His sister, in a big turquoise Angora sweater, leaned upon the wood frame of the open nursery door, anxiously looking out to see if he was really going to show, beaming and waving like a pastel colored TV Muppet when she spotted him.

— This world is full of trouble, umfundisi.— Who knows it better?— Yet you believe? Kumalo looked at him under the light of the lamp. I believe, he said, but I have learned that it is a secret. Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering. There is my wife, and you, my friend, and these people who welcomed me, and the child who is so eager to be with us here in Ndotsheni – so in my suffering I can believe.— I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.Kumalo looked at his friend with joy. You are a preacher, he said.

Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the way our math teacher, Mr. Sung-Li, wore four pencils in his shirt pocket in case he was suddenly attacked by a multiplication problem or something.