Camp Moses Profile: Big Hopes for Camp Moses'
Big Sister
By Emily Churchman
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AMariamu@,
one of the children at Camp Moses. |
Camp Moses is a school and a
home for 27 young children at risk of going to the streets. The big sister of
all the other kids is a 7-year-old girl we will call AMariamu@.
Mariamu arrived at the camp in
2002 with her younger brother AJohn@. They had been living in Unga Ltd with
their grandmother and grandfather, who are both very elderly and very poor.
Because the grandparents were often away doing work the entire day, the standard
of care Mariamu and John were receiving was very low. Often, Mariamu was being
looked after by women engaged in commercial sex work, or spending time with
other children already living in the street. Her grandparents had little hope
of affording school uniforms and other school costs, and even if they could
afford it, their semi-literacy made it unlikely that they would be able to get
her a place in the crowded Unga Ltd school. Mariamu was 5 years old and the
opportunities her life provided were already severely circumscribed by a set of
factors beyond her control.
The day that she and John
arrived at the school, he cried almost the entire day and tried to run away.
Only when Mariamu was by his side did he calm down. But she, like him, was
overwhelmed by the strangeness of their new surroundings - dozens of unfamiliar
children and adults, including white volunteers, all crammed together in a
fairly small school building. In the afternoon, she whispered in the ear of one
of the volunteers that she needed to use the bathroom. The school at that time
had a bathroom with a Western-style sit-down toilet, and Mariamu, when
confronted with this unfamiliar apparatus, went and squatted over a drain in the
corner. It was funny and inexpressibly sad; she grew up in a city with
First-World quality tourist accommodations, but at the age of 5, had to have a
sit-down flush toilet explained to her.
The evening of that first day,
as darkness descended and John continued crying, she quietly wiped tears from
her own eyes with the back of her hand.
Today, Mariamu is confident
and comfortable in her role as big sister of the camp. She carries the youngest
baby around, she helps dish out the 27 plates of food at mealtimes and, like
every big sister in the entire world, she sometimes bosses the younger kids
around. She likes to color, wears a folded-over purple kanga in the kitchen and
reads out loud very nicely (her rendition of AGreen Eggs and Ham@ is
particularly good). During a brief period at a private school, she earned the
award of most improved in her class. Perhaps more importantly, she now
distinguishes herself at a government primary school; at the end of the school
year she earned the rank of 15 out of 153 in her classroom.
In January 2005, Mariamu is
going home to Unga Ltd to live with her grandmother. She will attend second
grade at the primary school in her neighborhood. In the afternoon, she will
attend, with other children who have returned home, special tuition sessions
offered by LOHADA. In our vision, Mariamu will continue to thrive and develop
away from the artificial context of the school, and in the context of her own
community. It is true that all of the micro and macro-level factors arrayed
against her are still in place - her poverty, her grandparents= lack of
education, the serious inadequacy of the government schools - but these tuition
sessions, and continuing attention from LOHADA staff, will help her to continue
to achieve at school, and to follow a healthy path. Persevering and making it
through school, she will be able to give something back to the community of
which she is a part. At the very least, she will serve as an example to younger
children around her; at the most, Mariamu will be able to fight to dislodge the
structures that threatened her own opportunities at such a young age.
For more information about
LOHADA's activities, visit
www.lohada.org
.
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