It was just after we had buried my mother in the banana plantation in the village….I was in the house along, resting in my grandmama’s bed when Daddy’s friend, Mr Nsozi, tiptoed into my room. And everyone on the hill knows he has AIDS…[H]e told me not to scream and said that if I made any noise, I would not be his friend any more or he would even kill me. I was so, so scared that I felt dizzy. Mr Nsozi held me down with his strong arms and brought his body close to mine while spreading my legs apart…. I was in terrible pain, I screamed so Mr Nsozi closed my mouth in his hand.
This is an excerpt from How Kwezi Got Into Trouble by Foundation Junior Living Youth Series. As it explains on the back cover, this story is one of a series written by some of Uganda’s leading writers of children’s books. “These stories are told in a captivating manner to help the youth enhance their self-esteem and life skills to resist temptations that may expose them to risk[y] behaviour, which may lead them to contracting HIV/AIDS. These stories are drawn from the youth’s backgrounds, using characters they can identify with, and experiences they are familiar with.” This eight-year-old girl is raped by her father’s best friend on the night of her mother’s funeral. The story is about her struggling to confide in her teacher about the incident, getting tested, and then teaching others about AIDS.
I read this startling story in a bookstore two weeks ago when I was looking for books to read with Paul Tiboti’s family. I have started visiting on a weekly basis Paul and his four younger cousins with whom he lives, all of whom have been orphaned by AIDS. When my parents came to Uganda, they brought the family a deck of cards, which they use on a nightly basis. Each week, I try to teach them a new game. After a few weeks, I decided that it would be nice if I could read stories with them during my visits as well. So, Beth Rosen and I went to some “book” stores, more like stationary shops that carry books that correspond to the Ugandan curriculum. We finally reached a store that had some promising options. The one I bought was a story about a boy who receives a radio from his father for his birthday. When he and his friends are dancing outside, a monkey steals the radio. The three boys then lay out a row of mangos to entice the monkey away from the tree. Then one of the boys climbs the tree and saves the radio. First of all, I think this story accurately captures the difference between many American children’s books and ones that relate directly to Ugandan culture. Anyway, in sifting through the books, I also came across How Kwezi Got Into Trouble. When I read the aforementioned passage, my jaw dropped, and I began to really think about and want to try to articulate the differences between Ugandan and American childhood. I couldn’t believe that this story could actually be something that children “can identify with.”
But then I started reflecting on my own experiences. Visiting Paul’s family each week has not been easy although it is always very fun. I come face-to-face with what it means for children to be orphaned, but not just children, entire families! I witness the burden that Paul, a twenty-five year old, has to shoulder being responsible for four children under the age of 13. Paul still has not found a job despite having a diploma in water engineering and the family struggles to make ends meet on about $25 a month that they receive as welfare through BCC. Sometimes Paul brings in a little bit more money from side jobs, but over the past month or so that I have been visiting numerous times, the family has been scrounging for food, and even when they have food, it’s not a lot.
Two weeks ago, Paul had to travel to Kampala to find out about a possible job opportunity. Although the children’s older brother, Seth,, who is currently in teacher training college, came home for a few days, he had to return to school that Monday evening, leaving the four children in the home alone. Tuesday evening, I walked home from BCC with the two third grade girls. When we reached home, the girls began preparing tea on the firewood stove. Before we could light the fire, we needed to chop the wood. Khaana, who is eight-years-old, picked up an ax bigger than she, placed her barefoot on one end of the log, and tried to chop the other end. I asked if I could help, though I knew that I would probably be even less successful than she was. After a few minutes of barely chopping any wood, I put down the ax. A neighbor immediately asked Khaana to bring the wood over to her and chopped it for us. Then, I washed dishes with Rachel, who is around ten, as Khaana sat in the kitchen filled with smoke watching to know when the water boiled in the kettle. Rachel asked if I eat white ants, insects that the children collect at night during the rainy season. After replying no, she showed me a huge pot full of them, which she fried on the fire, after the tea was finished. The two fourth grade boys, both around twelve years old, came home shortly after we had finished preparing tea. We read the story about the radio thief, played a few intense rounds of cards, and then the children walked me to the roadside. I asked them if they needed anything. They told me the only food in the house was posho (maize flour) and asked for some greens. I bought them a cabbage for 30 cents and asked if they needed anything else. They told me they also didn’t have cooking oil, paraffin for the lamp (they don’t have power), and even a matchbox. For less than a dollar, I bought them small quantities of all of these things and left.
I spent the night thinking that these children would prepare themselves dinner, put themselves to bed, wake themselves up, and prepare themselves for school. I just remember how more often than not, my mother was my alarm clock and I rarely had to prepare dinner for myself, and never on a firewood stove, if I would have even been allowed near such a thing at eight years old. But these children have no choice. They have no parent to rely on, just an older cousin who does an immense amount for them but has his limits as well!
The next day, I asked Rachel’s teacher to send her to the clinic because she had a cough. When I returned to clinic instead of Rachel, I found Khaana sitting on the bench shivering with a fever of 103.8 degrees. I sat with her as the nurses did intake and then took her to the lab for blood work. Her malaria test came back positive. The nurses started her on treatment and prepared a bed for her to rest on for the rest of the day. I checked on her as often as possible, gave her some paper for coloring, and made sure she had lunch. (She was very, very excited when I told her she could keep the pen with which she was coloring.) The nurses washed her down when her fever got too high and checked on her repeatedly. But for the most part she was alone. Paul returned that evening, thank God!
These experiences have begun to slowly expose me to what it means to be an orphan, to have no parents. This young girl, like her siblings, is so lucky to have an older cousin like Paul who cares for them as best as he can despite the inadequate resources. These children are also so lucky to be sponsored through BCC and have the organization’s emotional and financial support.
According to Helen Epstein in her new (highly recommended) book The Invisible Cure about the African Aids epidemic, “By 2006, some twelve million African children had lost at least one parent to AIDS. A small fraction received help from dedicated, community based organization….[T]he vast majority were cared for by relatives, often desperately needy themselves” (p.213-214). And to make matters worse, Epstein cites studies that indicate that orphans are 3-4 times more likely than other children to contract HIV in their teens, possibly because of emotional and material deprivation (p.214).
As I am writing this blog post and listening to the local radio, I heard an advertisement by the Ministry of Health in which a mother asks a health official what happens if she tests positive for HIV/AIDS. The health official explains that if she tests positive and then takes the proper precautions, she can avoid transmitting the illness to her child.
The young girl in the story from the beginning of this post contracts HIV when she is raped on the evening of her mother’s funeral. After some time, she gathers the strength to become a youth leader at her school and in her community in fighting the spread of AIDS. I pray for a time when children’s books won’t need to contain stories of rape and HIV/AIDS and when children won’t have to be orphaned because of this and other devastating diseases.
An update on Paul’s family: one of the children’s sponsors bought the family a cow, which will eventually give them more cows and milk!!! Also, some generous friends of the family have allowed Paul and his cousins to dig and plant on their land. The crop in July will hopefully be able to help sustain the family for many months.
