How else can one feel about things when a four year old is taken from us for no reason while 65 families have more wealth than billions of people combined?

It was a typical Sunday morning for Joy and me. We started out at Appleseed then went over to the football pitch to watch our under 15 team play. The other team did not show up so we decided to run over to Lucy, Jenni and Colette’s house to bring them some clothes and shoes that had been in the car for a while. When I approached the house I heard it. It was clear, utterly familiar and unmistakable. I had heard these sounds before, but I was still confused. I think we are always confused when we are facing something so horrible that our brain doesn’t let us see clearly no matter how obvious. It was the wailing. It was the chorus of women mourning an unimaginable loss.

Joy and I first witnessed this when we escorted Moses, an AISL employee, home to inform his mother that her husband had just been killed in a terrifying bike accident in front of the American school. The outpouring of grief, loss and utter despair is something that stays with you … forever.  So when I heard it yesterday I should not have been confused, but I was.

What was going on? And then it hit me … like a sledgehammer. Someone was gone … and it was a member of Lucy, Jenni, Colette, Patrick, and Shadreck’s family! Please, not grandma. We just saw her. She was fine. Who will take care of the girls?

 No, it wasn’t grandma. Whew! But who, what was going on?

And then another sledgehammer and more confusion when the Aunt came out from the “wailing room” and came up to me and said, “Ken, we have lost Colette.” What? Of course I did not hear that correctly. Colette is the youngest in the family. She’s only 4. Colette was at Appleseed in her preschool class on Friday. Colette was playing with her older brother Patrick on Saturday. This is Sunday morning. Surely, I must have lost something in translation. Please, I must have heard wrong … but I didn’t. Colette was gone.  COLETTE! The reality hit and I staggered, fell to my knees and began to sob. Apparently, she woke up during the night with a high fever and Grandma took her to the clinic but by morning she was gone.

I know this is not the end of days. And I know that time, as it always does, will soften this blow. I don’t care about the concentration of wealth and the inordinate suffering in the world. I don’t give a shit. I just want to hug Colette again. I just want to watch her smile and laugh when she is playing with her friends at Appleseed. I just want to watch her grow up. I want, I want, I want … I feel so selfish.

I guess helpless is the word.  We try to help. We bring food, give money for burial, but, the suffering just goes on and on. How is fair that some people in this world have lives full of suffering while others cruise through life as if they are charmed?
Me…. I have had a charmed life. Raised in a happy middle class home with the greatest example of love and family that there ever could be. I had close friends, a tight knit extended family. Best husband and daughters I could ever even imagine.

I didn’t’ experience death until I was 13, I think, an elderly neighbor and family friend. The next death I experienced wasn’t’ until adulthood. Of course, it is expected that the older you get, the more sorrow you will experience.  It is a charmed life that gets the advantage of age and growth in order to be better able to deal with tragedy.

My friends here in Zambia experience tragic and unnecessary death all of the time. It is expected and accepted.  I know more orphaned children and young adults than I ever could have imagined 5 years ago. People lose a loved one. They mourn. They begin to get back to normal (their normal- nothing like my normal)
…. then boom, another loss. It seems a part of everyday life for so many people here. Each tragic and heartbreaking.

I will miss this little girl with all of my heart. Colette started at Appleseed about 8 months ago, but we met her in 2012 when she was just a baby. She was finally old enough to be an Appleseedling. Her brothers already live at the center, her two sisters have been Appleseedlings for a few years. It was so wonderful having little Colette too. She had begun blossoming, smiling and laughing with her friends in the pre-grade class.  We saw her sisters bloom in the same way when they first began at Appleseed.

And then, this morning………….. we had just left the boys at the soccer pitch. We had a box of clothes and shoes that I had been meaning to take to Jenny, Lucy and Colette. So, we headed to their house. We immediately knew that something was terribly wrong. The house was wailing as a Zambian home does when someone has died.

This family suffered this just 2 weeks ago when the young father to Jenny, Lucy and Colette passed away. And now, after having a high fever in the middle of the night, little Colette died at the clinic this morning.

I don’t know how people persevere. I don’t know how to change this reality.

The inequities….. the luck or un-luck of birth…. makes no sense... simply unacceptable.

We love you, Colette 

     While I love being here in Zambia and doing what we are doing, sometimes the heartache feels unbearable.  I feel this way, and then I remember that the heartache that I feel must be small compared to the people who live it everyday.
     People often disappoint. I can’t understand why adults pull the children that they are caring for out of loving learning environments and opt for environments where there are 80 kids crammed in a classroom, one small book shared by 3 students who are all crammed together at one small desk and a teacher with no supplies other than a few broken pieces of chalk.  Yet, some adults choose to do this.
      We have had a few families do this recently. It was 2 families who were initially upset because their children didn’t have sponsors yet. Ironically, after two of these kids were sponsored, the families forced the children to leave and go to a local Basic school. These schools are exactly as I described above. Additionally, they have no music, sports or technology. Children are in tears because they don’t want to leave Appleseed, one young lady even asked Mary if she could live with her instead of her big sister. Mary said, yes, while the sister said, no. I know that it is just a few adults who are making these choices for the kids that they are responsible for, and at the same time that this is happening, we have new families taking their children out of local Basic Schools and transferring to Appleseed, willing to pay fees because the see that there is a huge difference. Those who have pulled their kids, have never been to our school or attended any parent meetings. Regardless, we have become attached to these children. We have been witness to their physical, emotional and academic growth. We have come to love them. So, we will visit these few families this weekend to see the children and discuss with the families their reasons for transferring their kids. We hope that once they know what Appleseed can offer in terms of academics, that they will allow the children to return.
     Mary is also sad about this, but, she is quite used to this type of behavior from adults. She tells me, “Joy, there are so many children who need our services, and families who want it, you have to let these ones go.” But, it is more difficult for me. I have not yet become accustomed to accepting the plight of people here, keeping with the attitude that, “This is just life.”

My sadness this morning is partially about these particular children, but it also goes deeper. As I said, Zambians are so accustomed to bad things happening, that they are much more accepting than I. 
I get angry. I am saddened and angered as I write this. I just received news that another person whom I have come to know and care deeply for, has passed away.
    Shelly was a nanny for a little girl on the block. She was also a St. John’s Home Health volunteer and just an all-around good lady. The average life span in Zambia is the 2nd shortest in the world. I’ve seen different statistics, but it hovers around 48 years old. Shelly didn’t make it to that. She was 45. To me, the story of her death is an atrocity.
     Shelly had a stroke a few weeks ago. She was recuperating at home and we were working on getting a physical therapist to work with her.  Then, last week, she was having difficulty breathing. She contacted the family whom she works for and they did everything that they could to help. They got her to a hospital, where they were asked for $300. They paid it and Shelly was admitted. Next, the hospital personnel said that she had to go to a different hospital for tests that could not be done where she was. Nothing is free here and transportation would have cost as well. Our friend Jim arranged for the St. John ambulance to pick Shelly up and take her to the other hospital. I learned today that the hospital has a “high cost” area and a “low cost” area. Shelly, evidently was in the “low cost.” Here, she did not have a bed or a room. When our friends, her employer, went to visit they found Shelly on the floor with no blankets. They quickly brought a mattress and blankets and spent all day yesterday with her. They were told that she had pneumonia and needed the basic antibiotic, erythromycin. But, unbelievably, hospitals do not provide medicine! At least not in the “lost cost” area.  SO, this morning, Jim sent a driver to the pharmacy to get the medication. Shelly had died by the time the medicine arrived.
     People should not have to live or die like this. In addition, people should not have to accept it as just the way it is. I know that Zambians do this as a means of survival. They cannot dwell, as it is their reality. I have come to realize as well, that when people stay in an environment for a very long time, they come to accept these things as well. I hope that I never become accustomed to this. While I can't imagine being numb to it, I know that it will be time to leave when I stop getting emotional and angry at these situations.

While we love going home to California to visit friends and family, it is always difficult to leave our friends and students at Appleseed. Life for the poorest Zambians is harder than most of us can imagine, yet they are so very accepting of their situations. We returned to find many changes, both good and bad. 

The first thing we were told was that our student, Lucky, had been ‘sent back the village.’ Lucky’s mother died last year and he had been staying with an aunt and uncle in Bauleni. The uncle decided that he did not want to care for Lucky anymore, so he put him on a bus and sent him to other relatives, over 8 hours away. At the time, Lucky was told that he was going for a visit, but when he arrived he was told that he would not be returning to Lusaka. He cried and told them that he is supposed to be in school. Our hearts are breaking for this young man. He had never attended school before he began at RHO Appleseed. He was learning and thriving. He was happy. He loved helping around the school and with the smaller children. We are told that he has made a call to his uncle, asking to come back. The uncle said no. Since then, two of our teachers, John and Vincent, who are also double orphans, still living with relatives, have said that they would like to get a place and take Lucky in. These men are so very kind and we believe that this would be the best thing for Lucky. We have approached the aunt and uncle with this idea. They have agreed, but as of yet, have not gotten word to the relatives in the village. We are holding Lucky’s sponsorship money in hopes of getting him a bus ticket back to Bauleni and moved in with Teacher John and Teacher Vincent. We will not give up on getting him back. Vincent has an uncle who works for Child Welfare and we will go through the proper procedures to have Vincent or John designated as his legal guardian. We worry, though, about his spirt being broken in the mean time. We hope that he knows that we love him and are doing what we can to get him back to school. It is times like these that we wish we had our own property with student dorms.

Our groundskeeper, Masau, is facing hard times as well. Upon returning, he told us that his wife, Joy, is very sick. At first, the doctor said that she had Malaria. This is a common diagnosis, often diagnosed without actually testing for Malaria. When she did not respond to the very powerful Malaria medicine, they did a pregnancy test. She is about 9 weeks pregnant, but still extremely ill. Two nights ago, Massau woke up in the middle of the night to find her unconscious. He frantically tried to find a taxi to transport her to the hospital. He has no car and had no money, as he had spent it all on her previous medical care. The next day, Friday, he called and told us of his situation. He was back at his home with his boys, but had no way to get back to the hospital to be with his wife. Before taking him to the hospital, Ken took him shopping for food for his wife, as the hospital does not provide any. When Ken saw her he said she looked very sick; in fact, he did not recognize her. She has since been released, but unfortunately, this does not mean that she is better or out of the woods. Masau and his wife have 2 young boys and care for their nephew as well. We are very worried about Masau and his family. Please keep them in your thoughts.

.... and more. The young man, Lameck, who we hire once a month to help us carry the food that we buy in bulk at Soweto Market, told us that his 23 year old wife died over the holiday. Lameck has 3 children, ages 2, 4 and 6 years old. Two girls and a boy. We asked him who is caring for them while he is here, lugging our food around in his rented wheel barrel. He replied, ‘The neighbors look out for them.’ When I hugged him and said how sorry I am, he replied, “It happened.” 
Lameck is from South Africa, all of his and his wife's family is there. He feels so very alone here. He can not go back to South Africa right now as it is a very expensive trip for a family of 4. We have discussed the idea of him moving to Bauleni so that his kids can attend Appleseed, as they are not in school. When we can, we will employ him to help Masau.