"You'll never guess where I come from," Rachel Van Boeijen said, smiling faintly. Sitting opposite her inside The Page Break, the Starbucks located inside the Carleton University library, Kinuthia "Ken" Makenga stroked his goateed chin thoughtfully. The international student from Kenya was one of the special mentors and tutors assigned to the International Student Life Office or I.S.L.O. to help newcomers acclimate to their new campus.
Like a lot of schools in Canada's Capital region, Carleton University had recently received an influx of international students from places like Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Latin America. Given the current situation in the United States, foreign students, especially the ones of color, viewed Canada as a safer alternative. America's current leadership did not like foreigners, so foreign students were coming to Canada's colleges and universities in droves. Good business, as far as Canadian schools were concerned.
For schools like Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, keeping up with the influx of international students meant hiring new professionals to help move things along. The foreign students were now a sizeable part of the overall student body at close to thirty percent, so they had to be managed properly, by professionals sensitive to their unique needs. Ken Makenga, a fourth-year student in the International Business program at Carleton's very own Sprott School of Business, happened to be one of those professionals.
Fluent in Swahili, English, French and some Spanish, Ken Makenga had lived all over the world as the son of former diplomats. The tall, smart, well-spoken brother seemed the perfect person to deal with students from diverse backgrounds. Indeed, the friendly and easygoing Kenyan national was one of the best tutors and mentors affiliated with the International Student Life Office. Today, though, Ken had his hands full with one Rachel Van Boeijen...
"Well, Rachel, your last name is Dutch, so I would have to say the Netherlands," Ken said after a brief pause, and Rachel grinned and vigorously shook her head. Twirling a strand of her long blonde hair between her thumb and index finger, Rachel looked Ken up and down. Tall, dark-skinned, handsome and well-dressed, the brother from Mombasa, Kenya, reminded her of the Hollywood actor Tyler James Williams.
"Nope, totally wrong," Rachel said, imitating the buzzer on a game show, and as Ken looked on, she pulled out her cell phone and on its screen, serving as wallpaper, the red, white, green, black, yellow and blue flag of South Africa. Ken smiled, and shook his head. He never would have guessed that the tall, tomboyish blonde gal he'd been assigned to mentor came from the continent of Africa.
"Alright, you got me, so, where in South Africa are you from?" Ken asked, and Rachel returned his smile before launching into a lengthy discussion on the many reasons why her hometown of Johannesburg rocked, and the City of Ottawa, their current location, absolutely sucked. Ken, who'd been living in the Canadian Capital for about four years, had to respectfully disagree. He'd grown to like Ottawa, and although some of its citizens could be passive aggressive sometimes, a lot of them were genuinely nice people.
"Come on, Ken, it's just us foreigners here, Ottawa is boring, a lot of the locals have chips on their shoulders, and even more unforgiveable to me, they are obsessed with hockey and ignore the beauty of rugby," Rachel scoffed, shaking her head. Ken smiled, admiring Rachel's feistiness, and the fact that she was speaking aloud about her dislike of Canada's national ( and perhaps only ) sport inside a café on a busy Canadian university campus. The gal had guts...
"Okay, Rachel, I'll be diplomatic and say that Ottawa isn't as exciting as Toronto or other world-class cities, but I've made some friends here, once you do, you will realize that the place doesn't have to suck, you can make your own fun," Ken said confidently. Rachel appeared to be pondering that, and then she flipped through her phone's photo gallery, and held the phone inches from Ken's face. A bit startled by Rachel's brusque movements, Ken kept his cool and calmly looked at the picture on display.
"This is a picture of me, my best friend Ayanda and my cousin Nicole at Hobie Beach near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province," Rachel said proudly. Ken looked at the picture, Rachel was standing there, in a tank top and shorts next to a tall, curvy young Black woman in a bright green swimsuit and a slender, dark-haired young Caucasian woman in a bright red bikini. The trio of beauties stood on the sands, with the ocean in the background, smiling and throwing up gang signs. Ah, the sheer Whiteness of it all...
"Cool, you look like Californian surfer girls, all three of you," Ken said, laughing, and Rachel fell silent, frowning. Ken, a rather astute young man, looked at her, wondering if he'd inadvertently said the wrong thing. Black or White, women were, well, women, and a man had to watch his words around them. Lest they be used against him in their personal court where they served as judge, jury and especially executioner...
"Ken, come on, I don't look like an American gal, as you can tell, my best friend is a Zulu gal, I've known Ayanda my whole life, she's like family, those idiots in the States like to call everyone racist, especially us South Africans, but they're letting an idiot with a bad toupee take them back to the Dark Ages," Rachel said, sucking in her teeth. Ken looked into her blue eyes and Rachel held his gaze, without smiling. She meant what she said, Ken thought, quietly astonished.
"You're something else, Rachel," Ken said earnestly, and he ran his head across his smooth shaved head. Once every two months, Ken went to the Royal Barber Shop, a Haitian-owned spot in the east end of Ottawa, to get his head shaved. During his first year at Carleton University he sported an Afro, which became stylized dreads, and quickly realized that a lot of the smiling, seemingly friendly and progressive Canadians he saw everyday harbored hostilities toward him for his unique look. Ken, always smart and adaptable, cut his hair. He shopped his resume around, and the job offers started pouring in.
"Careful, handsome, South African girls are addictive," Rachel said in a decidedly flirtatious tone, while rubbing Ken's arm for some reason. Ken sipped his overpriced and under-sugared coffee and smiled, for he totally knew what Rachel was up to. In his four years in the City of Ottawa, Ken had always been friendly with the local Whites, but there were certain things he didn't do. Banging White girls was definitely not on the proud Kenyan's agenda...
"Ahem, we should really continue with your acclimatization to Ottawa, Rachel, I can help you with getting a Canadian driver's licence, if you want, I'm a foreigner too and I have one," Ken said with a polite smile. Rachel looked at him and grinned. A lot of women get really pissed when they make a pass at a guy and he doesn't respond the way they want. Women lacked men's patience and persistence ( and capacity for taking rejection ) when it came to pursuits...
"Hmm, sounds good, Ken, I have my bachelor's degree in Accounting from the University of Johannesburg and I'm here at Carleton to get my Master's degree in Business, and I might stay if I get a job after graduation, so I need to know and explore all that Canada has to offer, you're going to be a good lad and help me with all of that," Rachel said, her tone switching from amorous to crisp and businesslike in a flash. Kitty has claws, Ken thought with a grin.
"My pleasure," Ken said, and he rose, and gently inclined his head while holding out his hand. Rachel, unaccustomed to such displays of old-fashioned chivalry, smiled but took Ken's hand. Unfortunately for Ken, Rachel did not let go, and he was too much of a gentleman to press the issue and cause a scene, especially since a lot of the other patrons inside The Page Break were looking at them.
"Ken, word to the wise, I usually get what I want," Rachel said in a quiet, soft voice, and then she let go of his hand. Ken smiled and nodded, then watched her exit The Page Break, sauntering out of there like a supermodel on the catwalk. A pair of tall, gangly White male students, who walked in while holding hands with a Chinese-looking gal and a curvy Black gal, looked disapprovingly at the sexy, blonde Rachel as she paused at the library door and turned to flash Ken a sexy wink.
"What a world," Ken said to himself, amazed both by Rachel's behavior and that of the interracial quartet that just entered The Page Break. It would seem that White guys with Black girlfriends and Asian girlfriends don't like to see White women flirt with Black men. Who would have thought? Ken was all smiles as he gathered his belongings and headed for nearby Dunton Tower. He had a class in Business Ethics starting at one fifteen in the afternoon and it was already twelve fifty seven...
Later that day, when Ken checked his Facebook on his laptop, he saw that he had a message and a friend request from Rachel Van Boeijen. Intrigued, he decided to look her up online before accepting. The good news about the web is that local news are global news. Ken felt his heart skip a beat when he read about a wealthy South African couple, Mirjam and Hans Van Boeijen, dying in a tragic car accident in Gauteng, South Africa, and leaving their multi-million dollar fortune to their only daughter Rachel.
"Poor thing," Ken thought to himself as he added Rachel as a friend. A cursory check of her profile revealed tons of pictures, mostly of Rachel partying with friends, or doing risky things like surfing, riding motorcycles, shooting Gauss guns. The South African cutie was obviously an adrenaline junkie. A rich gal with a tragic past who's interested in me, Ken thought. In spite of himself, he felt curious about her.
