Women Stories.2

One night Mattia was walking up the hill to do some late evening shopping, when he met Olivier, one of the SKids, with the usual double-sided expression: happy and smiling on the surface, worried underneath. He was going back home, where, as he answered to the useless question, there was no food, so Mattia bought a couple of mangoes and decided to walk him home. It was a long way, from dirt roads to rocky paths, from small shops' dim lights to moonlit alleyways to utter darkness, slowly following the boys' steps and trying not to fall, but at the end we reached a mud-brick house at the end of the neighbourhood, among other similar houses, some overgrown bushes and a few banana trees. By it was quite late, nearly 10.00pm, but Olivier wanted Mattia to meet his mum, so after a little banging on the front and then back door, finally a lady with a baby in her arms appeared to thank  for food and receive the good news that her boy would soon be taken back to school. Kindly enough, Olivier insisted to take Mattia back to the main road, which was definitely necessary, at least for the first dark bit.

A few days later Mattia took Eraste along the same path, which by the way is just two roads down from a very rich neighbourhood, where the Bishop and the Executive Secretary live, and nearly made it to the house without help, then Olivier heard them and came to the rescue, though Mattia in the meantime had found the way...

This time there was time, and most of all a mother-tongue speaker, to find out more about the family and we understood the story was not going to be nice when the mother sent Olivier and his younger brother away, something quite rare, as usually kids are tolerated, and not considered as present...

Angelique let us sit outside the house, on a low bench along the mud-wall, then sat on a mat, breastfeeding her young baby, and started telling: her husband used to beat her everyday, even to point of causing an inch-long scar on her wrist, and her mother-in-law didn't like her either, to the point of chasing her out of her land; so away she went, with a two-year-old Olivier and his older sister. Now she lives there, paying rent, even more than Mugisha's mother (see post below), or better having to pay rent, because with no work how can she pay anything? She used to sell some fruit around, like many women do, for example bananas from the trees behind the house, but she was nearly caught by the police (or maybe actually caught and beaten... who knows?) and she doesn't seem very keen on trying again; so, how are they surviving? Well, she didn't go into the details, but think of the two aforementioned kids, both younger than Olivier and the answer is easy, the same we got from the lady in our previous story. Luckily we managed to understand she's got no AIDS, but the situation is still quite grim: her oldest daughter seems to be in secondary school (so she's getting food) thanks to some other support, now Olivier is in primary, with everything paid for, but there are still herself, two boys and a baby to provide for, with no desirable source of income. 

Some time later Mattia took another night stroll with Olivier, to take 10kg of rice to Angelique, so for  three or four weeks they'll be OK, then we'll see...