Scattered Seeds

Chapter Four

During the week before their departure, Pauline firmed-up all the arrangements. She first contacted Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF's Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. Pauline expected As Sy to protest just as she had, and she was surprised when the man welcomed the extra bodies with open arms.

"There is plenty of work for them, Pauline," he spoke to her in heavily accented English. "And we will do our best to keep them safe. It's been weeks since any trouble in Jowhar."

He meant for the words to assure Pauline, but they ate at him. It had become too peaceful in Jowhar, the location of the UNICEF base camp in Southern Somalia. As Sy tried to brush off his disturbing premonition that it was merely the quiet before the storm.

The team would take flights across Southern Europe and into Africa, finally landing in Dadaab, Kenya. There they would spend a week at the largest refugee camp in the world, housing over five-hundred thousand people.

Pauline humored to herself. 'Housing' was a term worth using loosely.

Throughout the week they would assist in food and supply distribution, and get a good dose of the near skeletal men, and even more numerous women and children, who managed to make the exile from Somalia on foot.

If Tom, Luke, and Jessica held up after this initial exposure, the team would press forward by 4X4 further south to Jowhar. That was, if Al-Shabaab was still accepting 'taxes' from humanitarian groups to allow them into the region.

In Jowhar they would work on rebuilding a school consistently destroyed by local warlords and terrorist raids. Assisting in the medical clinic, installing water purification systems, promoting health and sanitation education, and fostering communal emergency preparedness programs were also on the agenda. They certainly had their work cut out for them. If they even made it Jowhar.

Jessica scanned her hotel room once more, making sure she left nothing behind. The minimal amount of clothes, hygiene supplies, and personal affects she was taking all fit into the large duffle bag she pulled onto her shoulder.

"Ready?" Tom asked, reaching out to take the luggage from her when she appeared at the UNICEF office.

She refused him, eyeing his own heavy burden and giving him a look that told him she was quite capable of carrying it herself.

Since their lunch and successful squeeze on Pauline to submit to Somalia, Tom and Jess - as she demanded he call her, saying that she felt like she was in trouble when people used her full first name - spent mornings, afternoons, or evenings together.

They discussed their goals for the project along with anything and everything else that came up, learning more about each other in the process.

Tom found he enjoyed her company, and she was a welcomed distraction from his recent broodiness. Jess's easy nature and quick, sometimes cutting sense of humor seemed to be bringing him out of the uncomfortable funk he'd slipped into.

Luke noticed it himself, and brought up the recent mood shift to Tom the day before.

"So glad to see you back to yourself," Luke had told him after Tom and Jess shared a laugh and she excused herself to use the restroom.

They were wrapping up the final team meeting before deployment, and she had just made a quip that Tom found hilarious. Tom paused for a moment to regard Luke's observation.

"It's good to be back," he admitted with a smile, and then grabbed up his things and left to follow Jess.

Luke watched their growing relationship from a distance. He absolutely adored Jess, and he was thankful the woman was able to pull Tom from whatever despair he'd privately sunken into.