Ode to Isaac and Knight

I have purposely hidden this post under several others to prevent strangers and casual blog followers from seeing it, but I feel compelled to describe the unusual circumstances which led us to the door of Isaac and Knight...

For the story, please see my facebook note: http://www.facebook.com/notes/jessi-mcgehee/ode-to-isaac-and-knight-a-supplementary-post-from-our-blog/10150321641185801

...And that is how we ended up as refugees in Isaac and Knights living room. Knight took a huge mattress from under her bed, and plopped it on the floor. It barely fit between the 2 couches and the table. We hung our mosquito net and relaxed onto the soft bedding Knight provided. I cant remember ever feeling as relieved and grateful as I did that night. I slept like a baby, even with Isaac coming in at 3 a.m. and leaving again at 7 (the man never stops working).

The next morning Knight made us hot cocoa and gave us some bread with blue band. Knight is a teacher and when we told her we were looking for a place to volunteer she walked us 30 min away to a school she knew of called Alpha Glory. She presented us to the principal, Elizabeth, who Knight warned us, "loves to feed people." Elizabeth seemed thrilled to have two new volunteers on her hands, and after some kind of delicious snack she led us to a room where the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders were crammed into 3 rows of desks. Elizabeth introduced us, told the students that I was going to stay with them for the afternoon to teach science, and left to take Danielle to the younger classes. I watched Danielle in panic as she left and then I was alone with 30 eager pairs of eyes on me.

I tried to act like an official teacher by writing my name on the chalkboard. Then I stalled for a good 30 minutes by taking questions about America and pretending to be friends with Beyonce and Rihanna so they would like me. When I had exhausted all avenues of small talk I decided to teach my class sciencey stuff, so I drew a cell on the board and wrote "prokaryotic" and "eukaryotic" and "deoxyribonucleic acid". They listened with rapt attention to my semi-lucid explanations of subjects I had just studied for the MCAT, which I later realized were a little advanced for middle schoolers.

After an hour and a half I ran out of things to say. Realizing I had been abandoned and Elizabeth was not going to come back for me, I tried to excuse myself, but instead of letting me leave the students demanded that I sing for them. As if making up a science lesson on the spot wasn't terrifying enough. I have to admit, I instantly loved these kids and wanted to oblige, but shyness won out and I told them I would try to find a good song for them later. For several weeks I distracted them by teaching them the Macarena from my mp3 player, and playing "Thriller" on repeat at the end of my lessons, but in the end Danielle and I got up the courage to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in a round.

Teaching at that school was a joy because no matter what I did, I felt like I was blowing their young minds. I brought my magic UV light Steripen to teach them about water purification, UV radiation and the ozone, printed out color pictures of the lungs of smokers, solar and lunar eclipses, and cataracts, and I showed them how I put in my contact lenses every morning. They LOVED the visuals. And at the end of every lesson we would break into 3 teams and play a game that quizzed them on what they learned.

I adored them all. I loved the boys in the corner, who were already trying to act too cool for school but couldn't help being drawn into the lessons by their desire to beat the girls at the quiz. I loved the giggly cluster of girls near the door, with their neat notes and their taunts to the boys when they were winning. And I loved the co-ed group in the middle who were often kicked out of the other groups for being too young or independent or quiet, but studied harder and got their revenge by winning most often. I liked watching their dramas and friendships, and the way the would cluster together like a pile of kittens when they were working out the answers to the quiz.

I called the younger class "Danielle's class" because they had an obvious preference for her and her math lessons, but I will never forget how proud I was when I managed to convince them that Danielle and I were not identical, and that the differences between her and me, and between me and each of them, were due to DNA. One of my favorite conversations went something like this:

"Teacher, why is your skin white?"

"It is because inside our cells in our bodies there is something called DNA that controls our looks and our skin and our hair, and my DNA makes my skin light while your DNA makes your skin darker."

"Oh...our other teacher said it was because you need to rub Kiwi (shoe polish) on your skin."

One smarty in the front row stayed after class to ask me questions about DNA and was thrilled when I brought him a picture of a double-helix the next day. Another day, Danielle and I did a joint art class with the little ones where we had them draw human faces on bodies that incorporated at least 3 animals. The results were predictably adorable. They had a little trouble coming up with their own designs at first, but it quickly became a competition to see who could use the most animal parts. Te over-achiever in the front row created a mutant with alligator jaws, bat wings, a lion mane, elephant ears, bird claws, giraffe spots, fish scales and a monkey tail.

At home we had "Lie to Me" marathons with Knight, baked cookies and learned to make ugali, played with a pair of incredibly cute new puppies that lived under the stairs, and made our cozy mattress and mosquito net fort in the living room every night. We also went dancing once, although Isaac and I were too shy to compete with Knight's rhythm, and Danielle and I still had a strict aversion to male strangers that had been magnified in India that prevented us front spending much time on the floor. Still, it was fun watching Knight dancing away with the Masai man who would occasionally do crazy awesome dancing, and the poor drunk man who gravitated toward anything female.

I don't know how else to say it: we lucked out big time. A lot of people have asked us how we go to unfamiliar places on our own, where we often stand out or don't speak the language and have no easy way to get what we need. The truth is we were prepared to be miserable some of the time. As Danielle told me when we left, "If we don't get trafficked I am marking this trip as a success. Everything else that happens is a bonus." So we are pretty easy to please.

But we have also been incredibly lucky and taken care of. We were faced with disaster, just like we had been in Mumbai when our original volunteering plans fell through, and for a second time we were taken in by strangers. There is nothing like putting yourself in a position of utter vulnerability to make you grateful for people like Isaac and Knight...and the Tyrells, and Pooja, and the Johnstons, and the Aokis, and the innumerable others who have taken us under their wings during the last 6 months. We heart-claw you.