Home - Nyumbani

This past week I've been doing home visits to meet with guardians who are requesting help for a child staying with them who has been orphaned by AIDS.  Walking in the community is something that amazes and humbles me, every time. 

I'm invited into people's lives for a few intimate moments of sharing the challenges of life; each story seems so different but then quickly begins to blur with the others. There's woman who lost her business due to the expenses of her mother's death and now has TB and can't manage to feed her children.  Then another who's daughter finished high school last year and is too ashamed to admit to her own mother her final grades.  One without furniture since she knows that one wall of her 8'x8' home is soon to collapse so she moved the bed she has to her parent's place.  After these, I enter a home with electricity and a TV and try hard not to compare and judge.   Knowing all these homes have children that should be in school. 

Many of the families are managing to pay enough that they at least go occasionally. School fees have risen dramatically over the last year.  Everyone is struggling to make ends meet, including teachers. Children who haven't had their fees paid are often sent home, which is a constant source of frustration for me.  I feel I should be sharing stories of hope, rather than frustration, but both co-exist here.  A nurse I work with reminded me of the spirit of acceptance that is common here - taking both the good and bad in stride. 

I find that I want to do more than I can & I continually need to be reminded that walking with others, listening and encouraging them is an important part of my work.  There's one boy that just an introduction was enough to change the current trajectory of his life.  Martin was introduced to me a year ago, when he'd finished supporting himself through driving school and opened a bank account.  He was doing so much better than the other young people who were seeking assistance. 

 Unfortunately Martin's mother died late last year and now he's living not far from my office with his aunt.  He came by to greet me and ended up asking about getting a job on the building being put up next door to our office.  I've told so many people that I couldn't assist with what they asked, that it is still good that they ask, that continuing to seek answers is part of the solution.  So I told Martin, I didn't know who was in charge, but it didn't hurt to ask.  After multiple conversations, most of them saying that they work was almost finished or they needed trained craftspeople for the rest of the work.  But we kept asking until we met the contractor in charge.  After my brief explanation, he told Martin that he'll be judged on his own effort and to show up for work the next day at 8 am. 

Martin's now been at work for over a month and I'm told he's the hard-working one there.  I often see him covered in cement dust, dirty from head-to-toe, sweating from moving bricks or a wheelbarrow of sand in the hot dust.  But he smiles.  He is so grateful for the work.  Two weeks ago he sent one of my students with 50 shillings and said that he wanted to buy me a soda.  When I talked to him, he had such pride that now he was able to take something home to help out his family.  Tuesday he stopped me again and told me that he had something for me to thank me.  It was 500 shillings all folded up, almost two days wages.  I couldn't take it.  Someone advised me that I should have, then used it on the other children, but my instinct was to give it back. 

You never know when just asking will make a difference.