Kenya. In
the heat of the day we walk along a dusty, red road as the children dance
around us, giggling and playing. They tug at our hands, demanding to be swung
in the air, full of joyful energy. One of them looks intently at me, pointing
at my eyes. I realise she is fascinated by her reflection in my sunglasses so I
take them off and give them to her to try on. More giggles follow, and her
friends come to investigate as we turn off the road and head towards a group of
houses in the distance. Women bent under the weight of the bundles of sticks on
their backs stop to watch us. Small children stare at us curiously.
A small,
dark room. Concrete floor, corrugated iron roof, narrow bed behind a thin
curtain. Firewood piled along one wall and across the rafters. Two smiling
faces, one old, one young, Hannah and her grandmother. I smile and extend my
hand to the old lady as she welcomes us into her home and shows us to the only
place to sit. I hold her hand in my own, noticing the wrinkled and calloused
skin that speaks of hard work and a difficult life. Her story isn’t unusual in
Africa – her daughter died soon after childbirth and with the child’s father
not around she was left to care for her granddaughter. She works every day
collecting and selling firewood to make enough money to provide for her.
Hannah.
Cheeky grin, assertive personality, determined to be first in line for the new
toys at school. Dancing, grinning, singing, skipping, never still. How is it
that she is so happy yet she has so little? She is fiercely affectionate
towards us even though she hardly knows us, claiming us as her own, gripping
our hands as if we will leave her if she does not hold on to us. And then I
realise… she has no mother, no father, both have left her. No wonder she stays
so close, holds on so tightly.
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