Building a Global Family
As he neared death, my dad saw things. I was twelve by then, and the oldest surviving child of our family. Deep in his sickness my father called me into his hut to ask me if I saw the things he was seeing. Between coughing fits he asked me, "Kajombi, be ineno gi gi?" (Son of My Uncles, do you see those things on the roof?) He said he saw scary things up there. I didn't see anything. I think not seeing any monsters scared me more than if I had seen a bunch of mbi dancing on our heads.
I ran to a neighbor's home to ask her what Baba's visions meant. Mama Otiya didn't tell me; she simply started to cry. She took her Bible and asked me to accompany her to my dad's bedside where I watched as she conducted a prayer and pleaded with my father to remain strong. She used all the sweet Christian words to prepare my father for what was coming ' death. I realized that things were not going right; that soon my father would leave us, just as my wonderful mother had the year before. I squeezed my eyes tight and hoped for the best as Mama Otiya prayed. That is all we can do in my part of the world - just hope things work out.
In my story, one insignificant story out of millions of others, they didn't. My mother and father died. After my father's death I became obsessed with death. The most horrific thing that could happen to a loved one was to see him or her fall ill. As a child I didn't reason with practicality. I became scared of sickness, any sickness. I was frightened each time any family member or I got sick. I was sure each time we would die.
Death had taken not only my parents, but also six of my ten siblings. I was constantly reminded how lucky I was to be alive. Any childhood illness might have claimed me, but hadn't. In my tribal language, death doesn't "claim you" as it does in English. Tho kwalo dhano. It steals you. As a child growing up in rural Kenya, death was the scariest thing I could think of. No monster on my roof or night-witch could hold a candle to death. Death dictated my childhood.
And I am not alone.
It used to be said that in Africa that there was no such thing as an orphan. Children who lost their parents were, by tradition, taken in by members of the extended family. In Africa, families are extremely close knit; aunties are referred to as "Mama," and uncles, "Baba." And, given the tenuousness of life back home, this level of treasured closeness makes sense.
But times are rapidly changing. During my childhood a new type of death came about. One that wasn't satisfied to steal only the father; within the next year it also took the mother - or vice versa. Due its toll on the body, this disease became known as "Slim," then Ayaki ("greedy eater"), and finally, AIDS. With the devastating impact of this disease, the population of Africa plummeted. This has resulted not only in countless new orphans every single day; it also means far fewer aunts, uncles and grandmothers to take care of these children. AIDS has created an assembly line of destruction through which far too many children back home are routed.
While I experienced the devastating loss of my parents, as far as I know, I did not lose my parents to AIDS. For AIDS orphans, however, the process of losing one's parents is even more complicated and painful. For such children there is the added torture of the stigma and fear that accompany the disease that took their parents. Watching a parent's life leak out of them renders a child helpless, hopeless, and completely devastated. Armed with barely any information about AIDS, children inevitably think that they are next; that they will die too. If their parents could not help themselves to live, then who are they to think that they can?
As HIV/AIDS ravages the younger generations of Africa's population and eats away at the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and others of the extended family, often an elderly grandmother or grandfather is all that is left to care for the orphaned children. Opportunities such as school, clothing, and basic human needs are very hard to provide, as most grandparents have lost their spouse, and do not have much money. Grandparents usually do the only thing they know to sustain their families - work the family garden. In bad harvests, families regularly go without food.
This puts a weight of responsibility on the children that most in the West cannot even begin to comprehend. The most basic of needs falls upon tremendously young shoulders. As grandparents are usually too old to look for food, foraging for their daily bread becomes the kids' job. If a child is the oldest sibling, his role is to provide not only for himself, but for his younger brothers and sisters as well. As the AIDS pandemic continues to progress, children are forced to become the breadwinners of their families. I know this struggle. My school nights were spent on the lake pulling the net to get fish for my family so we could eat the following day, and, when I was lucky, to sell the leftovers to buy flour for our staple dish. More often than not the eldest child is forced to drop out of school to take on the responsibility of looking after the younger siblings.
With the insidious appetite of HIV/AIDS, becoming an orphan means joining the African surplus. Societies have begun to see this over-abundance of orphans as a nuisance. Due to the fact that nearly every African home is affected in one way or another by HIV/AIDS, most families have already overstretched their resources. Some villages even mistreat their AIDS orphans. Many are forced to leave their homes to seek new communities where they hope to be welcomed. Others go to where the work is; child labor is an all-too real fact in African countries. Exploitation in sweatshops - and worse - becomes the only option for numberless children who wish to survive. The older child may become a victim of sexual harassment, particularly if that child is a girl. Prostitution often remains the only means to earn a living.
These children are inevitably stripped of their sense of culture, pride - even their humanity. They are taught that AIDS is their fault and are told that their cultural heritage - their tribal customs - is responsible for AIDS. These orphans must be taught the specific practices that bring about AIDS. They must also be taught to appreciate their cultures. If they abandon all the important pieces of who they are, if they don't go back to share what they learn with other children in the villages, precious ways of living and entire cultures will be lost.
AIDS orphans are at the mercy of society, and we must consider what will happen after they grow up. We should endeavor to bring adult orphans back to the villages to teach their young brothers and sisters the truth about AIDS, and to value their way of living - who and what they are. A system must be created so these orphans grow up as healthy, happy, centered citizens of their communities.
Children everywhere deserve the right to a childhood. It is our duty to ensure that AIDS and other orphans are well taken care of and not abused. We must realize our moral obligation to these children and empower communities to care for their own. Religious institutions, government and nongovernmental organizations need to increase their work to save these children. Finally, drugs, which can prolong infected parents' lives, should be availed to the parents to lengthen their time with their children.
Not in Africa - nowhere in our world - should there ever be "such a thing as an orphan."