Everything is Going to Be A-Okay

Just one stop, Innocent said, as a very sluggish Mutoni slid into the backseat next to me.  Two stops, it turns out, to find out if this kid has malaria (she did), and then fifteen more to run our errands before our friend and driver William would turn around and bring us back home again.

To our credit, we didn’t know she had malaria until we got the second malaria test back and the day was almost finished.  Still.  We dragged that kid from shop to shop looking for the converter we needed and then from bank to bank looking for a Western Union so we could get more cash.  She spent the entire afternoon sweltering in the car, playing with my camera, taking pictures of her feet, the upholstery, people walking by, without one complaint or the slightest concern.  When was the last time that happened at your house?

Of all the photos from our trip, this one is one of my favorites.  Mutoni in the foreground, taking whatever comes.  The doctor, accomplished and confident, knowing just how to treat her.  President Kagame, the darling of Africa, looking on from the poster in the background, telling you every five seconds on television or the radio that with hard work and faith and love, everything is going to be a-okay.

I have less complicated challenges and I’m not always sure of such things, but being with Mutoni that day, I believed.  There’s just something about faith.  Something about trust.  Something about believing it’s all going to work out, that blows everything else away.