Mum, Why Did You Give Me Your Back?

This poem is a cry for help, an acceptance of the inevitable, with one question left unanswered. "Mum, why did you give me your back?" says it all...why was I born for this...what happened along the way? "Why did you leave me" is a story that has been retold thousands of times, in urban and in rural areas of Kenya. HIV/Aids takes prisoners, drags them down to the depths of the lowest where all hope is lost. A young girl describes her personal descent into a living hell where she too faces the same fate as her mother. The brutal reality of HIV/Aids in Kenya needs to be told and victims need to be accepted and loved. Remember these dear ones- for once they were happy, beautiful, healthy and positive. 

From the top of the ladder to the very bottom

From high table down to no table

From high voltage degrees of richness

To living the life of a poor church mouse

From high class Cadillac

To a broken down wheelbarrow

From eating in five star hotels

To fighting for food from the dustbin with dogs

From a beautiful city environment

To a  distant ugly rural space

From a well-lit fenced house with electricity

To a dimly lit unprotected mud hut

From sleeping in a four by six bed

To lying on a goat skin on the floor

Mum, why did you give me your back?

From national school to a rural day school

To a school dropout, graduating to the streets,

Stooping low, selling drugs, stealing and breaking the law

Forced into an early marriage, falling into a deep pit,

Considering suicide the only way out

I implore you, "mum to come to my rescue!"

Since the cruel hand of death  snatched you from us

We are unaccepted in our father’s land.

You are blamed for our father’s death

We are now labeled a bad omen.

I recall the time dad begged you for forgiveness

Even when you were lying in your grave,

Forgiveness for infecting you with HIV/AIDs - 

The same in a letter sent to his family, falling on deaf ears.

Now dressed in tattered clothes without shoes

Jiggers invading my toes, no pin to pull them out

Lice and bedbugs celebrate day and night

Sucking blood from a well that is nearly dry.

Strolling on the streets my breasts sway from east to west, north to south

I cannot afford a second hand brazier

My only pants full of holes beyond the tailor's repair.

Orphaned without access to an orphanage

My nest on the streets, I spread my rug as a mattress

Cover myself with a blanket of polythene paper

At dawn I rise to sort out garbage.

Mum can you hear me? Why are you cold quiet?

I have no one to turn to.

I recall how you used to smile

I remember your last cry of pain.

Tired of being harassed,

I escape to a long endless journey

I am ready to go...I am going...

But first, "Mum, why did you give me your back?"

Patricia Makori, Kakamega

June 2015

Photos by Sandy Guthrie, Thunder Bay 2011

Under the Mpundu Tree

UNDER THE MPUNDU TREE

This is the conversation between a father and his eldest son who faces the grim spectre of HIV/AIDS. The young man bravely fights to survive. He denies that “Slim” is about to take his life. He sits under the shade of a Mpundu tree, awaiting his fate. Banished from his ancestral home, he will face death alone. The elder is first to speak:

"I have nothing more to do with you

You are no longer my child

No longer my trusty worthy child

Once mine, you will soon be replaced by another

Ah! I see I have shocked you

Sit down and tell me all the news you have for me"

Under the shade of Mpundu tree 

Tears streaming down to the soles of his feet

Taken aback, and barely able to open his lips, the son replies,

"You have no idea how much I have been sweating at night!

With this involuntary weight loss, how do I break the news?

With these persistent diarrheas, how will I sit down?  

With this chronic weakness, who will serve me?

With this documented fever, who will cool me down?

With this irregular heartbeat, who will come to my aid?

With ugly scabies, who will squeeze me oozing pus?

With these skeleton legs that can’t put me in motion

Who will fetch me my crutches?

My family and community will now throw me out."

Under the shade of Mpundu tree

Tears streaming down to the soles of his feet

"Everybody is scared of you

No one wants to be associated with you

Not your mother, father, brothers, sisters and the community

Except perhaps your wife and children and grand parents

Your big sunken eyes, sharp pointed countable ribs

Diarrhea like water running from a tap,

You have harvested all the green leaves

Boils and herpes have taken their strategic positions

Your dignity is gone, you are nothing

Look at your hair, sparsely populated,

Curled like that of a new born baby

They will throw you food like to a dog"

Under the shade of Mpundu tree 

Tears streaming down to the soles of his feet

“I am not afraid of Slim

You are mistaken - I do belong to you

You want to taint my family black

Slim attacks the poor, uneducated, and lazy in rural places

He is not for beautiful and handsome people like me and my family

He is an ugly chameleon with white big cotton eyes,

I am not his child, I am busy at university studying

Ask my mother and father how it can be me

A bad seed in my own family! No never! You are out of your mind"

Under the shade of Mpundu tree

Tears streaming down to the soles of his feet

"Have you not seen, are you so blind...

Raindrops roll down the cheeks of your wife and children

Isolated to a narrow dark house of banana leaves

You are far out from your parents’ home

No one wants to touch you, no one to give even a drop of water

No one wants to sit next or share clothes with you

Appetite is gone , sleep is futile

Your stomach is full of butterflies

Sharp pain penetrates deep down, every nerve alive

You call for euthanasia for not even ARVs can ease the pain”

Waiting, waiting, you wait for the clock to stop

A casket waits for you to join Slim’s choir

There's nothing left to say"

Under the Mpundu tree

No more tears - it is finished

Patricia Makori, Oyugis Kenya
MBA, U of Nairobi
BA, U East Africa, Baraton
KCSE Bishop Charles Mugendi Nyamokenye, Kisii

Patricia with friends celebrating the completion of her MBA

The Mpundu Tree is associated with David Livingstone, the famous Scottish missionary and explorer who died at Ilala near Victoria Falls. Livingstone's heart had been buried under a mpundu tree. Common to central and east Africa, its fruits are bitter to the taste.  Faithful attendants enclosed his embalmed body in a cylinder of Mpundu bark, wrapped in sailcloth and carried it to the coast and then sailed to London, arriving the following year. As the Doctor had been away from England for so long a correct identification of the remains was required and this was verified by the badly set broken arm that had been crushed by a lion. Dr Livingstone was buried in Westminster Abbey, his heart left in his beloved Africa.