We get home late. My joints ache. The tops of my feet are raw from running around in sandals all day. Upstairs, I stand under the shower, letting the water loosen what the day has packed onto me. Dust runs off in pale, reddish streams. I stay there after the last of the water falls away, until the strain leaves my body and my thoughts slow.
Back downstairs, I eat my jollof quietly. The day keeps replaying itself in fragments. I inhale the heat, the commotion, the long arc of hours I’m still not certain are behind me. As I exhale, the house settles into stillness.
On the dark road behind the house, I hear sand and gravel shift beneath a set of tires. Brakes bite. A car comes to a stop. The stillness in me lifts – gentle, immediate. I think I know who’s here.
Rafael steps inside holding a familiar white suitcase, followed by his son, Robin. Kabiosi trails in last, carrying the weight of the day behind him and the work ahead.
I’m suddenly back at the Sankofa centre last year, working alongside Rafael, the steady rhythm of the aquaponics systems, the way he explains things without rushing, without assuming. I’d forgotten how much I missed that kind of ease.
We greet each other with hugs and hellos, both familiar and new. We gather in the living room and catch up on the months we’ve missed, letting the conversation wander where it wants to. I feel like a child after hours in the sun – too full of the day to go straight to sleep, happy to sit in the warmth of others for a while longer, knowing rest will come easily when it’s time.
Eventually the conversation slows and we drift from the sofa to the dining table, where the white suitcase rests neatly on a bench. Rafael lifts the lid.
Inside is a careful spread of tools: measuring tapes, fittings, small components wrapped with intention. He talks as his hands work, listing what we’ll check first, asking Kabiosi how the system has been running, what has lasted, what might need fixing. Some questions have answers. Others are left for the morning.
I listen, tugging at my memory for context as the technical language circles. The longer I try to follow, the clearer it becomes that the work we’re stepping into this week may be out of my depth. Less heavy lifting. More engineering. Very little room for error.
I can’t yet see what is taking shape, but I allow myself to hold onto the hope that tomorrow will greet me with something I know how to do.
Morning comes quickly.
By the time we reach the Sankofa centre, the sun is strong and the air thick. The ground echoing with the memory of almost two thousand children from the day before. Paper scraps cling to fences and tree roots. Torn tinsel catches under stones. Flattened bottles sit half-buried in the sand.
Some of the SHS students are already there, sweeping away what was left behind. It’s strange to see this playing out in reverse, watching the evidence of celebration gathered into piles and carried away.
I hesitate at the fence, caught between instincts. Part of me wants to grab a broom and fall back into the familiar rhythm of cleaning, stacking, restoring order. The other part wants to follow the others into the unknown.
Kabiosi points me to the back of the work site. The decision is made for me.
Rafael is already at the aquaponics systems. He stands with Robin beside a tank, looking over the water like it’s something that can be read. They converse quietly in Swiss German, words rising and falling in a melody I can’t quite grasp.
We move to the barrel at the end of the system we finished building last year. I plug the water pump into an extension cord. We watch for the water level to begin to drop. The barrel holds its breath for a moment.
Then, slowly, the water starts to go down.
Before I can blink, Rafael is in motion again, scanning, adjusting, checking. Robin stays close, moving in step with him. They crouch, stand, measure, confer. The two of them work as a single unit, a plan already living somewhere between them.
The sun climbs higher. Sweat gathers at the base of my spine. Gospel music pedals in the distance.
Rafael approaches Kabiosi cautiously with a list. Kabiosi groans, then nods, already pulling out his phone.
I follow Rafael and Robin back to the tanks.
And suddenly I’m in the position I’ve been dreading: standing near work I don’t understand, trying to be useful without getting in the way. I keep arriving half a second too late. I feel myself sinking, slowly, into the sand.
Last year, I knew the work. I came back to the aquaponics project with relief, almost with gratitude – like stepping into a familiar room.
But within minutes I begin to understand: it isn’t the same room at all.
The work takes over quickly.
It has its own logic, and I keep losing the thread.
We are no longer building from scratch. We are solving problems from within – pipe angles, flow, fittings that don’t quite match, a plan that has to stay flexible because materials are limited and mistakes can’t always be undone.
We end up at the trays with a holesaw bit and a problem.
We need to cut into the aircrete so the pipe can pass through, delivering water to the plants. The tools we have aren’t meant for concrete, but we make do, the way you always do here. The teeth dull quickly. I measure and mark. Robin drills. I pour water onto the metal, trying to keep it cool, trying to make it last. Dust rises in pale clouds and settles onto our arms.
Once the hole is deep enough to serve as a guide, we switch to chisels, scraping the remaining aircrete out together, bit by bit, until the opening finally gives way.
And for a moment, something in me loosens.
My hands remember. My confidence returns in small pieces. Still, the dread lives in my ribs. It waits just behind the relief, quiet and patient, asking what happens when this part is done.
The drill is set down.
Next come the blue barrels, the settlement tanks. They don’t look like much, but the system relies on them. They are the core, guiding the flow of water between the fish tank, the plant trays, the whole looping circuit of water.
Rafael explains pieces. Robin understands the whole. I work from fragments.
I try to make myself useful anyway. I bring tools. I hold things steady. I offer ideas, then swallow them back down when I realize they won’t quite work. I keep moving, because standing still would make it worse.
Then the pipework begins.
I’m cutting a piece of PVC when Kabiosi comes over. I hold it in place and twist the cutters around it, working slowly, trying to keep the line straight. He stops beside me and shows me a better way – direct, decisive, cutting through in one motion.
I try.
The pipe doesn’t cooperate in my hands. The harder I clamp down, the more it compresses, the once circular piece pinching into an oval, then into a line. I feel the eyes on my hands. I feel myself shrinking again.
I go back to my method, and it betrays me for the first time. The cut isn’t straight. The evidence of my uncertainty is left behind in the material itself.
The dread is pressing harder into my ribs, familiar now. Patient. Ready.
Kabiosi is everywhere at once. He checks in, answers questions, offers a hand, then disappears into the building again. Someone arrives to ask for help. Someone else comes just to sit and talk. There are football teams to run, disagreements to mediate, admin work that never stops, responsibilities that reach all the way back to Benin. He carries it all with a steadiness that makes it look lighter than it is.
One morning, the energy shifts.
There are too many moving parts to keep everyone clustered around the same problem. Decisions are being made in quick bursts. The work begins branching outwards like roots, demanding division.
I keep drifting at the edges, still borrowing purpose from whoever is closest.
Rafael calls my name. He gestures to the bare ground beside the final system.
“You work on this,” he says.
For a second I don’t move. I wait for more instruction, for him to stay beside me, for Robin to crouch down and start first.
But they don’t.
Rafael turns back to the tank. Robin returns to a blue barrel with a drill. Kabiosi is already halfway across the site, phone to his ear.
And suddenly, the space around me opens.
I stare at the dirt, attempting to build a blueprint in my head. Where the water needs to go. What angles I need to maneuver the pipes into. I try to see the whole thing at once. I try to think fast enough to deserve the task.
My mind races, but the plan stays stagnant.
So I switch gears.
I step inside and grab a silver bowl from the kitchen. I scoop connectors into it by instinct. I carry the bowl out on my hip along with uncut PVC, a measuring stick, a pen, and the glue.
I stare again at the ground, then the pieces around me, then back at the ground. I can’t wait this out any longer.
I measure the longest run first. Mark it. Cut it. Hold it up and check. Then I do it again. The work shrinks, becoming more manageable, one decision at a time. I dry-fit everything, test angles, pull things apart, adjust.
And slowly, something begins to click.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
The pipes begin to find their places. The route begins to make sense. What felt impossible in my head becomes simple in my hands.
Rafael stops by at some point. He looks down at what I’ve built so far, following the line with his eyes.
“Yes!” he says.
For the first time in days, I don’t feel like I’m pretending.
I keep going.
I wait as long as I can to glue anything. I test every piece twice. But eventually the moment comes and there’s nothing left to do but commit.
I open the glue, hold my breath, and get to work.
By late afternoon, the system is standing on its own. It looks different now, more coherent. Everything has its place.
The dread loosens its grip. I’m no longer lost.
We test the flow. We watch the water move where it’s meant to. Tools are gathered. Offcuts are kicked aside.
Dusk slides in, the sky pulling itself closed.
And then, just as we’re about to leave, I see it.
A slow, steady drip at the base of the settlement tank.
For a moment, I don’t believe my eyes. My mind tries to correct it into something else, spilled water, a splash from earlier, a drop of glue.
The leak is quiet, almost polite. It doesn’t escalate, it just continues.
Relief is replaced by that familiar collapse, the feeling of shrinking inward, of wanting to disappear.
My mind starts sprinting ahead of me.
We don’t have another barrel. We don’t have spare connectors. More glue won’t fix this. The system was finished and now it isn’t. The dread snaps back into place.
I kneel there watching the water seep into the sand. Rafael crouches down and watches it too.
He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t raise his voice. He just studies it, quiet and exact. The leak is just another piece of information to collect.
No more we can do today. We’ll check it in the morning. If the water level drops more than a few centimeters overnight, we’ll have a real problem.
That night, I barely sleep.
My mind keeps returning to the leak, the dark spot in the sand, the thin line of water escaping, the way something so small can undo days of work.
We get up and go straight to the system.
Clare is with us now, Jane’s goddaughter, newly arrived, still learning the contours of this place. She steps up to the settlement tank with a measuring stick and a determination that surprises me. She leans over the rim and checks the water level, then checks again, as if her eyes might be lying.
“72,” she calls out, bright with relief. “It’s barely moved.”
I step closer.
The water line has dropped by a centimeter at most. The leak has slowed to almost nothing, as if the system itself has decided to cooperate.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
The dread releases me again.
The days that follow become demanding in a different way.
We carry stones. Again and again. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. Container after container. The sound is sharp and constant, rock against plastic, metal, and stone. Only at the end of it do I notice the tenderness in my left shoulder, a dull ache I carry home.
Seven trays.
Six meters each.
Five inches deep.
Filled.
And then, finally, the fish.
All of this work has been in service of them, days of measuring and gluing and carrying stones, years of planning, experimenting, fitting things together.
New Year’s Eve is move-in day.
Kabiosi stands on a stepladder, scooping them carefully into baskets, water streaming out through small holes as we carry them to the tank. Their bodies press and shift inside, quick and strong.
The first basket is tipped into the clear water. The fish disappear, exploring the depth of their new home. It almost looks empty, as if nothing happened at all. Then the tank comes alive, shadows beneath the surface, circling, exploring, poking their heads out as if to say thank you.
We stand at the edge together. Watching the light bounce back at us.
I came into this week afraid of being useless. I wanted to belong to the work. I wanted to earn my place here, not be handed one out of kindness or pity.
The system didn’t care about any of that. It only asked for patience. For humility. For steadiness over confidence, for the willingness to try again when something doesn’t fit, when something leaks, when the answer is unknown.
It asked me to stay.
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