only so much

The air feels different immediately; it smells of dry grass and red earth and sinks in thick and stale on my white skin. The sun is brilliant and blinding, even this early, and a pale green butterfly passes over the tarmac. My body knows I’m finally here, in Africa.

As we crawl along towards Nairobi, towards work, so does the rest of this new world. Birds flock overhead and roost in trees by the hundreds-- beautiful, pure white egrets and strange scraggled vultures. Men and women walk in mud beside the road and dart through the traffic, moving with purpose. Some stop to wash in the shallow gully that winds along beside us. Others have already begun to tear at the tall bushes with long hoes.

It is only when we pull off the main highway and onto an unmarked road that leads to Kiandutu, the people’s settlement we’ve come to help, that I fully feel I have arrived. Every shack is different, pieced together from any and all available scraps: sheets of rusted tin with crooked nails protruding from bottle cap washers, rotten boards, cut brush, broken glass, shipping crates, cardboard, and mud, scribbled with advertisements or sketches , and crowned with knots of barbed wire. A sign along one wall reads ALTHOUGH DESPERATE WE ARE KIND BUT NOT WEAK.

Children are everywhere, more than I’ve seen in any village. They too appear to be pieced together with scraps of outgrown or handed down clothing, torn blankets, plastic bags, broken shoes, dirty lace petticoats. Some creep out into doorways or peer out through holes in walls and mother’s legs to watch us pass. Others chase the car and scream and smile and wave, skirting through garbage piles and cess pools with joy. Some are crying. Some are sick. Most are hungry. They are why we’ve come.

First we must confer with the village elders, to find out what has happened since we last spoke. One escorts us to the meeting place, Gerald, and tells us they “keep pushing on.” I enter the church with uncertainty, my eyes adjusting to dim light. A circle of men and women watch solemnly, waiting in patience for someone to begin. Our fearless leader Debbie gives them an update, states our purpose and what we hope will be theirs. Asks for questions. “They have not many questions. What they would like to see is that the children are taken care of.”

The first one we visit is dying and can no longer walk; he barely moves at all. Dennis has HIV. He is 3 and a half years old, but weighs just over 15lbs. He will not eat. I give him a lollipop, and after a few moments his hand opens, and it drops out onto his mother’s sandal, sticking straight up into the air. Later, she tries to give him water and he pours it onto the ground. He whines and scratches at his shirt until she opens it, exposing his rib cage and a chain necklace that dangles around his frail body. She holds him close, but his head falls back like a newborn. He cannot support its weight. We spend a long time convincing her to let us take him to emergency care. We tell her he can stay as little or as long as she likes. That he is not going there to die. We send him away with a social worker, and we pray that we have told her the truth.

The other families we visit are poor and hungry and weak but surviving. One blind grandmother cares for 5 children, who have been abandoned by both mother and father. One has an infection that appears to be eating her ear. She also has a disease in her eye, and it makes her seem to be always crying. Her brother has jiggers, and he balances awkwardly on one foot to scratch at the other, his loose and holey shirt sliding off his shoulder like his crooked smile. They have not eaten today. The best meal they’ve ever had is rice. They depend on the help of Muslim friends. When they get no help, they do not eat. We give them two bags of food, and though she cannot see into our eyes, the old woman holds each of our hands in hers for a long time before we can leave.

All are single mothers, struggling to keep their children alive. They cannot possibly care for their children and look for work. As Debbie tells them all in a focus group, “Women are expected to do so much, but there is only so much that any one woman can do.” Many times, they lock the little ones in dark rooms with no windows. One explains the precautions she takes, “You put out the fire. You hide the matchbooks.” The houses are padlocked from the outside. There are no locks on the inside.

They cannot pay the 35 to 45 cents a day for child care. There are a few decent nursery schools and women who provide care in their homes, run by compassionate people with some education. But most single mothers cannot afford this. There is no one to help them. A few leave the young ones with their older siblings, forcing the others to miss school and watch them. They too may be locked in the house.

Food is a dire need for all of them. They don’t discuss their problems. They don’t support each other. “They just do what they’re going to do.” What they have to do to survive, and hopefully it is enough.

tend your garden

Early morning, before my eyes have adjusted to the light and the hot milk chai is cool enough to drink the girls creep into the courtyard, an area forbidden to them, to watch me take breakfast. I hear them whispering, and as I peek out through green plastic curtains and make a face they burst into suppressed giggles. All except one, who frowns and holds up four little ashen fingers. Only a few days she says softly, and I run across the square and lift her up in my arms and spin her slowly, telling her, "but how many hugs we can share in four full days," fighting back the tears that slip into my eyes, trying to be brave, for her, for me.
There is an expression in the Pashto language, You are not a man until you give your love truly and freely to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return. I'm falling in love with these children, one by one, learning their names, they're ticklish spots, their favorite ways to be held and swung and danced with. Not all of them, arbitrarily, but certain ones. I worry they've become too attached to me, and I find myself fantasizing about staying, or worse asking them to run away with me, showing them how to build sand castles and search for sea shells. They know I'm leaving. The girls at the orphanage say goodbye every time I walk out of a room. I just hope they realize it has nothing to do with them. They've been abandoned their whole lives. They will forever feel unwanted, and now I'll be another ghost, a person who passed in and out of their hearts. Is it better to have loved and lost? Did anyone ever ask a child that? I find myself whispering "I love you, over and over," into the tiniest ear. I have to stop myself. But now, looking back, I wonder if she's ever heard these words before. She is six, but the size of a two year old, the one who came to the sisters crawling like a chimp. I want to repeat these words over and over until she understands what they mean.
Some compete viciously for my attention, clawing at each other's hands and hair. Everyone wants to be wanted. Maybe that's why I've fallen so hard. I need their love just as badly. But still, it’s frightening to see so much anger, so much jealousy, so much emptiness in such small hearts.
It's time to move on. I'm running out of material, patience and restraint. At school, the children take advantage of me. I've come to realize that violence is self perpetuating. The class gets out of control and no amount of yelling and clapping will stop it. Another teacher always comes in to beat the students, and I have to turn away, feeling inadequate for my inability to discipline without a stick. But I think it's the stick that causes the chaos. As long as it’s absent, the children have no boundaries. Other methods don't work because punishment is the most immediate and efficient means of control.
I've become frustrated with the absolute austerity of control here, in India and in the convent. Children live in fear. From preschool on they are driven to succeed, not by their own choice and desire but by the stick. Even the youngest ones live in angst, to the point of teachers confessing that they don't want to tell parents how their five-year-olds are performing. The chellis I live with are afraid to break the rules in any way. I understand the importance of structure, of school, of goals. But these are kids. I brought the girls temporary tattoos, expecting pure rapture, but instead every one worried about the beating that might follow should they be discovered. The next morning, one girl's skin was rubbed raw. I asked what happened, if she'd gotten into trouble. No, she replied. Sister said it causes skin cancer. I told her that was a lie. Flat out. I know I'm going beyond my boundaries but so are they.
At first I was content with silent acquiescence, but that has never been my way, only theirs. I'm trying to find a compromise between teaching my classes what I believe is true and right and empowering and allowing them to live with the socially accepted modes of behavior, within webs of manipulation and domination--by their parents, spouses, teachers, and their sisters. I feel like I'm being monitored, censored. I discuss with the students primary differences a between American and Indian cultures: food, language, dress, appearance, religion, appearance. I tell them that in America wives and husbands have equal opportunities and equal power. I teach them that we fought hard for these rights; I talk about the Women's Liberation Movement (without the burnt bras). The boys aren't really paying attention, but one girl replies that this inequality, this disparity, is what makes India a developing country, even with all the drive and technology its people possess. I'm not trying to start a revolution but a little dissent could be quite progressive. Still maybe it’s best that I sow the seeds and let the fruit ripen on its own, in my absence, like the first missionaries did with mustard.