by Jessica Yu
Trevor, however, was unhappy. When Gladys tried to get the boy to pose with the staff for a picture, he started to cry. He apparently feared that his auntie was trying to pass him along to these strangers. And when the staff arranged for Trevor to have lunch with some of the other residents, he ran away from the dining area. They had to bring him back into the office with his food. While Gladys could not help but laugh at the boy’s stubbornness, she wondered, What am I supposed to do now? I can’t take this boy back to Entebbe, but it seems he is stuck on me.
Observing the boy’s distress, one of the staff directors commented, “You know, we must keep in mind that Trevor has been in many places.”
It was true. The boy was only about nine, but he had already been through very tough times. His life could not have been easy before he had been dumped at the clinic at Katalemwa. And in the two years since, he had been kicked down the road like his well-worn football: housed at the shipping container at the Kawempe Police Station, sent off to the ironically named Good Samaritan School, stranded after the police raid in Rakai, then settled at Early Learning for over a year before being kicked out. In Trevor’s world, change often meant bad things.
It was important, the staff told Gladys, that the boy acclimate to a new environment. Although the facility could not accept a resident as young as Trevor, the staff invited him to make weekly visits. Gladys agreed to deliver Trevor to L’Arche on Saturdays, and during the week she would contribute a small sum for the maid at Dr. Kironde’s residence to look after the boy.
The staff took Gladys and Trevor on a tour of the grounds and living areas, briefing Gladys on the routines of the community and what the boy would need while there. With Gladys and Dr. Kironde combining resources, Trevor might finally visit a place where he was understood.
Trevor seemed to sense that he was in safe company. At some point during the tour, Gladys noticed that he had taken the doctor’s hand. Then the doctor found a ball, and the two began to dribble it back and forth.
Thup thup. Shuffle shuffle THUP.
It looked so tantalizingly ordinary. If Trevor could laugh and kick a ball to a stranger, might he one day smile and greet a stranger? Might he one day sit in a classroom and ask a question? Or speak the name of his mother?
The Meat Market
ORPHANED SIBLINGS FIND CARE
Two years ago, just days before she died, Susan Nabugwere came to Saturday Vision for help in finding a Good Samaritan to cater for her children and their education. The father of her three children died earlier, leaving Alex, 9, Annet, 6, and Mercy, 5, with no parent.
Pastor Fred Shimanya of Young Hearts Orphanage read about the children in Saturday Vision and offered to take them in. Shimanya reports that the children have adjusted to the home and are studying well.
It was a nice photo, Gladys thought: the girls’ beaming faces bordering Pastor Fred’s stomach like taillights flanking the boot of a car and, if one did not look too closely, Alex’s lips pressed into something approximating a smile. As Gladys had insisted, Freddy was keeping the three siblings together at the orphanage, and she was pleased to be able to highlight his service. Press like this could benefit Young Hearts.
Perhaps it already had. When Gladys had informed Pastor Fred that she would be visiting the home again, he had sent her a message saying that he had found sponsors for Alex and his sisters. The sponsors were in town, and Gladys might even be able to meet them. This was exciting news, as sponsors could provide the children with supplies, clothing, school fees—all the things that their dying mother had hoped for them.
The day was bright and brilliant, with white clouds stretching in rows across the horizon. As Gladys, Esther, and Mike headed east on Jinja Road, the lush green hills ran with them, clusters of red roofs popping out here and there like flowers.
Before traversing the last bit of road to Young Hearts, Mike stopped at a steppingstone of a village where Gladys could buy bread. Although Pastor Fred’s enterprise did not seem to be struggling, she did not like to arrive empty-handed.
“Eh! Look at that,” she exclaimed.
Mike had parked by a butcher’s kiosk. Esther looked over to see a purplish slab of meat draped over the counter and down the front of the stand. The two women clucked their tongues in disapproval.
Gladys had once worked on an article about the Livestock and Meat Commission; she knew how meat should be kept. Behind glass, safe from flies. At the very least it should be kept hanging, not resting on a dirty surface.
Two dogs hovered nearby, noses quivering, ready for a round of snatch-and-run. “Don’t you think the meat will be put away at night, but the counter will not be cleaned, and the dogs will come and lick it?”
“Of course,” said Esther.
“And you see that stump? Where they cut the meat?” A rooster had hopped onto the makeshift butcher’s block and stood pecking at a scrap of flesh embedded in the cleaver marks. “Eh-yehh!”
Gladys wanted to get a photo, but before she could produce her camera, the chicken hopped off with his rubbery prize. Maybe she should write a follow-up article about roadside butchers and sanitation. To think that people would bring their hard-earned money to a kiosk like this one, not realizing that the meat they bought had been contaminated by flies and dogs’ tongues and chicken’s feet and God knew what else. This butcher was not bothered that a customer might end up curled into a ball of pain, or that a child might die from diarrhea.
It was the lack of caring as much as the lack of sanitation that turned Gladys’s stomach. Daily, one witnessed small offenses that could cause severe damage. From the boda drivers who dashed between vehicles to the women who used babies to beg to the men who seduced young girls, everywhere you looked there were those who played with the welfare of others in their pursuit of a shortcut or a few shillings or a moment of pleasure.
It was much rarer to find people at the other end of the spectrum, those few souls drawn to clean up the destruction caused by others. People like Pastor Fred. True, she did not agree with his old-fashioned philosophies concerning gender roles and the need for girls to marry, but how many people would pick up the phone after reading an article about three homeless, penniless siblings and offer help?
AS GLADYS, ESTHER, and Mike drove onto the grounds of Young Hearts, they could see progress in the home’s construction: the long building across from the office had a roof now, and several smaller structures were under way. Thanks to the recent rains, the green of the yards was as solid as pool-table felt. Younger children washed clothes in a tub while older children worked a patch of garden with hoes. A tethered cow nibbled at the dense grass.
The primary purpose of Gladys’s visit to Young Hearts was to see Benjamin, the abused infant of young Sylvia, the girl who had claimed to have been bewitched by a chapati. But Gladys was also eager to check on Alex, Annet, and Mercy, whom she had not been able to visit for a long time.
Pastor Fred was coming from his residence, one of the staff assistants reported. Once he arrived, they would bring out baby Benjamin.
“Where do you keep the babies?” Gladys asked. “I would like to see where they stay.”
The assistant explained that the babies’ quarters were behind the office, but she needed to check with Pastor Fred before taking visitors back there.
There were other parts of the compound to explore, and Gladys did not feel shy. She had brought children into this home, after all. With the assistant close on her heels, she crossed courtyards and chatted with students and peeked into classrooms and dorm rooms, all the time keeping an eager eye out for Alex and his sisters. She had expected to have seen them by now. Surely Freddy had told them that she would be coming by?
When they circled back to the office, the pastor met them, his broad face gleaming. “You are looking younger these days,” he said to Gladys in greeting. “I was telling people that this old woman was looking after these kids, but now you are looking so young.”
It was not the most gracious co
mpliment ever delivered, but Gladys accepted it with a good-natured laugh. The only thing that had changed about her appearance was her hair. On her last visit to Young Hearts she had worn a smooth, short cap of a hairstyle. The ladies at the salon had convinced her to switch to a looser style, one with dangling curls all over, the size and shape of peapods. Gladys had worried it might be too youthful a style for a woman her age, but it was nice to try something different.
A matron approached the group with an infant pressed to her shoulder. The baby was rag-doll thin, his face puckered with worry, his body all quivers and jerks. He whimpered in the distressed way of a kitten with matted fur, unable to escape his discomfort.
“This is Benjamin?” Gladys cooed sweetly at the child. He had been at Young Hearts for only a couple of weeks; his limp hair was still the color of sun-dried corn silk, a telltale sign of malnutrition. “Hello, Benjamin. Ah, baby . . .”
Without ceremony, the matron pulled down the back of the baby’s blue-striped pants, revealing a long scar across his buttocks, as though his stepmother had branded him with the flat side of a dagger. His backside should have been soft and smooth, a sand dune; instead it was a battleground, marked everywhere with scars and scrapes and shadows that would not fade.
“How can you mistreat a child like this?” Mike murmured.
Gladys said nothing as she snapped pictures of the damage. While Benjamin might be safe for now, the case lacked a clear solution. This child had two parents, but nothing like a mother and a father.
Gladys again inquired about seeing the babies’ quarters. Freddy conferred quietly with a matron, who then led the visitors to a small courtyard behind the office. Eight or nine children, mostly infants, sat with a trio of matrons on the cement floor of a walkway. Gladys made her way around, greeting each child with a smile and a pat. There were two that she remembered: Sophie, a toddler who had been locked up with a father dying of AIDS, and Charity, the baby who had been retrieved from the pit latrine. When Gladys had first seen her, Charity’s eyes had been crusted shut. Now, at three months, the infant looked round and alert. Then there were new ones: twins conceived through rape, and a newborn fed on cow dung by a mentally ill mother . . . No child here had had a gentle entrance into the world.
For now they had found sanctuary in this tranquil courtyard. But Gladys sensed something odd, like an aftertaste from a cup of water. The matrons, though polite, seemed indifferent. When a little girl started combing her doll’s hair with a sharp piece of plastic, no one moved to take it from her. Another girl was walking about wearing only a shirt, no pants, no panties. When a matron noticed the visitors’ stares, the child was whisked away.
Looking around, Gladys could see that none of the children had slippers, although many were of walking age. Mike inquired about a toddler with a swollen knee. She had tripped while playing, he was told.
“She must have fallen from a height,” he demurred. “A knee doesn’t get big like that from tripping.”
Gladys asked a matron to hold a baby so that she could snap a picture. “Why do I have to hold the child?” the woman griped, gesturing to a coworker. “You hold it!”
WHEN THE VISITORS returned to the office, Freddy laid out several folders on his desk. Gladys tried to listen as he presented several other children’s cases, but she was impatient to see Alex and his sisters.
“Freddy, you’ve not shown me my children,” she scolded. “Where are they?”
“That’s the reason why I wanted you to come and sit down. So that I can explain.” He leaned back in his chair, his meaty forearms leaving faint prints on his desktop. His tone, though mild, set Gladys’s senses on alert. “I sent you the message explaining that your children have got sponsors.”
“Yes, that’s good.”
“You see, these sponsors are a couple. This man and his wife showed interest in the children, so I took them to the probation officer.” He explained that he had spoken to Nabukonde, the witch doctor’s widow who had given the family temporary shelter when Susan Nabugwere was dying, and to the council chairman of the village. Both had responded positively to the sponsors’ involvement. “So this couple will be taking Alex and his sisters. To the U.S.”
The words rolled out of the large man’s mouth as smoothly as pebbles down a hill, piling onto Gladys and pinning her to her chair. The children were being adopted?
Pastor Fred continued speaking, but Gladys found it hard to listen, let alone respond. What rang in her head was her last directive to Fred about Alex, Annet, and Mercy: The moment you feel you can’t handle these children, please let me know. Let me take them and maybe we will get some other place.
The sponsors were in Uganda, and the children were already with them. “The couple will be in Kampala this week. You can link up and have a chat with them,” Freddy was saying.
“They are from where?” Gladys managed.
Freddy shuffled the files on his desk. “They are from New-Braska.”
“From where?”
“New . . . no, Neh-braska.”
“So are they Ugandan?” asked Esther.
“No, they are Americans. They have also been sponsoring a school in Uganda. The man is an architect, he owns a company. The mother is a teacher. I told him that you were the person who had profiled the children originally. So you can meet with them and ask them some questions.”
“Yes, because I would like to know where the kids are going.”
“We can meet you in Kampala,” Freddy reassured her. “Let’s meet on Monday.”
“I would love to get the story from them, because I have been following these children for a long time.”
“Can I take you for lunch now?” Freddy seemed ready to close the matter. “I would like to give you lunch.”
Gladys ignored the offer. Yes, she was heavy like Freddy, but that did not mean that she was so easily distracted by food. “If the sponsors are going to split these kids up, that will be a problem.”
Pastor Fred assured her that all three kids were to be taken.
Out of the country. By people whom she had not even met.
“Why did you not tell these sponsors, since they have this sponsorship of a school, to take the kids there instead?”
“No, the sponsors want to take them to their country,” Freddy said simply, as if he were discussing someone’s preference for posho over matoke. “The kids will get their education from there, not here.”
A silence landed, heavy as sand.
“I think maybe Freddy is tired of the kids,” Gladys remarked, her tone teasing but her eyes as cool and still as river stones. “So he’s sending them away.”
“No, I’ve never been tired of the kids,” Freddy protested quickly. “I wouldn’t send them away.”
THEY LEFT YOUNG HEARTS on cordial terms, with Pastor Fred vowing to take the three of them out for pizza the next time they visited. He and his wife would soon be taking a vacation to India; might Gladys visit again before they left?
The way back took the Volvo through Njeru, near the streets where the mother of Alex, Annet, and Mercy had slept for a month, searching for some trace of family. Tuberculosis had consumed her by then; Gladys would never forget the violence of her coughing. It was like a panga hacking at gravel.
Remembering this, Gladys’s dismay began to pool in her mind. Two years ago Susan Nabugwere had put her trust in Gladys, and Gladys had been involved in the children’s welfare ever since. So why had Freddy failed to communicate with her about giving the kids away?
“I didn’t know that Alex and his sisters were going to be adopted. I was just hearing it for the first time,” she said to her companions, who had also been startled by the abrupt announcement. “But it seems the matter has already gone through court.”
“Freddy has got a good agenda,” Mike offered diplomatically. “But now he’s talking of sending these kids to New-braska, No-braska, whatever it is . . .”
“These places he’s talking of I’ve never heard of,” Gl
adys said.
They all knew of orphanages with shady practices. There were rumors of homes padding their flocks with “orphans” who still had families. There were cases of neglect. Sexual abuse. Parents who were duped into giving over custody of their kids. Websites that solicited donations using photos of cute children who were not even in the home. Gladys had no evidence that Young Hearts was one of these corrupt places, but Freddy’s maneuverings unsettled her.
“At least it is good we’re meeting that American couple on Monday.”
“Yes—when you talk to them on Monday, you’ll be able to judge the situation for yourself.”
As they reached Mukono, where the worst traffic funneled into Kampala, they found themselves behind a matatu topped with dozens of live chickens. The birds were not in cages or crates; they were strapped down directly on the hot metal roof as if they were being roasted in their feathers. Even from a distance, one could see the birds’ open mouths and pulsing throats as they gulped at the air in thirst and distress.
“Disgusting.” Mike spat the word. “That is brutality.”
“They are not supposed to transport animals like that,” Gladys agreed. “By the time they reach Kampala, many of those chickens will be dead.”
“Yes, the wind can be hitting them at a hundred and forty kilometers per hour!”
“But they will not dump those dead ones. They will pack them and sell them to the markets as freshly slaughtered.”
Street vendors came threading through the traffic lanes, wielding footballs and toilet paper and phone chargers and rainbow-colored feather dusters. Mike rolled up his window. “There is so much impunity in this country, I am telling you.”
Staring out at the dying chickens, Gladys acknowledged a festering unease. The miserable cargo recalled the unsanitary butcher’s place they had seen that morning: another small, unimpeded circuit of negligence and deception and injury.
Gladys could not shake the sense that she had been roped into such a cycle. Was Pastor Fred involved in shady trade?