A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [51]
Her little ones come up and greet us on the path, “Karibu! Welcome.” The twins, around ten years old, smile shyly and offer a handshake. I carry Generose’s sweet four-year-old daughter, who’s wearing a polka-dotted dress and has big baby-doll eyes, to their dark stick-and-mud hut.
Generose introduces a matronly, officious looking woman who is lurking in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She says, “This is the proprietor of the house.”
I sit down, ignoring the woman.
Generose continues. “The problem I have is, I’m at the hospital. The proprietor is chasing the children from the house. We do not pay at the moment.”
I’m doing my best to ignore what she just said; I feel like I’ve walked into a trap. “Right,” I say. “Which of the children is sick? The little one?”
Generose reiterates. “The proprietor is chasing us.”
Is this posturing, some kind of act?
“Who stays with the children when you’re in the hospital?” I ask her, forging on.
“They stay by themselves. Sometimes the proprietor takes care of them.”
Generose pulls out a small bundle of my letters and photos. She has tucked them in between her only remaining photo of her husband. “I want to show you my husband who died in the war.”
In the photo, they stand together casually at the hospital where she worked. “The request is, as I don’t have a husband, I’d like to have a small house of my own. If possible, I can live quietly if I have my own house.”
Mercy. I have to nip this in the bud. “I can’t do that,” I say. “I’ll pay for the surgery. But I have so many sisters. I can’t build everyone a house. It wasn’t even my money that sponsored you. I asked other people to give money.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she says. “The children are being chased from the house. I have a debt of sixty dollars in back rent.”
“Sixty dollars?” I say. “The problem is, every sister has told me they have problems. I don’t have enough money to give every sister sixty dollars. Do you understand? If I give it to one sister, every sister will expect it. They’ll be angry with me.”
I do the calculation in my head: 200 times US$60 equals US$12,000. “I don’t have that money.”
“Ndiyo. Ndiyo. Ndiyo. Ndiyo,” she says. “ I understand. Thanks for what you promised to do for the surgery.”
“It’s a special case, because it is life or death,” I tell her.
Fellow slum-dwellers have piled up in the doorway. It is exactly what HQ warned: If you visit sisters in their homes, all of a sudden they are tagged as having money. Nothing but harassment will follow—demands for money, theft—unless I can address it publicly, right now, head on. For the benefit of onlookers, I speak loudly and clearly. “The other problem is, if I left money with you, you would have problems with neighbors coming. So it would be dangerous.”
“I thank you,” Generose says. “I would like for you to take this photo.” She hands me the photo of her husband. I can’t believe she would offer it to me. “This is your only photo of your husband, isn’t it? You keep that one.” She thinks the better of it too. “Yes, okay.”
The landlady hangs around. I look back at Generose after we say goodbye and her expression—apprehensive, strained, disappointed—says it all. That was no act. Her kids are going to be thrown out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Road to Baraka
“YOU’R E GOING TO drive us through ‘treacherous rebel territory’ today?” I ask Moses, Women for Women’s field driver.
“Yes!” He bursts out laughing.
“Do you think the drive is safe?” I ask.
“No problem.”
“We’re driving through Mai Mai territory?”
“Yes.”
“Will we see the Mai Mai?”
He smiles. “We hope we can.”
I laugh. So does Kelly. I’m actually not sure why we’re laughing. It isn’t that funny. But it is nice to have someone from home to giggle with, even if we are only half amused, half feeding off of each other’s hunger for adventure.
Kelly is joining me for this leg of the trip. She surprised me a few days ago when she came to visit me at Orchid and told me she has run out of money. With only US$300 left, she doesn’t have nearly enough to make it through her last week, even