Posted 373 days ago
Two Easily Ignored Stories
by Megan Jones Ady
RAKAI, UGANDA—“There are many child-led households in southern Uganda due to the high mortality rate from AIDS.”
This sounds so factual and distant, as if not speaking about actual people.
Very easy to ignore.
Stories, on the other hand…
She was seven years old. Her skin was the color of hot cocoa, with smudges of dried red mud covering her bare feet. She stood very straight, smiling shyly as she showed us her home. The green and yellow shadow patterns of banana leaves played on our faces as we walked through the garden. She wore a threadbare dress. Once it could have been any color. Now it was the vivid red of African mud. She showed us the new pit latrine her elder brother was digging. The old one was overflowing. Its contents looked liked melted ice cream, all different shades of chocolate, and smelt like shit. Squatting over it, swatting a fly, I stopped breathing for as long as I could. But I couldn’t help but look down at all those different semi-liquid browns.
She ushered us into the house. It seemed very dark in contrast to the bright sunshine. Some of the flaky tan mud walls were crumbling, and there was a large hole in the middle of the grass roof. Below it was a pile of wet rags. She told us it was her bed. “Why don’t you put it out into the sunshine to dry?” I suggested. “The other children would laugh at me,” she replied, looking down. I felt anger in my abdomen, reddish-brown anger like the dried mud on her feet.
She took us outside to the back garden. There were two long mounds of earth. She pointed to one, and said “Mommy.” She pointed to the other and said “Daddy.”
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Millions of people are enslaved. Today. 2008. Many are women and children, forced to have sex many times a day. Terrified of violent owners. Some as young as six.
My eldest daughter is six. She is snuggled on my husband’s knee right now, carefully reading aloud a story I wrote about her for her sixth birthday. She articulates the longer words, like ‘beautiful’ very slowly and clearly in her lovely sing-song voice. She smiles as she reads her own name in the story.
Some as young as four.
My four-year old daughter is snuggling next to me. Her skin is incredibly soft. Her shiny hair smells sweet and familiar. “Look, Mum, I have legs as long as you! I’m a big girl!” she says, stretching out her four-year-old legs next to mine.
A dozen little girls huddle together on a dirty couch. A single light bulb sheds pale, yellowy light their soft cheeks, their shiny hair. Their legs aren’t long enough to reach the dusty floor. Their ‘owner’ brings a man into the room…
I remember being four, and learning to ride a bike, my mother standing behind me to help keep me steady. She was so proud of me when I stayed up all by myself.
He doesn’t look at her face. He doesn’t see her beautiful brown eyes. He doesn’t know her name. He points at her, and she is pulled off the couch.
Top photo: from International Justice Mission
Bottom photo: “Rescue Me” by Terri Carter, Not For Sale Campaign
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