Streetkids

Ganizani - and another boy who looks nothing like him but whom he calls his brother - beg outside the PTC grocery store almost every day. Ganizani is 13. His brother is 11. They swear they go to school. I doubt it. Usually, when I shop there, I buy them bread. Last month I told him I wanted to see his home. Clement and I met them outside the PTC one Saturday morning and they directed us across town, moving from paved roads to dirt roads, from green to dust, landing at last in an area where rent (I was told by a Malawian friend) ranges from the equivalent of US$1-3/month. On the way we stopped at a market to buy 50kgs of maize and 5 kgs of beans. Then the two skinny boys excitedly and awkwardly carried the bag between them to their small mud brick home.

Ganizani speaks as a child anxious to grow up, deepening his voice as he raises it, so it becomes lower than seems natural for his size and age. He says he is the oldest of five siblings who live there. Before their parents died they rented a larger house, but once their parents died the landlord evicted them and they just wandered and squatted until someone gave them their current house. Ganizani leans on the door just inches higher than his head and as he talks it comes off the frame. He tries repairing it with a piece of string as he continues. He says usually they walk across town to the PTC and return home just a few kwacha, with this little money they buy maize flour and share it between them; if they don’t have any money, they don’t eat. Their clothes are torn and filthy. They sleep on the bare earth floor without blankets.

This is the effect of extreme poverty and HIV (perhaps that is redundant, perhaps I should simply say this is the effect of extreme poverty). And, I am tempted to ask whether this is also the effect of extreme wealth. Today I saw Ganizani again in front of the PTC, he said the maize had finished and I promised to buy more. What do we do? buy food and blankets? have someone repair their door? make sure these five kids can eat and go to school? set up a trust fund? Am I creating dependency, as my very proactive and vocal Malawian friend Lexa says? Am I harming the country more by acquiescing to basic physical needs without a clear vision for the future? Lexa says kids with parents will take their food and when they leave the house everything will be stolen. She says I need to send them home.

Should I find the distant and most likely impoverished relatives who have not claimed this band of orphans and force them together? Should I send them to an overcrowded orphanage? Is it reckless to feed them now knowing I will leave the country before they are adults? Are these actions for my benefit or theirs? I don’t know. I only know I don’t want them going hungry and I don’t want to ignore them, and waiting for social transformation or a vision will not fill their bellies today.