Miss Eliza

It is with great hesitation that I write this post.  I do not take the stories I hear from the children lightly, and sharing them is not easy.  For one, it is not my place to do so without asking permission.  Secondly, these stories are not intended to simply make us feel better about our lives.  They are real.  They happened.  People lived them.  It is easy to hear a story, feel sad for a few minutes, and then go on with life.  But that’s not the point.  The point is to be changed.  The point is to let a child’s words affect you to a point of action.  One of the biggest challenges of living here is remaining sensitive to each child’s story.  Not becoming numb to them.  I cannot allow them to become the “norm,” just because they surround me.  I pray these stories continue to touch me, bring me to tears, and move me to action.  

And that is what I’m doing right now. 

I want to tell you about my new friend, Eliza.  

I have known Eliza for a few weeks.  She is quiet and shy, but very polite.  She is around during the day (when most of the children are at school), so I see her often.  Our conversations have never gone beyond the surface.  Until last Friday.

It was a slow day at the center.  I saw Eliza sitting on the bench, so I joined her.  We talked for several minutes, and I could tell something was bothering her.  

“What’s on your mind, Eliza?”  I asked her.

“I am so bored.  I just want to go to school,” she told me.  I asked why she didn’t go to school, and she said “There is nobody to take me.”

Immediately I understood: there was no money for her.  Once the children pass class 8, they are ready to enter secondary school (high school).  However, they must have a sponsor.  There is no other option.  Either you pay, or you stay home.  Unfortunately, the CYEC is too low on funding to sponsor all the youth who are of age to attend high school.   

To lift her spirits, I asked her if she would like to help me with some of my work: I was doing a needs assessment on the Zawadi Shop that day.  I wanted to hear more about her school situation, but I can’t just expect these children to trust me unless I invest in them.  So as we worked, I asked what she liked about school.  “Without an education, you go nowhere in life,” was her simple answer.  And when I asked what she enjoyed learning, her face lit up.  I wish you could have seen it, it was so beautiful.  “Chemistry!” she exclaimed.  She told me that she dreams about being a nurse.

“You will be the kindest nurse in the world,” I told her.  

We finished our work and sat on the front step outside of my room.  “I want to tell you my story,” she said.  I braced myself.  This gentle, shy girl had decided to open up to me, and I had no idea what to expect.  

Eliza was a young girl when her father murdered her mother.  She witnessed the entire thing.  Her father was sent to prison, and Eliza was taken in by a family friend.  This woman provided for her and paid for her education until the middle of Eliza’s 5^th school year.  Eliza was faced with two options: find money or drop out.  She decided to leave home briefly and find work.  She only needed 500 shillings (equal to 6 US dollars).  It took her 3 weeks to earn that much.  When she returned to school, money in hand, the teacher turned her away, saying that she was not serious about her education.  (She didn’t understand that Eliza had missed school in order to earn the money required to pay her school fees).  Soon after, Eliza’s caretaker asked her to leave: she was no longer able to feed her.  Eliza moved in with her uncle’s family.  Her uncle was a kind man, but after he died, Eliza was thrown out of the house by the aunt and cousins.  She had nowhere to go.  She moved to the streets, and slept on the sewage drains.  One night, she tried to end her life.  She had no reason to live.  No family, no one to care for her, no one to love or appreciate her.  Her suicide attempt failed, and the police found her.  They threw her in jail, and she lived in a cell for several months.  She was then moved to a children’s home, where she was able to finish class 6, 7, and 8.  She came to the CYEC in 2011.

 

Eliza’s story brought me to tears.  How can any child survive that?  She is now 17 years old, and a beautiful girl.  Each night she can be found in the library, studying with the other children.  Despite her traumatic past and her current situation, her hope remains.      

Eliza told me that she lays awake at night, wondering if she’ll ever be able to attend high school, leave the CYEC, and have a family of her own.  I told her not to worry anymore and that I would help her figure something out.  She hugged me, and told me she loved me.  “You are the kindest friend I have met,” she told me. 

And all I did was listen to her. 

 

Will you pray for Eliza?  And will you also pray for my efforts to find her a sponsor?  Before I leave in August, Eliza will be able to go to school…that is my goal.  After everything she has been through, it is her turn to be taken care of.  She deserves it.   

At the least, she deserves the very thing that I have taken for granted my entire life: an opportunity for an education and a chance at a better tomorrow. 

love,

-br

     

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."  James 2:14-17