed, nursed in quick succession, like they do, too. And always, the flies with the stickiest legs sat everywhere, holding on despite the breeze, till they were swatted.

In the midst of the dull roar of this three ring circus, each mama produced her tattered blue notebook and handed it to me. "Have you been writing?" I asked each one. They laughed! "We forget everything!" they said.

We opened the books to a page from a few weeks ago and started writing their names again. N-A-Nalamai. N-A-Nalotuesha. N-A-Nariku Nkera. So many women's names start this way. I tried to show them the pattern and familiarize them with the sounds and the letters.  "One day", I said in my childlike broken Maa, "I'm going to show you an empty page and you will write your name without copying it". Their quick minds grasped my poorly spoken concept despite my stumbling to explain. They gave me their beautiful smiles and nodded, helping each other understand what I said. Nalotuesha took the challenge right then and there, replacing the L with T and missing the H. But she kept trying.  She will be the first to write her name from memory.

The children hovered, sneeked a one finger caress of my hairy pink arm; the babies cried and shifted from one breast to the other and my class continued. The ring master, I turned from one mama to the next, keeping each going on her private lesson, managing the two remnant pencils among the three students. Turning to one, I reviewed her name writing, turning to the next, I helped her remember A-E-I-O-U, working to connect those sounds to the letters she was pointing at. When one mama got distracted by a child, her pencil got passed to the next and on and on we went.

Sitting there on the tiny bench, our hips and arms touching as we bent over the books, kids pressing all around, the flies sat on all of us.  In those moments, my shoulders dropped, my face relaxed, I felt acceptance like a sigh of relief. My "olashumpai" (one who lives higher) disguise shimmered in the breeze and became translucent. When we got up to go, everyone's hands were full, so I picked up the bench. "Where should I put this," I asked. "Over there by Nalamai's house," Nariku Nkera said.

[Because I have to travel a fair bit, the classes sometimes come weeks apart. Nobody here who knows how to read (and there are plenty due to school now being in its second generation) is taking the time to teach adults. I have tried without success to enlist the help of my educated Maa, Swahili and English speaking neighbor ladies who are the ideal ones to take a little time to teach the others. If they could have a regular class two-three times a week, these women could learn quickly. Unfortunately, I have other work committments. As per normal in this simple setting, we do what we can with what we have.

I have simple goals for this venture: by next year, these women will sign their own names.  From their view, they will lift their head a little higher not to have to stamp their thumb with the ink pad like so many have to do.]