Two Years of Wonder - A Memoir

Chapter 7: Ted & The Big Six

In the world of safari tourism five animals are considered must-sees: buffalo, lions, elephants, rhinos, and leopards. They are referred to as the "Big Five." The term goes back to when a safari was less about telephoto lenses and more about rifle calibers. The big five were the most ferocious animals on the savanna when cornered and so they made the best trophies for adventurous hunters. Nowadays they make for the best pictures mounted on the walls of adventurous travelers.

At the orphanage some of the volunteers and I cynically begin to call AIDS orphans the sixth member of the big five. No one is hunting them, thank God, except to take photos—thousands of photos.

UNICEF actually has recommendations in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC) on respecting children's privacy. The convention, as described by UNICEF, is "a universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations. These basic standards—also called human rights—set minimum entitlements and freedoms that should be respected by governments and individuals." In the spirit of the Convention it is generally frowned upon to take pictures of children without permission from their guardians. At our orphanage, permission is always granted. Those of us who live there look down upon the tourists (often from our own home countries) who come passing through in safari vans, clicking away pictures of "our" children.

There is a tinge of exploitation on the part of tourists, who decked in beads, dressed in khaki, and sometimes pith helmets (really), snap pictures of the "poor AIDS orphans." But then again, there is no small amount of snobbery on the side of us volunteers who in the tourists see ourselves and wish to distance our "authentic experience" from those just passing through.

Truth is, we're all just passing through and as Alexander Fuller writes, "Your perception of a third world country is often dependent upon whether or not you are free to leave it."

But some visitors get me more twisted than others. I'm in my room reading on New Year's Eve when I hear a commotion in the orphanage's quad in front of the schoolhouse. A few safari vans worth of American missionaries from California have arrived. Now, before I criticize missionaries, I must first recognize I have no legitimate ground to stand on, having attended Catholic high school, and college, and now I volunteer at an AIDS orphanage run by nuns and founded by a Jesuit, a missionary visa stamped in my passport. But there is something about the zest of Americans on week-long "missions" that tweaks me in a certain way.

In front of the schoolhouse the leader of the mission trip is speaking through a bullhorn while next to him stands a man in full clown regalia—blue-and-white-striped pants, red suspenders, polka-dot shirt, and a wig of rainbow-colored hair. The mission leader, a man in his fifties with a coach's air about him, tells the group of high school students to sit down with the kids from the orphanage for a magic show. Seating is tight on the lawn, as the Rainbow kids are outnumbered by the Californians in cargo-shorts, T-shirts, and crucifixes.

The clown introduces himself as Mr. Small. He is at least 6'2'' but he points out that compared to God, the creator of the universe, he is very small. Miriam is sitting with two white girls who are older than her but hardly have the burden of experience she does. It's a little amazing to me that the thirteen-year-old sitting between them has already buried her parents, cared for dying children, almost died, and experienced more heartbreak than the average American will in a lifetime. I wonder, who is really the child among those three? Miriam turns and looks at me, as if she knew Mr. Small would irk me in my secular agnostic sanctimony. I roll my eyes and she shakes a finger at me as if I'm one of my baby-class students misbehaving, then she turns back to the show.

It is a decent magic performance, if you don't mind the heavy-handed religious themes: Mr. Small puts two handkerchiefs—one labelled SATAN, the other JESUS—into a sack, which he turns inside out to reveal that only the JESUS handkerchief remains, implying that Jesus banishes Satan. Thank goodness, I think to myself. I have an answer if one of my own bags needs to be exorcised.