Free Love In The Jungle by Ann Walker

thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on his
knee, giving it what I hoped would be a reassuring squeeze. Then, without
waiting for his response, I popped open the door and slid out. It was easy to
forget about Grant in the heat of the moment, and I soon found myself engulfed
in a sea of children. They tugged at my shorts, my hands, and my backpack
straps. My knee-jerk reaction was to
    tense up and hope none of them had picked my pocket, so
imagine my surprise when I learned all they wanted was a hug.
    That was something I could happily and freely oblige. Some
were shirtless, while the rest were dressed. Their clothing styles were a decade
or two behind the American norm. One little girl with red barrettes simply
stood beside me and held my hand, her finger in her mouth, she would only look
at me if I wasn’t looking at her—or so she thought, but I noticed her in my
peripherals.
    The kids scattered, however, when Henri waved them away. He
spoke to them in rapid French, and most of the kids took off running and
giggling. My little red barrette girl lingered, only letting go of my hands
when Henri crouched down and spoke in soft, gentle French. She nodded, her
fingers still in her mouth, and stumbled off after the rest of them without a
word to me.
    “You will learn to set boundaries with them,” he told me,
his accent a little stronger as he transitioned back to English. “They’ll take
up every second of your time if you let them.”
    “I don’t mind,” I assured him, adrenaline pumping through
me. Grant had found his way around to our side of the van, his laptop bag strap
resting securely across his broad chest. “They seem sweet.”
    “Remember you will be teaching them,” he continued, almost
chastising me. “They must respect you and your space.”
    “Do they only speak French?” Grant inquired, asking the
question I’d been thinking. Henri shook his head, and I noticed the people
around us continued on with their day—apparently the arrival of new volunteers
only warranted unrestrained excitement from the kids.
    “They speak decent English too,” Henri told us. “Miss Clara
here will be responsible for furthering their education… We’d like them to be
able to move on and find jobs elsewhere, and being trilingual will only make
them more appealing.”
    “Makes sense,” I noted, and I suddenly found myself wishing
I spoke French. I’d been able to have a mediocre conversation in Spanish up
until my college years, and then I lost any and all language skills through
lack of use. Maybe brushing up on languages could be my goal after volunteering,
but first I should focus on the present.
    “Why don’t I show you to your respective homes?” Henri
suggested. We grabbed our bags from the back of the van, then followed him
through the village. The red-brown dirt carried on from the main road, coating
my shoes and painting my socks.
    Beyond the fields of crop and cattle sat eight little round
houses, similar to the ones we’d seen on the way in. They were built strictly
for volunteers, we were told, as a means to give us some privacy and space from
the rest of the village.
    “Many love working with the community here, but it can be
tough at first for some,” Henri informed me as we stood to admire the sun-dried
mud—the round walls without a single crack—and straw roofs. “We built the
dormitories here specifically to be separate… I’m told it’s nice to have a
place to recuperate sometimes.”
    “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Wouldn’t it
make more sense to put us in the thick of the village? We’d definitely make
friends with everyone faster if we weren’t so far away. Still, when I looked
over my shoulder, sweat starting to trickle down from my hairline and across my
face, I noted that we weren’t terribly far from everyone. The village itself
sat squarely on the other side of the plots of farmland and livestock, and I
could see a few buildings that weren’t