The teacher

A kerosene lamp threw shadows across the concrete walls of the half-finished home. Every few seconds the flickering light caught Godson Stella's face and illuminated the smile that never seemed to leave.

You couldn't see the uncontrollable tremors that shook his right hand and leg. They had grown worse since I first met Godson over the summer. Back then, Godson tried to hide the trembling by shoving the hand in a pocket or grasping his hands behind his back. He didn't do that anymore. The trembling is worse.

A scrawny dog stuck his nose through the iron bars of the red door. In the back, a chicken squawked loudly, women shouted and then it was quiet. Cries of children playing down by the small river floated up, as wind ruffled the home's lace curtains. Something bit my arm. It started to tingle. I didn't want to know what it was.

Godson has taught for 31 years and runs the primary school in the village. Two years remain until he will retire. He is quiet and meek and the most trustworthy person I know in Tanzania. You do not meet many people like Godson, whatever corner of the world you are in. People who spy you from the other side of the New Sahara Cafe and have a look of unashamed and complete joy wash over them. Who express amazement his name is remembered. Who insists on shaking hands, even though his is difficult to control. Who puts his arm around you to steady it. Who apologizes for the the trembling and explains that doctors have run a dozen tests, given him medication, but no cause or solution can be found.

"My God will heal me," Godson said. "That is what I believe. That is what we are praying for."

That kind of faith that gives me chills. To look in his eyes and see he believes that with every fiber of his being. Even with the tremors worsening. Even with no answers.

The home's lone table was filled with the best Godson and his wife, Agnes, could offer. Bottles of Coca-Cola and Fanta and Kilimanjaro water. Bowls of fried potatoes and cooking bananas and stew. Accepting hospitality from people who have so little is difficult for me, brutally so. They barely have enough to meet their own needs, yet they insist on sharing everything with you and take joy in that.

Over the summer, I met Godson in Arusha's chaotic and crowded police station. He joined a handful of village leaders helping Dory Gannes, the former University of Michigan soccer player, reclaim land she purchased to construct an orphanage and school. It had turned into a mess. Everyone was asked to leave the room expect the village chief and executive officer by the police investigator who had earlier pulled a loaded pistol from his waistband.

For Godson's timid and placid exterior, he didn't shy from truth.

"You need not worry. You need not worry," Godson told Dory. "They are here because the village leadership did not act properly to stop this. They did not act with guts. They are in there being reminded of their responsibilities."

That's part of the reason the group was back with Godson, in the dancing light of the kerosene lamp. They quizzed him on how to start a school. How much teachers are paid. How to recruit the best ones. Godson volunteered to help. He wouldn't hear of accepting anything, even a stipend, in return. He had no angle. No motive, other than another school for the village.

Godson's hand and leg continued to tremble.

"It is causing me only a little disturbance," he said. "Very soon I will be well."

Godson didn't stop smiling.