As we stepped out of the khaki concrete terminal that served as Entebbe’s airport, the heat and dust of the air greeted us like an overwhelming aunt, covering us and pushing us and taking possession of our eyes and mouths and bodies.
Mama Akanit shifted her kanga about her head, pulling it in closer to protect her from the powdery red earth that filled our mouths. She had stood out like a beacon as we emerged from the customs hall. Draped in colorful cloth as bright as a field of tropical flowers, as large as a hippopotamus and as shining black as a beach pebble from a volcanic sand, she held aloft a hand the size of my head and trumpeted my name in a voice destined to carry across the most packed marketplace.
She parted the seas of people in front of her with one majestic wave of a paw and flowed towards us until she towered over me, benevolent and redolent of sandalwood oil and good humor.
“My name is Akanit. It means ‘hard times’ in my language, but such a name is a blessing when it is offered, because a body who can move through hard times and still grow to be good and strong is a powerful body indeed, and this is me.”
She bowed first to Grace.
“You are the child who will bring us compassion, it is written in your face and your name speaks the truth. Welcome.”
Next, she turned to Lillia.
“The mystical creatures have spoken of you on the wind; they send their greetings and thank you in advance. Welcome to you also.”
Finally she turned to me and looked at me with great interest.
“And you, the mother who brings her children to the mouth of the river that is their destiny. You have the courage of a lioness, I think, who protects her cubs while she prepares them for their lives to come.”
She clapped me on the back heartily and smiled a strangely tender smile.
“But do not fear, because the creatures of the wind have much in store for you as well.”
She bent down to pick up the heavy cases.
“But first, let me take you to your new home.”
After two bone-shattering hours perched in an ancient four wheel drive vehicle laden down with every kind of produce it was possible to imagine, I spat another mouthful of feathers from the cage of chickens balanced on my lap and followed Mama Akanit’s finger to the rough outpost of buildings some distance in front of us.
Lillia, amazingly, was sleeping the sleep of the just in the back seat, leaning against a bag of grain. Grace, who had spent the entire voyage shouting her delight (“Look Mummy, a lion! Look Mummy, an elephant! Look Mummy, a man with a gun!”) gazed silently at the buildings as we drew closer. Up close, they were less than impressive, more like some falling down temporary shelters than a hospital and orphanage.
Lightly, I told her that this was the start of our adventure and that the buildings were probably much nicer inside than out, to which Mama Akanit snorted derisively.
Grace looked at me, concern written large in her eyes.
“I certainly hope they are nicer inside, because we only have to stay there for a little while, but the other children have to live there.”
Mama Akanit turned to look at my child while the truck continued its bumpy route, unperturbed by her lack of attention.
“In Africa, we say that if we do not have windows, it is so the gods can breathe on us as we sleep. Don’t worry, my little gnu, there are much bigger problems than some old houses.”
She turned back and smiled me cheerfully.
“Your child has a good heart.”
I nodded but inside my own heart squeezed, one of the little flashes of fear that I’d been having since we’d left. What if I was exposing the girls to physical danger? And what if I was completely destroying their innocent children’s hearts, by plunking them down in the middle of such misery.
There was no more time for reflection as the vehicle screeched to a halt in front of the largest building, kicking up a huge cloud of dust that served to cover the fifty or sixty children that arrived out of seemingly nowhere.
As the red dust settled, I could see children of all ages, from tiny babies in the arms of older girls, to young teenagers, their adolescent bravado the same the world over. It was only when I looked closer that I saw that almost all of the children, even the babies, were missing limbs or bearing the same vivid purple slashes across their faces. My stomach rose in my throat and all I wanted to do was grab my girls and rush back to the nearest civilized outpost, somewhere with Disney television and cold white wine, somewhere where children were children and not creatures out of Dr Mengle’s imagination.
Mama Akanit patted me gently with her rough hand.
“Every morning I cry before I get out of bed, and every evening, I cry again. And then I remember that these children are alive, when so many others are not. So they are blessed.”
If I had been able to speak without the fear of throwing up, I would have questioned her notion of blessing. Given the wounds, I could only begin to imagine how they had suffered. How could such children be blessed?
I busied myself with our bags, keeping a close eye on the girls until I was sure I could speak without tears or worse. Lillia and Grace were surrounded by a clamoring mass of kids, all of whom seemed amazed and excited by this latest addition to their lives.
I watched as Lillia held out her arms to a miniscule baby who could only have been a month old. The girl holding the baby gave a shy smile and passed her small charge over to my daughter, who held her tenderly, passing a pale finger over the tiny head.
Mama Akanit leaned into me and whispered into my ear.
“This is her baby. She is thirteen and her family was all killed by the Karamojong. She was raped but now she wants to keep the baby because it is her only family, so we must help her to finish school so that she can support her child.”
She gestured for me to follow her into the building in front of us. I called to the girls to stay where they were and went after Mama Akanit, who carried our bags as lightly as if they were air. As we made our way through rooms, each more ramshackle than the last, I reflected again on the wisdom of bringing the children to this god-forsaken place. Finally, Mama Akanit stopped in a room with no windows or doors, and three rustic camp beds lined up against the far wall. She dropped our bags with a thump, causing more dust to rise from the dirt floor.
She looked around with approval.
“Good. It is clean.”
I looked at her with consternation and she guffawed.
“Clean for us. Now clean for you. This morning there were still scorpions but now no more.”
She bent down and pulled out three UN-issue packets from under the bed.
“Mosquito nets. Never forget them. Now, come, we will go and meet the others.”
“Ok, but I have to go back and make sure the girls are safe. They don’t know about all of the dangers here…”
I wound off, uncertain of how to say that I was more worried about the horrors they might hear, rather than the risk of scorpions or other bush creatures.
The large black woman gazed at me for a moment and then took both of my hands in hers.
“You are right to feel afraid. Being here will change your children right in their hearts. But you have been brought here for a reason, and so have your daughters. Now you must trust that they will hear and learn from the lessons of this place.”
I understood what she was saying. Everything that had brought us here, every reason I had for coming on this epic journey, was designed to put us out of our comfort zones, hopefully for a good greater than our own. But it was hard to imagine my protected, tenderhearted babies dealing with issues that were so large as to be simply overwhelming to adults, let alone the innocents I knew them to be.
Out again in the sunshine, I held up my hand against the blinding light and gazed in wonder at my little angels. Lillia was sitting on an upturned wooden case, gently cooing at the little baby in her arms, while Grace was sitting on the floor having her white blond hair braided into cornrows by a busy team of small girls. I watche
d in awe as one of the girls managed to braid, one handed, her other arm a useless stump at her shoulder.
Mama Akanit nudged me.
“See? Making friends already. Children know that life is too short to wait, so they make friends without care for tomorrow.”
She raised her voice and uttered a command in a language I did not recognize. Immediately, all the children stopped what they were doing and looked to her for further instructions.
“Now I speak in English for our friends.”
She indicated each of us with a large finger.
“We welcome our guests as our family.”
She pointed again to each one of us in turn.
“You must look out for them, and help them. Teach them to speak our languages. Help them to know the heart of our Africa. Keep watch in the bush when they peepee, for they know not the dangers of the creatures who will profit from such fair white skin.”
The children laughed, all except a young boy who stood transfixed on the edge of the crowd.
While Mama Akanit issued a few more orders, I took a moment to check that the girls were not feeling too overwhelmed. Lillia smiled up at me, her Madonna’s face glowing more than ever.
“Look Mum, look at how tiny he is.”
Lillia stroked his soft caramel forehead and the baby gurgled up at her.
“His name is Paul. I chose it because his mum wanted a holy name and Saint Paul was the guy who was blinded by lightning and then got to see because he had faith.”
She smoothed the wiry little curls on the baby’s head.
“I want him to have faith that his life will be better than his mother’s life.”
Grace snuck over and snuggled into my side, her hand reaching up to touch my hair as she always did when she was upset. I knelt down to look into her eyes, and saw that they were shining with unshed tears.
“My baby, are you OK? This is a lot to take in, I know.”
Grace shook her head and smiled bravely at me.
“I’m not sad for me, Mummy. I am sad for my friends. They don’t have any mummies or daddies anymore. Or houses or anything but they are so kind to us.”
She looked at me questioningly.
“How come they are so nice when people have been so mean to them? Why aren’t they filled up to the top with hate?”
I pondered for a moment. It was a good question. How was it that those who suffered the most, or had the least, found the energy to be so generous? I thought of the poorer mothers from school who always sent the more expensive gifts to birthday parties, and of my own angel, Mrs. Brinkley, who gave her time and money to those who really needed help, even though she lived on limited means and was clearly getting on in years.
“I don’t know, my darling. Maybe it’s their way of stopping the cycle of cruelty.”
I patted her neat little cornrows.
“I like your hair. It really suits you.”
She smirked at me and gave my hand a squeeze before bouncing off to rejoin her friends. I watched her chattering away and trying out African words as her friends pointed out the essentials in their world. Mama Akanit was right – part of this journey was learning to find the balance between safety and freedom, support and encouragement, the trial of every parent I knew and my own particular daily struggle.
It was then I noticed the little boy, standing on the outskirts of the group, watching intently but remaining aloof from the children around him. He caught me staring and flinched, shrinking into himself as I tried out a friendly wave. Mama Akanit shook her head.
“It is no use to wave. The boy’s heart cannot see, even if there is no problem with his eyes.”
She gazed at him impassively for a moment and then turned to me.
“One truth you must know immediately. Some of these children we will never save. Some we must let go back to the devil that took them. For some, we are just too late.”
She looked at me to see if I had understood, and I nodded back, even though I could not for a moment imagine letting any of these children “return to the devil”.
“He killed his parents, and his two brothers and sisters. On the orders of the boss soldiers who took him as their own, he shot and killed each member of his family. He was eight when this happened, now he is twelve and he has been with us for three years. We only know what happened because two of the other children are from the same village and they witnessed this with their own eyes.”
I couldn’t believe it. Even after researching and reading hundreds of articles about child soldiers and the atrocities they were forced to commit, I still couldn’t even begin to imagine that the quiet child in front of me was a murderer.
“Aren’t the other children afraid of him?” I asked Mama Akanit, making a mental note to tell the girls to stay well away from him.
“No, they have seen far worse. Anyway, the boy was in the power of the black junk…”
Noting my confusion, she clarified.
“Heroin. He was so filled up with the poison that if we hadn’t got him, he would have died from it very soon. So the children know that what he did was not something that came from him; it came from the evil in his veins and the evil people around him.”
Later, after we had made the basic rounds and got our bearings, Mama Akanit left me alone for an hour while she went to consult with the radio to find out when the doctor was expected the following day. I brushed off the nearest camp bed and sank into it, overwhelmed by jetlag and the heat, but mostly by the evidence of evil around me. What had seemed like a good idea back in the safety of our clean, loving home, now seemed like a folly. How could anything we did here help? There was simply too much to do, and so much misery around. I tried to remember what Ombeline had said, that saving even one child meant saving the next generation, but it wasn’t enough. All around us, so much misery, and all I was going to do was destroy the secure world of my own children as they learned that the world was indeed a dreadful place.
12
Chicken bone truths