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.
