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Published: October 15th 2005
A low income home...
This community is where the low income laborers live in Livingstone. Most children are unable to go to school the family can't afford the $5 per child per year.The picture I took of those boys to me was the best way to describe some of what I have seen.
Along with the beauty, the culture and the pride of Africa, you have to look into the eyes of children like these boys and see the pain too. I think they are wise beyond their years. I see great courage and strength despite their circumstances. I see the love they have for one another and the pride to stand there and be photographed by some silly American tourist.
I keep saying, I want everyone to know both sides of life here, it can be good, kind and gentle. What has been the hardest for me is too enjoy the good, when the bad is simply outside the gate. In the US, what most, including myself, have learned to do is to just avoid the gate. But, here the gate is short, so you look over and those eyes are staring at you and it’s impossible to look away.
Many have wondered about the boy’s lives and why they couldn’t smile. What is their reality ? I will tell you what I know, their father had died
A high cost room in the hospital
This is a deluxe room where people with money pay to stay. and their mother is ill, but still functioning. The oldest boy is the man of the house and cares for his young brothers, while his mother looks for any work that might bring in a few Kwachas (Zambian money). When I found them they were walking along a roadside waiting for their mother to get home for an evening meal. They do not go to school, because even though the government requires children to be educated, it cost 5 US dollars a year to go to school per child, plus uniforms and supplies. This is too much for the family to provide. This is all I know, but that is quite enough.
I left the boys standing there on the roadside, as when we found them, without an evening meal or money for school, which I could have easily provided. The problem with that was there were 20 more children standing with them, with stories much the same. So, the moral question I have to ask myself is, save one, or leave them all?
Well, each day my answer changes to that question, some days I think I should give to this one for whatever reason, but
other days it is simply too hard on your soul to leave 19 standing there wondering, why they am not worthy of your care? How can you choose one over the other? I am sure each person reading this, has their own opinion, but trust me it is not an easy choice. So the boys I left as they were, but terrible guilt collapsed upon me, as I pulled away in the car.
Zambia, by African standards is doing better. I found its hospital to be functional compared to the ones I had seen before. Still, by Western standards they were completely unreal. The most positive thing I saw was that they actually have a social worker that works with patients in this hospital. In much of Africa this is a concept that is total luxury. Here there were two part time social workers that have about 400-450 clients each on their case loads, with waiting lists. The one I talked too was a part- time Dentist and a social worker. They handle much of same things our case managers or social workers do except most of the clients have no phone. So they must go to the
patients each time, thus, the services they can offer are few. Only in the major cities in Zambia can one get HIV meds; in the rural areas it is impossible. These workers are used mainly to support and explain what the Dr’s are saying about their condition. He told me, he takes great satisfaction in his job; if only to help people accept their outcome whatever that might be.
Another professional I talked with, I actually ran right into, at the Blue Nile Falls. A Catholic Nun sitting alone in prayer looked up at me and smiled, as I passed. I spoke and we started to talk. She was a nurse in a rural area and most of her patients are infected with HIV, TB or Malaria. We talked about the sadness of the dying and the need for prevention. Believe it or not, a nun spoke about condom use and how it should be promoted because the lack of use promotes disease. She said in a perfect world she understands the church and its stance on abstinence, but her reality is much different. She understands why sometimes you have to look at the whole picture. I know that God put me on that path, so I could hear what she had to say, a HIV nurse in the middle of the Zambezi, that looked at me and smiled.
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Peggy
non-member comment
Dichotomies: Beauty and the Beast
Hi, Kim. I am still amazed at our ability to follow your trip online using all of our expensive technology while looking at pictures of primitive cultures. So many contrasts! So much beauty, faces beyond compare, yet torn clothes and blank eyes and swollen bellies. The beast is poverty but more to the heart of things, the beast is greed and self-interest of the haves for the have nots! As a consumer, I am always wanting to buy less but then, I'm in Target and my kids want a new CD or whatever. If it takes $5 to go to school for a year, I want to help you motivate every St. Louian we know to send in that $5 a piece. Can't we at least do that? Well enough from here. How are you? Did your packages ever come with the gifts? How is your health? Take care of yourself. All my best to you. Peggy