Hope, loss, and bicycles in Zambia

Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 6:29 AM
Filed Under: On Assignment

After seeing what we had seen in Zambia, I was surprised anything would get me going, but I wasn’t prepared for the littlest grave.

We had traveled one hour from Lusaka, the nation’s capitol, to the small village of Chibombo to see, of all things, the giving away of bicycles.

World Bicycle Relief, the vision of F.K. Day of Chicago, is a stunningly simple idea. 

It delivers tens of thousands of bicycles to the poorest people in the world. Why? Because simple transportation improves people’s lives more than you can imagine. 

John Larson / NBC News

World Bicycle Relief trainees build bikes and learn maintenance in Lusaka, Zambia

All of a sudden, a child can get to school, a parent can find work, and a rural medical worker can reach eight families with AIDS. Farmers can transport extra corn. A father can walk one hour a day instead of seven. Emergencies can be dealt with. Neighbors can get a message. Income increases. Nutrition improves. All because people have wheels, and they can move. Think what your life would be without your car, and you get the idea.

Riding to the rescue
While we were there, we followed two Zambian "field-care specialists." They are villagers who volunteer to help the sickest people in their region. In the massive international effort to fight AIDS, powerful people are discovering that the least powerful people – those villagers who live in the middle of the pandemic – may be the most critical link of all.

They provide regular care, support, and help where there is little or none. Village volunteers receive training, and simple medical care kits. Before today, these "field-care specialists" walked everywhere, traveling long, dusty tracks to bring basic medical care, or HIV drugs, to desperate friends and neighbors. 

On the day we visited, World Bicycle Relief gave brand new, indestructible bicycles to 70 field-care specialists. It was fun to watch. The recipients danced and sang as if they had just received 70 space shuttles.  I have rarely seen people happier.

Lisa Berglund/NBC News

From left to right, World Bicycle Relief founder F.K. Day,  Roderick, and  field care giver Phinmore Choongo, surrounded by Roderick’s younger brothers and sisters.

We decided to follow Phinmore Choongo as he rode a shiny, new black World Bicycle Relief bike to his first client. He is a smart young man who farms, and does whatever he can to support his own family. He also volunteers 30 hours a week to help eight other families – most sick or suffering from HIV/AIDS.  While it would usually take him three hours to walk to the hut we visited with him, instead it was a 30-minute cruise on his bike. When we arrived, we found a family of eight children. 

We met everyone and exchanged information. There were no parents.

We were looking at eight children, ages 3 to 18. Choongo told us their story. A year and a half ago, their father – Edward Malekano – died of AIDS. Last May, their mother – Catherine – was lifted out of her hut and carried to a distant hospital. She died there, leaving Roderick, the eldest son, to care for his six brothers and sisters.

‘I hope I can learn to be a better farmer’
"[Roderick] was very sad when it all happened, of course, and lost," Choongo told me. "He realized he might not ever marry, that his sisters and brothers might die, that even he might not survive. He got very depressed.  I would come as much as I could just to bring food, but mostly to talk to him about being ethical and strong." 

Choongo explained that there are many children in Roderick’s situation – lone children heading households. Some just give up, going to the town, getting drunk, finding drugs, and often getting sick and die.  And then, of course, everyone back home – all the kids in the family – struggle or die, too.

Roderick was soft spoken. His clothes were torn and filthy. We sat in dirt under the only shade tree. He looked tired. I asked him about his mom and dad. 

"Neither of them ever said goodbye to me," he said. "Father got sick and couldn’t do much. One day he told me it was time to be strong like a man. And then he died. We buried him in the village."

The worst was still to come. According to custom, Roderick, his mother and brothers and sisters had to leave their father’s home and land and move far away to another hut. By the looks of the hut, it was a huge step down. 

The crumbling hut was, at most, nine feet by six feet, and sat in a dusty corner of a barren, forgotten field. Soon after moving, his mother was too sick to help with much of anything. In the end, she talked to Roderick in a whisper, telling her oldest son to be strong, and to keep the rest of her children safe.  She never told him how, and she never gave Roderick advice. 

Lisa Berglund/ NBC News

Roderick and all of his younger brothers and sisters from left to right, Ronica 8, Cecilia 10, Abel 9, Kenon 7, David 12, Roderick 18, Kelly 3, and Mumba 15.

"I didn’t know she was dying," he said. "They took her away and I thought she would come back. Then my cousin Imelda came, and told me mother had died in hospital. She told me I would have to raise the children myself. And then she left."  He was 17. He had already been the man of the house for nearly a year.

Roderick’s brothers and sisters surrounded us. In addition to Roderick, there were the two older boys, Mumba, 15, and David, 12. Then, two girls – Ronica, 8, and Cecilia, 10. Then, there were the two youngest boys – Abel, 9, and Kenon, 7. There was even an eighth child – Kelly, a nephew, who was left there on the day we visited while his mother attended a funeral. Kelly was 3 years old and cried if we came too close. Everyone wore torn clothes and appeared starving. It was unknown whether their parents passed HIV to any of the children.

No one smiled, until I start asking them about their brothers and sisters. "Who eats the most?" I asked.  Everyone started laughing and they all immediately pointed to Kenon, who looked suddenly sober. Roderick smiled and said Kenon will eat off anyone’s plate if they leave it unattended.

"Who do you think will be the first to have a boyfriend or girlfriend or get married?" I asked. Everyone smiled and looked at Ronica. She was wearing a torn dress, had what appeared to be head lice, and was clearly malnourished, as almost everyone was. I found myself wondering if Ronica would live long enough to have boyfriend.

Choongo brought out presents – T-shirts for the boys and two dolls for the girls. The girls, who have not had a mother in six months, were ecstatically happy. They cradled the dolls and walked them around. Ronica wanted to leave her doll strapped in the box, because she thought it was prettier that way. I asked her what she would name the doll. "Motinta," she said. I later learned that Motinta means "beautiful girl among boys."

"The difficult thing now is that Roderick must do almost everything," Choongo said. "He must get food for them everyday, and cook it, too.  Mumba is beginning to help, and the girls do what they can, but it is mostly Roderick." Choongo had to loan Roderick seeds to plant, so the family would have corn to sustain them.  It was still unclear whether the seeds will produce much.

I spent a lot of time talking to Roderick. I asked him about what he thinks life holds for him. Once, he told me, he thought of marriage and family.  Not anymore. He used to go to school. He stopped school when his father got sick. I asked him about his dreams. He just looked at all his brothers and sisters and said, "I hope I can learn to be a better farmer."

‘I miss her most at meal times’
Two hours later, we were with a different caregiver, visiting a different family. 

Elizabeth Noonga was pedaling toward a gathering of mud huts. Noonga was wearing church clothes – a pressed brown and red flowered dress. She had a quick smile and was a big woman.  I mention this because she hauled herself up on her bike, as if she were not. 

Although she could have had a bicycle with a low crossbar designed for women, she asked for a man’s bike, because she can carry two children on the high crossbar. She pedaled slowly and stopped when she reached the huts. 

John Larson / NBC News

Zambia field care specialist Elizabeth Noonga gets ready to get on her bike and visit families in need with NBC photographer Lisa Berglund looking on.

Kenneth Ntalasha and his three children were sitting beneath a tree. Ntalasha smiled and looked very weak.  His eyes were yellow and bloodshot – he is HIV positive. 

Noonga greeted him and they began to talk. Kenneth’s wife Gertrude died from AIDS last year. She was 35. Noonga had Gertrude tested, and even got her some of Zambia’s free anti-viral drugs designed to combat HIV, but it was too late. Gertrude died of tuberculosis, a common cause of death among the immune-weakened people of Zambia.

Gertrude left her husband with their two daughters, Rachel, 11, and Cynthia, 8, and a 1-year-old son, Robson, who is HIV-positive, too.

I talked with Kenneth. He is a smart, soft-spoken man who speaks workable English. He said Gertrude was very sick, of course, and that in the end, he spoke to her about God.  "I wanted her not to be afraid," he told me. "I wanted to have comfort. I told her it would be all right."

Of course, it was not all right. Gertrude was leaving her family behind and her sickly husband was not prepared to raise three children alone. Before she died, Elizabeth’s last words were "keep them safe."

Kenneth did the best he could, but soon he was so sick he could not do very much at all.  Plus, he was not a very good mother. The children were dirty and crying. 

"I miss her most at meal times," he told me. I asked, "Did you bury Gertrude yourself?"  He said, "Yes, behind the house." I asked him to show me where.

Too many graves
We set off on a path behind the house with Kenneth carrying Robson and the girls walking behind him. "I visit her grave twice a month," he said. We walked about 200 hundred yards and it was clear the grave was not behind the house. We kept walking.  Several times during the next 30 minutes we stopped and asked, "Is it near?"  "Yes," said Kenneth, "It is right over there."

We keep walking. It was not "right over there." We walked more, crossing several dry, grassy fields. Eventually we passed huts and other families and we entered a patch of scrub and dry trees. The ground was bumpy and uneven. I realized the bumps were unmarked graves. 

Courtesy John Yaeger/ World Vision

Kenneth Ntalasha and his two daughters, Rachel, 11, and Cynthia, 8, and Robson, his 1-year-old son, Robson who is HIV-positive.

We walked past a dozen graves and stopped. Kenneth told me there were 300 graves here. None of them had a single marking, cross, stone, or slightest sign that the people who rested there were loved.  But, of course, they were. 

We stood in silence and Kenneth began to cry. He wiped his tears away and then his daughters began to cry, which was all too much for Kenneth, who began weeping.

When enough time had passed, I spoke with him and he told me that he had not brought his daughters to the grave since their mother died.  As we were about to leave, I noticed a very small grave among the others.  I said, "That must have been a child?"  Kenneth responded, "That was my son."

He told me how strong his boy was, and how he died, but it was mostly lost on me.  I didn’t hear much. This one thin man’s pain was so big I felt dizzy. Tears were rolling down my face. We stood by his wife and his son for a while, and then left.

On the way back, Kenneth told me that none of the graves were marked because everyone is too poor. "If we were rich, we could make a stone," he said. "But we are not."

Back at his home, Noonga was waiting. She cuddled the children and talked to Kenneth about his health. She has helped him get anti-viral drugs and he is feeling better.

Noonga stripped little Robson and washed him with water from a plastic tub. He screamed in protest as the dirt fell off. Noonga dried him, put on a clean shirt, and cuddled him like a mother until he is happy. 

I found myself thinking that if there were angels among us, they might wear a brown and red flowered dress and look a lot like Elizabeth Noonga.

We left after taking pictures and wishing them well. We know our wishes will not help Kenneth, Rachel, Cynthia and Robson nearly as much as Elizabeth will.   

There are a million children in Zambia alone who have lost one or both of their parents to AIDS. The number is an estimate, of course, because no one is really counting them all.

For more information about how you can help, please visit the World Bicycle Relief website.

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