June 21, 2008

#20: The Children of Naija

As Mira brings her seven younger brothers and sisters over for a visit, they silently creep up on me while I’m either doing my work on the computer or doing laundry/kitchen duty. I often smell a whiff of sweet flowery scent, and a very light brush against my skin. My room and the kitchen is often dark, it helps cool the room from the glare of the sun. It’s difficult for me to scan the room for visitors, because of the darker hue of skin. So, I look around and find there is nothing there after I reach out my hand. Marufat usually grabs my hand to alert me she is in the room. But Mira and her brood just stand there silently, thinking I would find them. So after a long pause, one of them would move very close and I would instantly feel some kind of contact and discover the sly kids giggling as I grab them affectionately. They truly bring a big smile to my face. The children are truly a sweet bunch, they act very mature for their ages. Fatimah, the middle child, is so precocious and likes to show off her femininity. She shys away with a smirk, and speaks almost perfect English. She is only 11 and is four years away from graduating with other teenagers who are three years her senior. The children are very helpful in the house, helping their mother with chores. Mira and an elder nanny are the ones that take care of the children. The children of Naija (Nigeria in Pidgin language) have to grow up really fast, unlike many children in America.

At the market today with Marufat and Mira, we passed by many young children carrying bowls of beans, mangoes, oranges, water packets, corn millet on their heads, and one gallon of fuel in each hand. One girl could not have been more than five, but she was balancing a large bowl of white salt on the top of her head, and she looked at me with that mature look – as if she was offering to sell me some salt. I declined, she smiled and pranced on. I thought to myself, oh how young she is! Doesn’t she have dolls or a playhouse at home to play with? Does she go to school at all? Why is she working at such a young age? I could not fathom having to work, my childhood was filled with happiness but a lot of sadness, too. I had a mostly happy childhood, but wasn’t forced to do some labor to bring the “bacon” home.  The first job I had was delivering Pennysavers on Sundays at age 12 and my first real job was at Gallaudet working for the college newspaper, The Buff and Blue. Seeing the young girls at work made me look back at my own childhood and realize how fortunate I was, but at the same time, thinking how spoiled most children are with gifts, rather than learning the hard lessons of life (not working, but more of spiritual and gratitude lessons).

I grew up in a large cul-de-sac house in a nice suburb of Ottawa before relocating to Belleville, Ontario to attend Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf at four years old. My father traveled often for his telecommunications company, while my mother was a housewive and took care of me. While I attended school a mere few miles away, I often came home to find my mother passed out on the couch from heavy drinking. My mother was a closet drinker, no one knew the severity of it until it was much too late. I often kept myself busy playing with the large collection of Barbie and Jem dolls, baked some cakes with my Easy Bake oven, watched too much television: The Brady Bunch, Smurfs, Transformers, the Care Bears and so on. I would go out in the backyard and meet up with Erin and Matthew, two hearing kids my age. Mom would stir awake in time for dinner and I was fed pretty well (almost too well). When Dad would come home, he would lavish me with gifts from his travels, and I would become more preoccupied with playing a new thing while my mother and father were busy, and having Dad leave again for his travels. Every Christmas was a happy one, I would be showered with even more gifts and I forgot about the collection of toys I had gotten every month in the year. Total waste, in my post-Africa adult opinion.

I attended school on a daily basis and did not have to work at earning money. I took up a newspaper delivery job just to beat the boredom during summers as Erin and Matthew had moved to different towns. But the job was so short-lived and I went on being a spoiled little princess. As I grew up, admittedly, I still wanted so many things and did not really see the value of saving money or using one thing for a long time then discarding it. I loved shopping with a passion as an adult, I would fill my closet with the latest wardrobe of the season, and spend a lot of money on needless things. Now I’m in Africa, and I don’t have that many clothes or luxuries. I brought some jewelery with me but they were the only glamorous items I brought. I left behind my bath collection, shelves of shoes, boxloads of clothes in storage.

I’ve seen a lot of street children standing by the curb, with their hands outstretched, hoping the batura would give them money to bring back to their beggar parents. I’d see children playing in dirty ditches full of garbage and dangerous objects. Street children would wear ratty, torn and filthy clothes as if they’d never had the luxury of feeling velvet, lace, silk or the best fabrics. You could tell the difference between street children and children of the wealthy. Children of wealth wear fancy dresses and for boys, long kaftans (robes) made out of expensive material. They would walk with their other brothers and sisters freely, without having to work the streets for money or food. Children of wealth go to school and most of them have the privilege of learning English. Despite having parents with money, children of wealth still have to work around the house, sweeping floors, washing clothes, dishes and maintaining the house. Although I doubt children under five are forced to work, I do see a sense of maturity in all children under and over five.

The children of Naija don’t have the same luxuries as most middle and upper class children of America do. Even children in America with poor parents do not work because of laws protecting children’s rights. In Nigeria, it seems, laws that protect children do exist but are not enforced because parents feel it is their decision how to raise their children, and that includes labor,discipline, education, and home life. This mostly occurs in cases of street children, which I think is the biggest tragedy. They don’t experience a normal childhood, having some toys or comfort of shelter and food or parents. The children that suffer the most are those with a disability. I have encountered children who are blind, crippled, deaf, mentally retarded and learning challenged on the streets, using their disability to beg money off people. Once they saw that I had a cane and I had two disabilities as well, oftentimes I would receive a smile off their faces. It’s like they knew I was one of them. Sometimes I’d have enough change and donate. Sometimes I’d buy oranges (20 cents US each) and give them to the disabled children to eat. The “normal” beggars don’t receive anything from me. They have the opportunities unlike disabled people in Nigeria but most of them make the choice to beg.

At the Kebbi School for the Handicapped, there are no bright red balls bouncing in the yard. No kites, swing sets, dolls or toys strewn all over the yard. The children mostly remain indoors, in their classes or the dorms. During recesses, they usually lounge outside, gazing at the skies and dream. Children who are crippled (this is the term used in Nigeria to describe those who have no use of their limbs) are forced to crawl on the sandy ground from one building to another. They don’t have money to buy wheelchairs, and what used to be white clothes on them turned into a dirt brown color. The 250 Deaf children who attend Primary and Secondary classes find solace in the excitement of greeting the deaf-blind batura that comes twice a week to do her on-site work. “Coco! Good morning! I am fine!” they sign with a big smile. I ask the principal if they have toys or good clothes? He says that the children only receive 300 Naira (2.75 USD) a month for toiletries such as soap. The children never make enough to have toys. The children who live in the dorms see their parents every 3 months for one month-long vacation in their villages and return for another 3 months of schooling. I often ponder if there is a construction company in Nigeria that build playground sets? That shall be my next project. The children of 87. Murtala Mohammed Road deserve to be children.

The thing is: I’ve noticed that many children have many brothers and sisters, are loved by their parents, taken care of by someone. They are always around adults who discipline them, tell them stories and hold their hand. In America, there is a big problem with latch-key kids. Kids come home to an empty house with their own key, even at age 8. Parents have to work, so maybe they leave the kids with the elderly neighbour, or trust the TV to keep the kids preoccupied. Parents feel they have to work harder to sustain a good life for the family, but it is in reality that more time with the family and less work is what makes the children happy. Focus less on work and focus more on what they do on a daily basis, ask them what they have learned today, give them hugs instead of gifts to say you’re sorry for not being there for them.

I guess you can say that I have seen what it is like to be a child with and without love, luxury, education and a spirit. It reminds me that I was brought up as a kid who was allowed to be a kid. I didn’t have to work or beg. I had the unconditional love of my family. When the children of Naija greet me, I bend down and shake their hand, smile back and I instantly feel young again. We, admittedly, have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid. We look at the kids of today’s generation and say, they’re so different than what we were back then. But the reality is, the adults make them different than what the children of the 1990s or 80s were. Parents think that they need to work more to be competitive, and in turn, children think they are adults and make decisions on their own. This speaks true for the children of America and the children of Naija.

It’s time we looked after the children of the world. Tell them we love them. Ensure that they are taken care of and fed. Most of all, let them know that there is a kid in your spirit, and you need to remember what it is like to be a child.

Fight for the rights of children all over the world. They are our future.

Tactile love,

Coco

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