Scarred For Life

Chapter 23

*
The first official trip Afrah and the others took under RHIP was to Gurjiya, a small town on the outskirts of Kano. It was on a Saturday, just over a month before she graduated. Maryam unfortunately couldn't come, having caught the flu just two days prior. Afrah had wanted to drive there alone, but Adnan had rented a bus for them, and it would be rude if she came on her own.

Besides, it wasn't a good idea to show up in a car such as hers to a town where they were trying to provide help to the less privileged. Some might think she was showing off. Or worse, that she didn't care about the trip at all.

She sat at the back of the bus, away from everyone else while they talked loudly and laughed about their impending exams. There were sixteen of them, the first batch which were hand-picked by Adnan himself. Beside him, Bashir was struggling to sit calmly. He had worn a plain white kaftan with brown sandals. He held a small bag on his knees, in which he kept all the documents Adnan had given him that morning. One could easily tell how excited he was, seeing as how he couldn't sit properly for two seconds straight. Majority of the questions Adnan had to answer came from him, and the attentiveness was evident on his face whenever he was answering it.

Behind them, two pickup trucks followed closely, laden with several relief materials. Adnan had taken care of everything himself. He promised that there would be a discussion at the end of the day for how they would go about the next trip. Afrah mostly wanted to be done with it and go home.

He had said nothing to her that day. They had only glanced at each other once in the morning, and in the split second their eyes met he had given her a curt nod before turning back to the group he was addressing.

He sat at the head of the bus now, engrossed in a book he had arrived with. Occasionally, he looked up to answer a question or two before diving back into his book.

So he likes reading.

She made a mental note of it, even though she was trying so hard not to pay attention to him.

Her seat was much too uncomfortable to allow her to think of anything else but it. It squeaked whenever they drove over a bump, and it was much too hard to allow her to relax. The windows were half-open, and as the wind blew past it made a great deal of noise across the side of the bus. She couldn't shut it on her own, since they were electrically controlled. Closing them would require her to walk all the way to the driver, and she was not too keen on that.

They arrived at the town nearly an hour before noon. Afrah stared out the window as they drove past small mismatched houses built from clay bricks with tatched roofs. There were several cracks along every wall she saw, and most of the doorways she saw were covered with a wrapper or a bed sheet.

Some children were playing in from of their homes when their bus drove past. They paused to look up at it, most of them waving at the passengers. Afrah waved back at a little girl wearing a pink floral dress with several stains on it. When she smiled, her teeth sparkled in the sunlight, as white as the clouds on a warm sunny day. Afrah felt her heart break as she saw the girl running after the bus with no shoes on.

"Listen up!" Adnan said as she stood up. Silence immediately descended on them, and all eyes turned towards him.

"When we get to the town square, I will require you all to help in setting up," he said. "There are some people already expecting us there, and they've gone through the trouble of organizing the crowds that will be there. Setting up shouldn't take us more than an hour. After that, I will require you all to split up into three groups of five people each. Bashir will be working by my side all through today."

The latter sat up straight at the mention of his name. A few people sniggered at the seriousness on his face.

"The first group will be in charge of the distribution of the relief materials," Adnan continued. "You will be required to stand at your stations and hand out everything we've brought. I expect you to do this in a calm and organized manner. Give no one more than they require. I'll be counting on the townsmen to establish order there.