Home Alone

This is a story about a little girl living just outside Simwatachela in southern Zambia. Her name is Lesiana Mutambwa and she lost her parents for some months ago.

Lesiana outside her home

Her parents was getting ill and she can not tell witch kind of disease they had. It started with her father that get a very bad coughing and then he died. Her mother get some kind of very high fever and she died just some weeks after her father. Lesiana is only 9 years old and during that time, November 2007, she continue to live at their home. She took care of everything by herself. No relatives that she know about, but her father was talking about a brother somewhere far away. The place she lived in was really in bad condition. The house itself had collapsed and to the left is the kitchen, but mostly used by the chicken and the pigs. The small building behind her was a food storage, but become to be the place where she sleep and live. That was the only one that gave her protection against wind and rain, And that one will probably collapse also any time at all. Most of the yard was very muddy and dirty from the pigs faeces. The smell was horrible and it is so hard to understand how some one could live here. She was not able to take care of the animals  and they just did as they want to, and have to find whatever they could to eat. Not so far from the houses it was a dead pig, and probably the other pigs had start to eat on that one.

The house ruin occupied by the pigs

The house they lived in before had totally collapsed and was overtaken by the pigs. It collapsed during the last rain season. I was visiting her when the rain season just started so probably the collapsed had been for one year ago almost. During this time she had lived by her own and no one of the small villages around her didn't know, or they wouldn't like to know. This is not so unusual because people are afraid for transmitted diseases and they also have one mouth more to feed if they take some more child to their home. So a lot of children, just like Lesiana, have to be able to take care of them self and their sister and brothers if they have some.

I was talking to some neighbours and they think her parents was died by malaria, but no one was quite sure. All of the people I talked to said they didn't know about Lesiana, but I didn't believed that. Lesiana told me that a lot of her chicken had been stolen and also all goats her family had. So probably all neighbours around know exactly how it was in this home.

I found a home for her in Maamba and took her there. It was an farmer and his wife that didn't had any children. Their daughter had move out long time ago and they couldn't get any more children. So they where happy to take care of Lesiana. I also took her to Maamba District Hospital so they could examine her and check if there was any problem with her. They couldn't find any health problem except for malnutrition.
She was so happy to get a new home but she said that she was sorry that her parent couldn't see how good these people was that taking care for her. We hired a truck and get back to her old place and took the pigs and the rest of the chicken to the farmer. He put them in some place separated from the other one, like an quarantine, and hope they not are in bad condition.

Every year there is thousands and thousands children dying alone in Africa. A lot of them is not reach the age of 10, and even less reach the age of 15.

Supported School

This is how a supported school is running. For the first there is not any children from the very poor villages, only children with families that have afford to let their kids go there. A supported school has only educated teachers and also gives the children food for lunch, they have facilities for the children such as toilet and hand washing pumps. Almost all children have something to write on and enough books for education. All children have their specific place with chairs and benches. Almost all supported school is also helped by different organizations to get cement to repair their buildings or hygiene facilities. It is easier for these organizations to write some nice reports so their supporters and donors can see what they have done. In this way it is easier to claim more money for different projects and have afforded to give a proper salary to the project leaders.

Headmaster together with grade 7

  Siamuyala School is a school just outside Sinazeze. This school I s supported by the government and Ministry of the school is sending teachers here. This school is an attracted school and has a good position. It is easy to reach the school by car and it is not far from the main road. All the teachers are given houses or likely to live in and of course they have an proper salary. The headmaster is quite proud of the school and lovely has a sit together with grade 7. Something that differ quite much from a non supported school, problems with missing children depended on pregnancy, child work or other reasons is not so distinguishing here. It happens but not so often at all.

School building in Siamuyala

Cement delivered to Siamuyala

Teachers house in Siamuyala

  A teacher in Siamuyala School is having a monthly salary from 600.000 – 800.000 kwacha and the headmaster get 2.5 million kwacha. That compared with a non supported school that not get any salary, but in best cases have some few kwacha time to time. But in Zambia the supported school is not so many as non supported schools, so most of the children in Zambia are educated by uneducated teachers.

  To give all this help to supported school is much better for organizations. It is very cheap for them and they can write some fine reports, less work and a good response from the government. 

Non Supported School

A lot of children in schools in Africa don’t have any books, pens, papers or even any benches and chairs to sit at.  They sit directly on the ground or some stones or likely. If they have to do some notes they do it directly in the soil and they cannot take it with them. So all the notes they have to remember, but most of them don’t do. To learn something new is very hard for a lot of children. That is also one of the reasons why so many people don’t have the ability to count, read or write.

  A good example is Kasiika School in Fodwi in the southern part of Zambia. That school is a village school that accommodates 340 children from grade 1 to grade 5. The school is growing every year and the teacher’s ability to take care of the children is being worthier and worthier. The teachers working in Kasiika School are 2, and they are two brothers that try their best to educate them in the best way they can. Patrick, which is the older brother, has a function as headmaster also. But only 2 teachers with all this children are impossible to educate them well. They cannot give the children books or likely, because the school is owned by 5 villages around Fodwi together. These villages are very poor and cannot give the teachers any salary. If the harvest from the field be good, they can get some part of it instead for salary, but mostly they don’t get anything. They do this because they have a good soul and have a strong feeling to help the children and villages.

The ruins after Kasiika School and some sad pupils

  Some facts about Kasiika School.

The school is running by the villages around Fodwi. December 20 2007 the school was collapsed caused by the heavy rain during the rainy season. The bricks that the school was built on were attached together with sand and material from termite nest. This is the most common way to built with bricks because cement is too expensive for them. The school is not having any facilities for cooking or health. To go to the toilet they just use the bushes and no chance to clean their hands. They have a rope pump nearby, but this one needs to be repaired, and they can’t do it by themselves. When the well was made no one learned them how to maintenance it or repair it. So they need to get it fixed by a professional that they don’t have afforded with. The school is not supported by the government which is one of the reasons why it have a lack of education material and educated teachers.

  To be a supported school by the government they need to have houses to offer for the teachers. They need to have a good and attracted school, not built with bricks and sand. They need to be able to offer the teachers food and a fair salary. Then there are some other smaller requirements which are quite easy to fulfil.

  So, Kasiika School will probably be like it is today for a very long time if not something drastically will happens so it can change for them.

Children should be Children

During the childhood all children need to play with their toys or friends. Go to school and meet the classmates, to the playground or likely to kick some ball or other activities. All children really need to have some fun and do what they like to.

Their toys are made of soil

  In Zambia most of the children don’t have any toys to play with. They have to make their own toys of mud, the soil, plants or what they can find. Almost all children I met in Zambia were playing with stones. Just like us in the industrial countries playing with the small stone and glass balls. But they did it with natural stones. This was the most common games for all small children. When they growing up little bit they start to play football, but the ball is made of some rubber, plastic, leather or other parts that could be like a ball. They didn’t have any football shoes or shoes at all, barefoot and not so flat ground to kick on. But they really love to play football.

  Soon they start to be so old, just around 13 and up, so they have to work at the field when they not are in school. They maybe get some job in the coal mines, that they are minor no one care about, and Zambia actually have a law that forbid minor to work, but as it is in many African countries, it is just people. The money is the power. If the children is not working and don’t have any fields to work on, then it is a big risk they fall in to alcoholism or drugs. The boys mostly.  

  Girls, a lot of them is given away to a man for marriage, even if they only around 12 or 13 years old. This is because the fathers use their daughters to get some land. A daughter is more used for affairs then humans. And the man, who takes the young girl as a wife, is probably having one or more wives. They have one that is married by the law on paper, and the rest is for working on the fields, or for pleasure.

  Then there are a lot of girls that is falling in to the sex business. A lot of young girls start very early to sell sex. As I told before there was a girl in a school that dropped the school after being pregnant. And that was because she was in to sex business, the father forced her to stay home and she was not allowed to go away from the home. She was a shame for the family. He could not give her away as promised to a man with good land and now she is just a burden for him. This is not rare, quite often this happens. But many times it is the family that sends the girl to sell sex, so the family can get some money. And in Zambia, just as it is in most of the African countries, females are not worth anything. This is very slowly changing but it is going to slow. Too many minor girls is falling in to this and then they have to start with drugs or likely to kill the pain in their souls. And this is happening long before they reach an age of 18. A woman in Africa is a sex object, cheep workers, someone to have fun with or take care of the homes.

  Most of the families wish boys when they are pregnant, because they will rise up and become someone who get income to the family, and take care of the parents when they grow older, if they do. Girls are more seen as an accident, instead for a child. This is very common and actually a lot of fathers start to find a man with good land at once to give the daughter to when times come.

All children in Africa love to play, they really love to go to school and they just like any other child love to have fun. But in Africa they are not allowed to be child even when they are.

This is not all children but way too many that this fits in to.

Born Doomed

Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison was built 1961, and then it was made for 400 prisoners. Today this prison will accommodate up to nearly 1500 prisoners, but still just made for 400. So the cells is really overcrowded, all of them. I could not find out how many women and children it was accommodated in the female section. But it is a lot. And a lot of these women’s have children together in the cells. Some of the females is under age of 18 and have children in prison too.

 This is a story about a girl who gets to Mukobeko when she was 13 years old, for stealing clothes in Kabwe center. The time I was talking to her she didn’t know exactly how long time she have been there, but she thought it could have been 1.5 year. She hasn’t seen any lawyer or likely and still waiting for someone to represent her. For a girl in that age is very dangerous in the prison and for all females at all. She was raped by a guard that probably transmitted HIV to her, and now had a baby for her. The baby was born in the prison and also has to stay with her. The condition for them is very bad. Sometimes they don’t get clean water for several days and if they want to have food enough to eat, they can if she has sex with the guard. Normally it should be female guards for the female section, but time to time the male guards coming to pleasure them self. And when they do they always chose the youngest girls and no one can do anything than just follow them. But even the female guards sometimes rape them and other prisoners. If her son has HIV she doesn’t know and probably they never will know.

  The time I visited the prison was January 2008 and if she still are there I don’t know. I tried to visit her 2 weeks after that but then they said there was no one with that name there. Probably I caused a very dangerous situation for her when she was talking to me, some guards was always near during the visit. I was not allowed to take any pictures and I was not allowed to do any notes. She tried to give some paper that she had written something on but the guards took it immediately. She was absolutely not the only minor girl in there, and how many children it is born and held there together with their mothers will probably never get out in public. These children are really born doomed and will never feel the freedom in the same way other children do. And what have they done. Absolutely nothing.

  Everyday some minor girls and boys will be raped in Zambian prisons. Everyday minor children get the risk to be transmitted by TB, depending on that they have to stay in same cell together with TB infected prisoners. Cells that are made for up to 40 inmates sometime accommodate 140 – 150 inmates. The health problem is growing worthy for every year. A lot of the inmates have not even been into trial yet, even after years behind bars. And probably not all get into trial before they die. 

  This is not a manuscript for a bad drama movie or a short story for editorial. This is the real life for a lot of children and adults in Zambia. It is easy for anyone to visit some prisons in Zambia. They even have days for tourists, but then they don’t see the prisoners like I did. I get this contact with that girl with help from Christina Care Center in Kabwe, where I met a man who knows this girl because he was working to help children in prison. And a child should not be punished like that for stealing clothes.

Grade 7

I joined some pupils to their school for one day to see how it was in a class. They are going at grade 7 in a school in Sinazeze. This school is not supported by the government because the school is not attractive for teachers to work in. Most of the teachers are uneducated and work in the school for food. The day in this school, just as it is started in all other school, start with a pray. Everybody is in some way into a religious group or likely. After the pray the teacher present me for rest of the class. But everybody already knows who I am.

 (I have been her for 5 month when I joined this class. I am the only white in the area and Sinazeze is not big at all. Even people from other villages I even had visit yet knows who I am.)

 Today this class should start with mathematic lesson. This lesson is even easy for our children in grade 5 to do. During the time they was counting on the task they get from the teacher, he start to talk to me. The teacher asked me if it was possible to get an sponsor for him. He would like to take a course to be an educated teacher. He tried to give the children what he thought was the right thing, but he was not sure if it was right. This was making me to start wondering a lot. A teacher in a school working with children in grade 7, and he is not sure if he teach them the right things. We sat and talked whole time when the children did their tasks. And this man was also teacher for grade 5 and 6. And most of the time they give the same tasks for all children. He starts with grade 7 and has two lessons this day with them, mathematic and English. Then in the afternoon class he takes grade 5 and 6 together and teaches them almost the same thing. And that will be all for this day.

The children are starting to be finish with their tasks and then they will have a brake before they start with English class. They will have the right answered from mathematic task when they get back after the brake. I notice that some chairs were empty and ask the teacher about it. There was some that didn’t show up today. Two of the boys probably where working in the coalmine and the girl that was missing is pregnant and have dropped the school. She is 13 years old and pregnant. And maybe the father is one of the truck drivers. They are not sure of that. This is something I have to find out more of later.

After the brake the children was coming in to the class again and they all start to thanks the teacher for the brake in the same time. Then it was time for the English class. This day they would like me to lead the class and I said I can. I asked the children what they would like to talk about. (In English class they just talk English and writing some words on the blackboard. Normally they talk Tonga.)  One boy asked if I could talk about Sweden. Of course I did. They were so excited of everything and couldn’t even imagine how it could be. And what they absolutely not could understand was that all children have to go to school and we don’t pay the school for that. This becomes to be a big discussion. Even the teacher was fascinated by that. We talked so much about it so the lesson was finished very fast.  They get some new words that I wrote down on the blackboard and then the teacher tried to translate them to Tonga. It was hard for him too, because all the words are not used in Tonga and how he should translate them in the best way. But all the children and the teacher was satisfied with the lesson. He asked if I could come back some other day and have another lesson for them. I will try I said.

The class room become to be to small for the whole class

 I was coming back to the school after one week and I told the teacher witch day it should be. And that day the classroom was totally filled, and I have no idea where all the children were coming from. All this children was going in the class but not so often they are in the school at the same time. It was only that pregnant girl that not was in, but all others. The teacher explained for me that he divide the class. The first part he have Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and the other part Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.  But this day they all came because I should come and talk about Europe. The teacher had also cancelled the lessons for grade 5 and 6 that day.

I had a real great day and I think all the children liked it too. The boys, almost all of them, were during the brake asking me about some of the English footballs team. I was not so in to football as they was, so they was quite proud that they know more about it than I did.

But these days I spent in that school taught me a lot of what they need in school and how their classes can be improved. More about the lessons in Zambia will come later.

Single Orphan

 I found a mother on a street with two children and her husband was died after an accident where he lost one leg. They was living in a house just outside Dar es Salaam and he had quite good job. But efter a time he started do get some infections in the leg and they didn’t had any insurance to cover the costs for the doctor. So the infection started to be real bad and then he get gangrene infection. He died from that and left his wife and two children without anything. He didn’t had any relatives to take care of his family and also her relatives turned the back to them. 

Mother with two children

So these two and his wife had to leave the house and start begging and living on the streets. It is very rare that a woman with children can find someone to take care of them or to find a man that are willing to get involved with a woman with children. So if they don’t own the house then they have to leave. Very often these women don’t have any job and to find a job for a woman with two children is almost impossible. If they still are alive you will find them on the streets in Dar es Salaam and begging, if they have power enough to do that, for surviving.

 There is a small town called Batoka in Zambia where I find a mother and her son, 12 years old, who lost his husband in AIDS. They live in the house he build up just outside the town and have some small place where they can grow maize. Both of them are only working with their own farming as much as possible. For the lady to find a job is totally out of question. They don’t have any regular income, and only get some kwacha (Zambian money) time to time. For one month they earned around 10.000 kwacha. In that time 2008 us$1 was 3850 kwacha. And she was also infected with HIV and has to see a doctor time to time. To go to Choma and back cost her 10.000 kwacha so it was almost impossible for to go there and get the ARV she need for the sickness. If the son is infected they don’t know because they haven’t got him tested. He is also the man in the house so he has to take care of his mother and all other necessary things that need to be done at the home. To go to the school was not possible for him because of the costs. And here it was no school open for anybody to join, like it can be in some small villages. He can when he will be 15 start to work in some mines, even if it is not allowed to work in that age to support himself and his mother, if he lives for that long. A lot of children never reach their 15 year birthday.

This was two stories about single orphans in the big city and a small town. I will continue to tell more about children in Africa, but it will be little more mixed about different situation for them. 

Double Orphan

I will start to explain my experience of children in Zambia and Tanzania.

 I have spent time with children in different environments to see the difference between them. It is a big different between children in towns, children on the countryside and children in the bush. Also a big different if they are orphans or it they have parents alive.

Children can be orphans in two ways. Single or double orphan. A single orphan have one parent, mother or father, in life, and a double orphan have lost both their parents. If a children is a double orphan and don't have any relatives that can take care of them or relatives in life, then they are alone. Real alone.
They don't have any rights at all and most of them don't have a chance to go to school. Very often there is some sister or brother to take care of also.

Now I will write about some double orphans. The place is a small town, Sinazeze, and a big city, Lusaka.

Forced to be adult

This girl was only 9 years old and took care of her younger brother. She was standing and looked at the event in Sinazeze December 1, World AIDS day. I asked if she understand what the event was for, and she told me that all youth and children like dance and singing. She didn't had a clue of the message in the song or speeches,  the text at the banners she couldn't read, and even if she could she probably didn't understand it. All her time is going to take care of her brother. To go out and beg for food and to take care of her died parents home. She had been forced to be an adult, and this at an age of 9 year. I asked about her parents what was happening with them. She told that they become to be ill and then they just die. What they died of she didn't know. I found out from some people that they both died in AIDS, If this girl and her brother are infected by HIV no one will now. They don't have the possibility to check because of the costs, and they are orphans so why should someone help them. And this is not a story just for these two children, thousands and thousands is in the same position, just like these two.

To be an orphan in a city or bigger town, is even harder. They can not do farming as a lot of children in the bush can. They live on the streets and can only survive by begging and steeling. They can not keep the home because they can't pay the rent for it, and the community homes for orphans is over filled. It is only the streets left for them. These ones are really doomed and thousands of street children dies every year. Just because no one can or will take care of them. After some time out on the streets no one will take them to there homes and no institutes or likely will not take them in to the system, if it will be an available place for them.
After a time a lot of them will be alcoholic or addicted to drugs.
 There is a lot of children, just around 10 years old, that inhale glue just to flee from the reality. When I met a boy that was addicted to the glue, it was impossible to find any life in his eyes. He looked at me, but the sight was just going through me and somewhere else. He smiled but it was not a soul who did it. It was just an reflex, and then he continued to inhale his glue.

Tomorrow I will write about some single orphans