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