Family of Five
Today I was looking back over all my notes and ideas in my journals that I compiled from my first trip to Kenya back in 2009. I looked again at my very first entry that I made after returning home; the very first thing that I could manage to write, to formulate into words of the experience and the lasting impression I had had, of having been there.
‘I have trouble thinking of you there, under the tree. All day.’
We had already been to the Slums on the edge of Neyri; already I had seen may children come with their parents or grandparents carried on their backs for many miles (mostly women as the husbands had left them due to the stigma of having a disable child) to get care, respite, medication, physiotherapy and a meal at the day clinic; I had observed the Friday club when the able bodied children from the immediate surrounding areas come and play and get a hearty meal; I had been to the local hospital and seen all the equipment in uses that had come in a container and distributed with the last group trip; and for all that this was my opening statement. Reading it once again, the pang of that emotion and the scene returned to me.
It must have been about the 4th day into the trip with Terri Fairfowl, the Director of the Metropolitan Sanctuary for Sick Children. She wanted me to travel with her on a home visit to an area that was very hard to get to, she said there was something that I needed to see for myself but she didn’t go into any details. I found myself being transported out of Neyri on the dusty bumpy roads. It was in the time that the rains had not come and drought was severe and many people in the north of Kenya were dying, crops were failing, cattle was long gone and if the drought continued it was feared that the region that I was in and traveling though would face the same plight. This day the hard dry ground was to our advantage as we weaved our way around valleys and through deep countryside, roads being no more than a narrow dust track with potholes and trenches, but in spite of the dryness we still managed to get stuck. This is pretty standard in this area. It is expected. I realized that if the ground was in anyway wet the dust was mud and home visits under these circumstance were treacherous and time consuming. The dilemma being, will it get dark before you have managed to get unstuck?
We soon slowing navigated our way again, passing children that were hid amongst the bushes and the tree-lined path we were on. They would suddenly present themselves, standing still staring as we passed, barefoot with the red dust of the earth covering their skin embedding their toe and figure nails, their clothes wore. They had been playing no doubt, and the noise of a vehicle in this area being rare was an intriguing sight. We past fields, with women cutting what crop they had with large hand held machetes, whilst others doubled over collecting the remains. Then we stopped. Half way on a small lane that was descending into yet another valley. I recall bracing myself, stealing myself for whatever it was that lay ahead.
The landscape is deceptive. It is so beautiful, so rich. The light is an artist’s dream. Colour everywhere is vivid and alive. Yet I knew that behind the hedge that obscured my view, in the midst of all that, I was to face something that would traumatize me, unsettle this splendor that I observed all around me. I walked through a gap in the hedge, along an impression in the ground as a path until I came to a cluster of huts. On first sight, I wondered what was so troubling. The huts seemed newly built or at least repaired. There was a washing line made of wire, strung from a corner of one of the huts to the nearest tree. A few garments hung damp upon it that had recently been cleaned in the metal basin that was on the wetted ground underneath. Somewhere within this seemingly tranquil little camp there was a fire smoldering, I could see the smoke curling softly over the tin roofs. What was I meant to see? My camera felt awkward; totally from another world. I felt uncomfortable, having this much technology hanging around my neck, seemed as it did in the slums, in appropriate, flaunting and arrogant. But as then, I knew it was needful. There would be something or someone that needed to be documented, something powerful that should not be overlooked or forgot. But looking at this people less scene I wasn’t getting it.
Terri informed me that the Sanctuary had rebuilt the huts; that when they first came here it had been devastating because the occupants just didn’t have the ability or the finance to maintain even these huts, let alone food for their bodies. As I drew closer turning as the impression on the ground indicated, down a slight slope to the huts I could see a set of small walking bars about two metres long and half a metre high. They were made out of found pieces of wood and driven into the red ground in what would be considered the yard of the dwelling. I quickly registered that this was for children. Terri explained that three teenaged men had come over on a trip via the Sanctuary and had taken it upon themselves to build this while they were passing through the region. As it turned out these few branches were a lifeline to the users. It transpired that until these bars had been put in place, the two young disabled brothers that lived here had dragged themselves through the mud and had never stood in their lives. So this was it then? They were who I had come to see, a family with two disabled children. But as I came into the yard area and Terri called out a greeting, I realized they were not alone. The two young brothers came around the back of one of the huts dragging themselves, endeavoring to crawl and whilst there legs were functioning they were struggling to control them to coordinate them into the rhythm that I took for granted when watching my own children. Their eyes were turned in and to compensate they held their heads on one side to focus on the path they would take to get to their visitors. It was evident that they recognized Terri, their faces told that.
What struck me first was that it was different when I saw the disabled at the Sanctuary. The Mama’s respect for the place required them to demonstrate this by dressing in the best they had when they came. It is respite in itself for them; just to come out of their everyday circumstance and be treated with kindness and be seen and given some semblance of dignity. Here I was faced with something raw; the reality of getting on with it.
Behind the small children followed a teenaged boy. He was on crutches. Holding them out in front of himself rather than standing straight, he would move the crutches out first and then drag his feet to where the crutches were and then do this movement again. As I watch this, I became aware of his shoes; clogged with mud, the soles of which were barely handing on and his large toes protruding. They did not fit his feet. They were distorted, like shoes when they have been in seawater and are left to dry without rinsing. In this instance it looked like this was the case time and again from walking in the soddened mud of the fields and never really drying properly. By now one of the neighbors an elderly able- bodied women had appeared and informed us that the mother was away working and wouldn’t be back till very late. The boys had made their way to the walking bars and had pulled themselves up to standing forcing their distorted knees to straighten, strengthening their legs and stretching their muscles. Surely this was a hopeful sight, ‘they could eventually walk’ I told myself in an attempt to stay composed. Terri proceeded to tell me that this was actually a family of five disabled. The Father had left, there were four brothers, three of which I could see in front of me and the fourth Terri went around the back of the huts to see if she could find. I busied myself taking photos and whilst I felt intrusive it was to my mind the better emotion that to recognize the sinking feeling that was starting to migrate to the pit of my stomach. The downside of taking photo’s in these kinds of environments, I discovered, is the ability to take them in macro. Seeing in more detail than the eye sees. Snap! The Children’s knees like the soles of an old mans feet, splayed as pressure pads, engrained with dirt.
Terri returned from her search. She couldn’t find the elder brother but she wiped her eyes and told me that I needed to go behind the hut. Did I need to? Really? I was sure that I had seen all that I needed to see. Hadn’t I? I clutched my camera in my hand as a kind of comfort, a security in its familiarity and tangibility and proceeded to go around the corner of the hut. What? I could see a lot of green, mud turned over with planting, tall trees in the back ground a couple of banana tree in the middle ground more planting then rough ground with scruffs of grass. A chicken scampered passed my feet causing me to move and address the near ground I was standing on. To the far left of my vision was a tall straight tree with no branches in its lower section and my eye was then drawn to an orange form directly under the tree, not moving. I focus upon it. It was one of those rare instances that seeing in-itself is not enough. I couldn’t quantify quite what I was looking at. It seemed a surreal sight; a man wearing an orange top standing still in a hole up to his waste. I could hear my brain thinking, Why is he in a hole? Perhaps he is digging a hole? Why is he digging a hole? All the time the man had been looking at me. Quietly. Patiently. Looking and waiting. Perhaps a minute had gone by since I had come to the corner of the building and had been looking out to the view behind the hut. And now I am looking at him. But not seeing him. And he is seeing me and waiting for a greeting. I start to walk toward him still very much confused by what I am looking at, evaluating the ground that surrounds him rather than at his person. I am looking for the hole that he is stood in but I still can’t see it. I start to re evaluate, is he buried to his waste? Why would anyone bury themselves to their waste under a tree?
And that is when I see him. I am on the verge of his personal space, and I have been so distracted by the complication of what I thought I was looking at, that I realize that I have objectified him, only analyzing my misinterpretation and now I am nearly on top of him, looking down on him.
I try to disguise my horror, which I know he has seen and has taken to be a response to his appearance. But it is not. Not in this first instance. It is more the dismay that I could be so foolish as to not perceive what I was walking to, so that the reality confronted me in a sudden revelation that I am ill prepared to receive, totally disarmed. And this is what he sees and misunderstands. He moves his body in a way that I know he feels embarrassed. I have stumbled into his personal space, now looking down on his head which comes no higher than my thye. I still have not acknowledged him and I feel hateful. This is not me and I want him to see that. It is important that he sees that. I bend down so that I am as close to his height as I can be. He is the uncle of the children. The brother of the father that left them. He is the eldest of the family including the mother, and he is the most severally disabled of them all.
He smiles at me now. His mouth is full of protruding teeth that have thickened in some way that I have not come across before and the corners of his eyes crease up. I know that this is a genuine greeting. I try to communicate but with the language barrier and his disability it is difficult. So there is a silence. After a short while I point to my camera and ask if I can talk a photo by pointing and using body language. I take his response to mean he agrees. He remains composed and still. I think it is kind of like a life drawing class but actually it is more like a frightened animal that doesn’t move when it is cornered. Now the knot in my stomach begins to take over. Through the lens I see the completely distorted legs that have withered and shrunk under his torso. Locked and unmovable. His feet are pulled up by the calf muscles, and the heels protrude out from under his back as his buttocks have wasted away. An old cloth is rapped loosely around his lower region, with the same splayed kneecaps on display that I had photographed earlier in the children. I could hear my head saying ‘is this their fate then?’ with a sickness whelming within me. I walked behind Him and took a photo of the top of his head. I had noticed earlier that there was a large scar from a burn on the top where there was no hair anymore and in the centre there was an area that had lost pigmentation completely. It was an old wound, no doubt as in many instances in Kenya where disabled children fall into the cooking fires that are in the centre of the huts and are unable to get out. This man’s body shows the history of sustained and solitary hurt, a progressive condition without medical intervention at all, and he sits obedient to this intrusive stranger. He has learnt patients and I feel humbled before him. This is his life. Sitting under this tree. Contained in this body.
A cockerel lurches out of the undergrowth near by, scampering and scrapping, pecking and gurgling. It lurches its way toward the man. He does not move, I on the other hand am intimidated by its ugly, red joules and scrawny-feathered body. The mans body seem not much bigger than this rampant cockerel and I am amazed that he is not concerned that it could come and peck at him and he would not be able to get away. He is not disquieted. They have occupied the same space now for a long time, and it appears that there is an agreement between them upon this scratch of red mud.
I cannot stay any longer we have to go before it gets dark, but that is not the reason. I just cannot stay now. I know that he has been sitting here long before I arrived and I know that as I drive away into the big world that I occupy he will still be sitting here on this small patch of ground under this solitary tree. But I cannot stay. I feel the tears stinging and I don’t want to shame him with what could be interpreted as pity. It is not pity. It is overwhelming respect for a man that has most definitely touched emotional states and physical anguishes that I cannot comprehend; admiration for a man whose dignity is demonstrated in his patients and his resolve, qualities obtained and proven the hard way.
I lift myself from the ground, something so simple, that I am acutely aware he cannot do. I reach for his hand that is twisted and drawn into his body and say a few words that I know he will not understand, but he knows that I am going and he smiles at me with his eyes and teeth. For a moment I stay holding his hand. I have examined his body; I have sat in his space. His form no longer horrifies me as it did at first even though it is grievous. As I walk away I sense the eyes of a great man upon my back and I think ‘ the half has not been told’.
The day I left for home, the rains came and the valley roads became like rivers and as we drove I watch for mile upon mile the people dancing along the roadside. The joy was intoxicating; this was life to them.
Within a year the young brothers have demonstrated that their uncles life is not their destiny. Six bars of wood and three teenage boys have enabled the brothers to now be walking partially assisted. If they keep utilizing their muscles and get their regular physiotherapy and medication at the Sanctuary their future is filled with hope and going by their determination shown in how they would drag themselves around previously, I don’t think it is just sentiment to say ‘anything is possible’.
Annabelle Hulbert.
Artist and Curator Sanctuaryartists.