January 2nd
Today I just needed a breather. A little time away from the constant needs of the Quarter - needs that I can’t possibly meet. A little time for myself without people jockeying for my time and yanking me in every direction. As they say in the Quarter, “feel free,” yet when I’m in there, I’m never free. There are too many problems I hear daily and I’m helpless to solve every woe. I’m anything but free as good-intentioned people make unreasonable demands on my time. Free choice does not exist in the Quarter.
So today I slept in and gave myself the day off - time to catch up on emails and go to the local book store to find a good read to distract me. By 10:30, as I typed away at an internet cafe, that all changed. After ignoring repeated phone calls, I finally picked up to hear Ayoo Jennifer’s distressed voice. “I’m in the clinic. I’m hurt. I sat on glass. Come quickly.”
I jumped on the first boda boda and sped off to the Quarter. I found Ayoo in the clinic laying awkwardly on a bare and stained vinyl mattress, wrapped from the waist in an equally stained and dingy fabric. Her eyes red from the tears that still flowed.
She had sat on a large piece of glass and had a cut that stretched across her left thigh and butt about 4 inches long and seem to be quite deep. The first nurse to come to her aid had been too frightened by the depth of the laceration splintered with pieces of glass to do anything. So they had waited for a second nurse to clean the wound and stitch it up.
Ayoo lay there so weak that she could barely speak or prop herself up. She had lost a lot of blood and had had nothing to eat or drink since the night before. I gave her one of my ever-present energy bars and gave someone money to buy some juice. That’s about the extent of my medical know-how!
After Ayoo regained her strength, a trio of us propped her up and plodded her through the narrow passageways to her home, where she immediately sunk into the couch. Her son, Bogoza, 13, sat silently watching, his eyes staring at his mother, unwilling to let her out of his focus. Tears slowly streaked his cheeks. His father already dead for many years, he knew all too well how quickly life could be snuffed out of a parent. And he was clearly afraid. Seeing his distress, Ayoo called him to her to comfort him. He tried to brave away the tears, but failed.
Later that day, Ayoo would tell me how she watched the people gather around her after she’d been carried to the clinic. She imagined that’s what her death bed would look like and she was so afraid that she would die before her children grew old enough to take care of themselves. “I’m both the mother and father,” she sadly proclaimed. I’m sure that must be a constant fear of parents everywhere, that they will die when their children are young. But there’s something more intense about that fear here in the Quarter. Death is a constant. A collapse in the stone quarry, a child struck with malaria, a mother succumbs to AIDS. In an instant, a 13 year old child becomes the head of household left to care for 2 younger siblings. That’s just life in the Quarter.
