I've been following him since he came here to help. His smile lights up the dry lands. His eyes twinkle like the vast oceans that we've never seen. His hair is so curly and I want to play with it. He is very tall, and kind. He has shown kindness by making an effort to be here. Not many people like him care about people like me.
He plays football with the local school children. I sit on my own on the dirty ground, cheering him on. He is genuinely having fun, and it shows in his face. Wrinkles appear by his eyes every time he smiles and laughs, and everyone else smiles and laughs too.
His name is Tom. I think it's a good name. The girls chant his name as he scores a goal against the eager school children. I wish I could join in, but I can't play football. I always wanted to learn how to play well though.
Later I follow him into the classroom, full of children waiting to listen to his wonderful voice. He still holds the football under his arm, a trophy for his victory over the school boys, but they seem happy enough to have played with him.
Tom draws on the chalkboard for us, and tells us tales of a faraway land called England. Then he talks all about education, and then the conversation would quickly switch to food, then back to something important like sanitation. But I listened intently all the while, standing right beside him, admiring him, looking up to him - quite literally.
One of the mothers offers to take him on a tour of our humble village. He agrees, and I stay close beside him, but manage to stay away from the jostling children who push and shove to get glimpses of him, although with his height he is not hard to miss. We go to the water pump, the small farm, another small school building and our hospital with meagre medicine and food supplies. It is not much, but it's all we had.
Then we visit the holy ground. The graveyard. Tom's guide points out different gravestones to him. A mother and baby buried together - victims of difficult childbirth. The grave of the oldest man in the village.
Then we reach the end of the graveyard. Tom's eyes begin to brim with tears as he looks upon a row of tiny graves. Children's graves, none of them older than seven or eight, having had succumbed to diseases that we can't cure with the resources we have.
I want to reach up and hold Tom's hand as he crouches beside my grave, touching the freshly dug earth gently. He looks up, looks right at me, and for a few moments I swear that he sees me. But then he shakes his head and gets up, rubbing at his eyes, and I stay beside my grave, fearing for what will become of me now.
