Author Note:

Look at this… just for you guys… I managed to squeeze out a chapter in the midst of my piles of reading reports. I cheated slightly on this one… some of Troy's journal entries are ones that I have scribed in my journal during my time in Kenya. Lennox, Isaiah, Helena – they're very real people, as is Boniface.

Just like Troy, I hope that you can let these realities sink deep into your soul. That we are not alone in this world and that by being born into a country where English is our first language, we are already ridiculously privileged. Wrestle with what that looks like... and then book yourself a plane ticket. Get yourself to Africa ASAP and let it ruin you, too.

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Today was the day that it became completely real.

I ran my hand thorough my hair and sighed deeply. I was exhausted on a level that I didn't have words for. I had been journaling pretty faithfully since I got here, but up until today, it was just the details of the day. Nothing major had really affected me – as awful as that sounds.

But today?

I sat in a house that was entirely made of mud. The floors, the roof, the walls... all of it. It was about the size of my bathroom and was meant for six people. All three of the people I met - Isaiah, Helena and the baby, Lennox - were HIV postive. They were struggling to make the rent – which is 400 shillings a month. That's about $6. The water that Lennox was drinking was muddy and just outside their house was a pile of garbage and sewage. The smell was overwhelming.

However, when Yusef asked them if their view of God had been affected by having HIV, Helena responded that God always provides.

I don't understand that. How can people who have so little have such a deep faith?

Yesterday was the first day that the newness wore off and it all hit home. That AIDS is not just something that a few people have... but it's EVERYWHERE. That it's pervasive. That 50 of people in Kenya still believe it's caused by witchcraft. That the church has no idea how to respond and so they don't. Although, as many here have pointed out, the American church is far more informed and far less active. I feel like the church that's such a big part of people's lives over here should really be doing something. That most people are disowned by their families when they test positive. That there are faces to these statistics that I've been studying for the past month and that it's real.

And I can't do a flipping thing about it.

I felt completely overwhelmed by the weight of it. Standing in a school yard full of adorable children, letting them climb on me and feel my freckles and touch my skin and play with my hair… (they had never seen freckles before… my arms were a whole new adventure to them and my hair? They couldn't keep their hands out of it...) and knowing that they were going home to shanty shacks and no food that night... I wanted to cry. I know that my twenty minutes of being the human jungle gym is good - that I am bringing them joy and that they will always remember the day that the mzunugs came to play... but still. It was all just so little in the face of the tsunami.

I unabashedly let the tears roll down my face and curled up into a ball on my bed in Gracia. I wasn't able to eat dinner that night – it had just felt wrong. Taking a shower felt unfair and even having a whole room to myself felt like I was cheating somehow. I had never in my life felt so uncomfortable in my own skin.

I've been here for twelve days – twenty nine more to go. I've been spending my time almost non-stop with Sharpay and various other players of her Kenyan life and I don't think that I realized until tonight how much I needed her wisdom and grounding. She had dropped me off before dinner and promised to see me the next morning. I guess I had looked visible shaken or something because she had hugged me extra hard and whispered that tomorrow is a new day.

But it's a new day with the same problems.

How in God's name did people live in this? How did Sharpay get out of bed in the morning? I mean, Yusef… he's from here… but her? She's got a choice. She can easily leave. But she doesn't. How does she do it?

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"I think that it's getting to him, Ry," I took a sip of my chai.

"Yeah, why do you say that?"

The video part our weekly chat just wasn't working, so I was talking to my brother over the computer just like I was using a phone. I know that it shouldn't feel stranger, but it totally does.

"He had that look on his face all day."

"The one where you can't tell if people are going to throw up or yell in anger?"

"Bingo," I sighed.

"Well, you always handle us all pretty well."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, whenever Emily and I find ourselves wigging out at whatever you're showing us, you've always managed to help us see perspective."

"I have? Really?"

"Yeah," I could hear the smile in Ryan's voice. Man, I miss that kid. "Shar, seriously, it's one of the reasons that you're great at this job. You bridge the two worlds pretty well."

"It just feels different with Troy."

"Could be because you want to see him naked."

"Could have something to do with it, yes."

"Oh!" He laughed, "so you're admitting it now?!"

"Oh come on, Ryan. He's gorgeous. Anyone with a uterus is going to want to see him naked," I assented.

"Sure, that's all it is. Pure animal attraction."

"It is!"

"I've got a tree out in the back yard at Mom and Dad's with 'Troy + Sharpay 4ever' carved into it to prove otherwise," Ryan argued.

"That was in third grade and I was delusional."

"That was in tenth grade and you were horny."

Dammit, sometimes I hate having a twin.

"What of it, Ryan?" I finally replied. "You know as well as I do that he goes for sugar pop princesses. Troy has never been attracted to girls with personality –"

"Is that what we're calling it these days?"

"Shut up," I screeched.

"Shar, you were a bitch. Just live with it. You're not one now, so it's okay, but you still have spunk. No matter how much you retract your claws, you will never be how Gabi was."

"Well, according to Troy, Gabi isn't even how Gabi was."

"Yeah, you mentioned that."

"I just…" I sighed.

"You want him to love you."

I cannot believe that I am that transparent.

"It's not like I want a relationship or anything," I defended.

"Yes, you do," Ryan shot back. "Sharpay, you are almost 33 years old. Of course you want the whole package. I don't care how much you love saving the world, you want babies. You forget that you're talking to your embryonic soul mate."

I sighed. This was just making me lonelier.

"Ry, it's after ten, I'm going to go."

"You're going to go because you're mad at me."

"No," I admitted truthfully. "I'm not mad at all. You're just more right than I really want to deal with right now."

"You sound sad."

I was. I was heartbroken. But I wasn't going to go into that. "No, I'm fine."

"You're lying."

"Of course I am, but it's late and I need to go to bed. We're picking Troy up tomorrow morning at 4 to go feed the street kids with Boniface."

"Fine," he sighed. "I love you, you know."

"I know. Give my love to Em and Sarah."

"Always."

I clicked 'disconnect' on my Skype account and let the silence wash over me. I hated how well Ryan knew me and could call me on my lies even from seven time zones away. I loved my life, but I missed having people in it daily who knew me and my history that well. As far as most of my friends here are concerned, I only existed four years ago. I've known Ryan since the womb. The difference there just gets lonely sometimes.

But I'm totally going to kick his ass at Christmas for all the stuff he said about Troy.

Bzzzzzzzz bzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzz

The vibrating of my cell phone scared me half to death.

Who the hell is calling me this late? I didn't have time to check the caller ID before I snapped the phone open.

"Hello?"

"Please tell me that it gets better."

"Troy?"

"Of course it's Troy. Who the hell else calls you crying at 10:30 at night?"

Crying was an understatement. He was hysterically sobbing.

"Calm down, Troy, tell me what's going on."

"What's going on? WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Now he was yelling.

Africa was getting under his skin.

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She wants to know what's going on?

Is she fucking kidding me?

"People are DYING, Shar! DYING!"

"I know."

"I know you know! How are you so fucking calm about it?"

"I'm not calm about it," she replied… calmly.

"You are right now!"

"That's because you're being a raving lunatic!"

"Well, how else do you expect me to be!?!?!"

I heard her take a deep breath before she continued, "Troy, what the hell is going on?"

I grabbed my journal and started reading it to her, everything that I had been scribbling and crying over for the past three hours. Verbal vomit all over the place.

When I was finally done, she sighed. "Welcome to Africa, Troy. I knew you'd love it here."

Well, that was the last thing I ever expected. "What?"

"If you didn't love it, you wouldn't be this angry," she reasoned. "It's only because you see these people as people that you are so deeply angered that they're not being treated as such."

"Well, what the fuck do I do now?"

"Now? Now you go to bed."

Infuriating woman. "What?"

She sighed, "Troy, in about six hours, you're going to face some of the worst stuff that you'll face the entire time that you're here. Where Boniface goes to feed the children is an ugly, ugly part of Nairobi and it's going to make you even madder then you are right now. You're going to see children literally stabbing each other to get loaves of bread. I suggest that right now you take a Benadryl, knock yourself out and get some sleep."

I sighed. I was so very tired.

"Troy, listen to me very closely, okay?"

"Yeah."

"You, Troy Alexander Bolton, are good people. If I ever doubted you and counted you as one of those lugheaded basketball dorks, like Taylor used to call you all, I was wrong. You are a beautiful, beautiful soul and I have loved watching you love my world. You have embraced it fully and more soundly than any simple photojournalist would ever need to and I am honored to be working with you."

If I had any more tears left, she would have had me crying.

"Now, I want you to sleep. Sleep the deep, sound sleep of a man who has literally spent all of himself loving people and creating a better tomorrow. Sleep knowing that you have fought the good fight and that tomorrow you will live to fight another. Sleep now, Troy. I'll see you outside of Gracia in about five hours."

I heard the phone click off and I stared at it for a moment.

Damn, she's good.

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