#21 - July 1st 2007

Heartbreak…

I lay here a top the sheets, the warm midnight air drifts in with the moonlight. The mosquito net falls around me, a flickering candle casts shadows. My eyes are heavy but my heart is heavier. I want desperately for this burden to be lifted but it only gets heavier with the knowledge that this situation will probably continue to get worse. Today my heart broke, not in the usual way, but in a new way I never thought possible, a way I never imagined. This isn’t your typical love-lost broken heart, its more desperate, unmendable, a deeper wound.

Robert, my little brother here in Kampala, my sidekick, confidant, and translator. Perhaps the most intelligent and thoughtful twelve-year-old I’ve ever met. He tells me which boys he trusts and why, he tells me who he feels is genuinely good, who is callous; he is constantly evaluating, assessing. He appreciates honestly, generosity and compassion in those he calls friends and won’t stand for ego or insolence. He tells me not to give him anything because “that’s not what our friendship is about.” He tries to hide his fears, his problems, because he says he’d rather see me smiling. Today, despite his efforts, I discovered some of those problems.

I found him in the afternoon at the boys’ house, unusual because he has school during the day and goes to his mother’s house for lunch. Kimala, his older brother, explained that Robert had been excused from class because he wasn’t wearing proper black shoes. Uniforms are strictly enforced in Ugandan schools; after several warnings for improper apparel you are not allowed back at school. Concerned that Robert would miss even more school, I decided to go visit his mother to see why she hadn’t gotten him proper shoes. They cost 10,000 shillings here ($6.50); expensive for a single parent but not impossibly so. I had visited his house on one previous occasion, met the lovely woman who provides for Robert, Kimala, and their seven-year-old sister Judith.

Today I arrived to find Robert’s mother curled up on a wooden ‘sofa’, skinny and sweating, offering a wavering smile, too weak to stand. I had never entered Robert’s house before and was shocked with what I saw. Other than the emaciated appearance of their regularly chipper and bright mother, the state of their living quarters was appalling. When Robert’s father died in 2004 of HIV/AIDS he left Robert’s mother with three children and an unfinished house. Robert’s mother was able to finish constructing three quarters of the house but had to stop for lack of funds. She began selling maize in order to provide each child with school fees and was forced to rent out three of the four rooms of the house to pay for food. The remaining room, 10x10, now houses the four of them, the kitchen supplies, clothes, one bed and a mattress. All their earthly possessions.

While I was away on my trip Robert’s mother fell ill and was unable to keep up with her regular tasks. I found the cramped room in an unlivable state. In the left corner a broken bed frame hosted piles of dirty clothes and a toppling mountain of unwashed pots and pans, a haven for flies and small rodents. In front of this unusable bed a rolled up foam mat leaned against two ancient suitcases. Kimala informed me that the foam mat, covered in a moth-eaten sheet, was the bed he shared with Robert. It can’t be true, I thought. Please let it not be true. Please tell me these sweet kids do not sleep on a single filthy mat on the cold cement floor. I glanced at Robert and he nodded and looked at the ground.

It gets worse.

On the other side of the room there was a dresser covered with pots, sheets, five big canteens of unboiled water, and the sofa their mother had been using as a bed. I asked Robert’s mother how she was feeling, and with Kimala’s help (their mother only speaks Luganda) I determined that she had gone to the hospital, received some pills, then taken them without food. She now had an extremely upset stomach, understandably. Not knowing what else to do, I sent Robert with some money to get juice and muffins, then enlisted in Kimala’s help to drag all the dirty dishes out of the room. While he washed everything, I piled clothes, all tattered and dirty, into baskets and placed them under the sofa. We swept and reorganized as Robert’s mother devoured her food. Kimala told me that ever since their mother had been sick they hadn’t eaten. She’d been sick for three days. Once the room was more presentable we moved Robert’s mother to the bed and fanned her face. Robert showed me their family album. First, pictures of their father and mother, happy and healthy. Then snaps of Robert and Kimala, fat and little and adorable. At the end, pictures from 2004, of their father sick, thin, sad eyes. Kimala has those eyes. As the boys spoke of their father I could feel the love they had for him. I could see Robert closing up, hiding from the pain. Then it hit me. Their mother has HIV.

This isn’t the first time she’s been sick. The name of her pills. Her emaciated appearance. Robert hiding it from me, the shame of the disease. I had to ask; Kimala confirmed, much to Robert’s dismay. His eyes pleaded with his brother to keep it from me. My God, what is happening here? This decrepit room, this fragile, sick woman, these sweet, sweet kids. One parent dead. One parent dying. They have no food. This situation is beyond my comprehension, completely beyond it. I wanted to run from the house; run and cry and cry and cry. But Robert and Kimala sat there, across from their mother, unable to run away, and therefore I wouldn’t either. Instead I stayed and vowed to become part of this family and do what I can to help. These boys and their sister cannot come home to a dirty bed, unwashed clothes and empty plates. They cannot continue to share a room the size of a bathroom while attempting to care for their ailing mother. The house must be finished, food bought, new clothes found, school fees paid. I’ll find a way. I have to find a way.

~Nicole