THE TWELVE-season 3,episode 8

                                                         

                                                                 RWANDA

                  The next morning at about ten, Zodiac took one of the orphan girls in the camp who could fairly speak English to give her a tour around the area.  Her name was Shorsha, a young beautiful brown girl of sixteen who had lived like an orphan since she was seven. She told her story to zodiac as they went around strolling.

“How did you become an orphan?” Zodiac asked.

“My parents died when I was seven,” she replied with no pain of the past.

“Oh, were you actually there, did you experience it?”

“I was, saw them put under six feet right before my eyes,”

Zodiac looked at her, strange kid, she thought, she narrated the story like something she had heard from a passerby.

“So what killed them?”

“They both got infected with HIV/AIDS,”

“How,”

“My mother was born with it,”

“She gave it to your dad; they got married and had you?” Zodiac was continuously stricken by what she was hearing.

“Yes but I didn’t get infected.”

Zodiac took a deep breath, which was a slight relief.

“You were spared, God spared you….. Wow,” Zodiac smiled at her.

“I was but I ended up being an orphan. Lost my parents in two months,”

Zodiac started seeing the pain of the past arising in her but Shorsha quickly brushed it away when she saw her friend Lydia washing clothes in front of her small hurt.

“Hello Lydia,” She waved her with a broad smile and totally forgot Zodiac rushing to meet her. Zodiac took herself to meet them as they exchanged words in their dialect.

“Hello,” Zodiac announced herself.

“Hello,” Lydia replied, she was friendly. “Who is she?”  She asked Shorsha.

“Her name is Zodiac,” She held Zodiac’s shoulder like they were best of friends. “You don’t know her from that famous group we use to watch on the street?”

“Yes I remember,” She jumped in excitement. “Spice,”

“Yes it is spice but we are now twelve,”

That didn’t matter to her, she knew of spice and she was sticking to it.

“My name is Lydia and you inspire me a lot, because of you I learnt how to sing.”

“Oh really, you sing?”

“Yeah she does,” Shorsha replied. “Like an angel,”

“I’m so happy to have finally meet you, where are the others, please can I see them?”

“You will be able to see them I promise you but not right now because they didn’t come with me, I’m here with my other partner…….”

“Ken,” Shorsha interrupted. “They are no longer spice but the twelve. We didn’t know that right?”

“Yeah maybe the news skipped us. I have three sisters and we will like to visit you please,”

“Wow of course we will love that. We live at the camp with Shorsha.”

“When I’m done with what I’m doing we will visit…..”

“Sure,”

“I’m taking her on a small stroll, we come back soon.”

“Okay,” she giggled. Lydia felt like heaven had visited her as they both left, she continued washing and wished she could be faster in doing the laundry than she was.

                                                                       ZIMBABWE

             “Are you alright?” Shania asked Larry as she walked into the room, he was reading one of the books they brought to get them inspired. News of their coming had spread across that area and some of the children had come to see for themselves. Even though they didn’t recognize them as the twelve, they got attracted to them by their color and how different they look.

“I’m fine,” Larry replied. “Has the children left?”

“No, still there with Paco and the rest,”

“I’m trying to get something from this book,”

“How to fulfill purpose,” she read the book cover. “You want to know how to fulfill this purpose?”

“Yes Shania, how do we go about it?” he looked at her.

“I guess that is one mistake we all made.” She sat beside him on the bed. “We should have planned on how to go about this.”

“We didn’t make short term goals. For example we have a goal to reach every month, we only have six months and we don’t even have a clue on how to start.”

“I don’t know, just from the little walk we had yesterday I realized that hunger is strangling so many people to dead, poverty is like a disease, children are hopeless and we can’t just go preaching of a promise land if we can’t relate to them.”

“You find it hard to relate to them?” Larry asked.

“Honestly,” Shania looked at him. “I do, it is going to be a process for me. I have compassion for them but their atmosphere and their presence……..”

“Disgust you,”

“Don’t make it sound that way,”

“No Shania it’s not your fault, I completely understand.”

“You grew up amongst people like this all your life, though I’m an orphan I grew up differently and getting use to them will be an acquired thing for me,”

“You know what will help?” Larry asked.

“No,” she shook her head.

“You want my advice,”

“Of course I do,” Shania craved for it.

“Put yourself in their shoes, what will you do if someone had to look at you the way you look at them, how would you have loved to be treated if you were in their place?” Larry stood up and kept the book. “I’ll be outside.” He left. Though he made it easy for Shania, she still felt horrible. She never knew how difficult the mission will be until now and she wasn’t the only one feeling that way, all the other girls and some of their assistants. The life in Africa was tough for them and they easily got irritated by the things they saw each time they went out on the streets, even at their lodging places, things were never the way they were use to and the boys bared with them hoping that with time, they will be able to close their eyes from the things that easily irritated them and focused on the real reason for why they came.