One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [66]
He arrived at the center in a swirl of loud and rowdy kids, all excited to be picked out of the market and given lunch, crayons, a ball to kick around, and the ear of a foreigner. This certainly did not happen to them everyday. Many had never met a mzungu before.
It was hard to discuss very much with any one child, as all the others would gather around to use the crayons or listen to the conversation. They liked to weigh in about their favorite movies, laughing and joking about the best parts: a cool gun battle in Rambo, a funny dismemberment in Starship Troopers. All the films were violent, and all ages attended the screenings. As we talked about Bruce Lee and some fantastic kung fu moves, I looked around and realized that twenty boys surrounded me. Among all of the kids who had come that day, not one was a girl. I asked the caretaker about this.
“The girls are usually taken in before they come to us,” he told me.
“Taken in by whom?” I asked.
“Either the army or other men.” He told me what the aid worker had suggested. Young girls on the streets of this city have little opportunity outside of prostitution and the army and the pimps are quick to grab adolescent girls, taking advantage of their adult-like physiques and their desperation. There are few jobs for the adults, almost nothing for younger people. Many young people choose to sell themselves or go into the army because this increases their chances for survival. The pimps and the army recruiters seem to be the only options available, so children come to them. They are more than willing to put that youthful energy to use.
Robert did not know his age. He thought that he was fourteen, like the boy next to him, but he said he cannot be sure. He was separated from his parents and lived on the streets of Bukavu with no idea of their whereabouts, whether they were alive or dead. The scabs on his skin, which he could not stop scratching, could be cured by a bar of soap, “but we have no soap,” he said.
“During the Kabila war”—meaning the war in the Congo that began when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu—“we ran away from Goma with my parents. But I got lost and separated from them. There was a boat leaving, and I wanted to get on it, so I asked a woman to please say that she is my mother if they ask, because I have no money to pay for the boat. She helped me, pretended to be my mother, and I came to Bukavu on that boat.” Like most of the street kids in Bukavu, his story of homelessness began with war. Uprooted and far from home, he had no family network to look after him, only the rag-tag wisdom of thousands of other street kids who have fled to Bukavu as well.
“I met some kids when I got here and asked them where to sleep. They told me about a place near the market and let me follow them there. I spent time with them begging, but only during the day. I do not beg at night because people don’t like it, only in the day. I never steal. I try to stay away from bad people.” I noticed a package of cigarettes in the pocket of Robert’s worn out shirt.
“I am too young to smoke,” he told me. “I sell the cigarettes in the market one by one to make money.”
Manu, a lean and hungry-looking young teenager had more trouble in the market than Robert. “At first, I did not know where to go. I slept in an alley and was obliged to steal because of hunger. I lived for a month like that. At night, the police came and demanded money from me, because they knew I was begging. But I didn’t have any money, and they beat me.” A local organization that helps street kids told me that this occurs regularly. Often, they say, street children are arrested for no reason and held in prison, where they suffer abuses and malnourishment. Human rights groups pay handsome bribes to get access to these kids and monitor them, so holding street children can be a very profitable business for unscrupulous policemen. And if the human rights groups don’t know about the kids or cannot pay, there are always the pimps and soldiers.
Robert