Home visit for one child took the whole afternoon. We started out on a taxi but when the road ended we still had some walking uphill to do. What awaited us, though expected, was still a bit startling to our eyes. Children were sleeping on an empty sugar bag in the corner and they had virtually nothing. Half-ready basket with exercise books in it, couple of posters with Amharic and English letters and some easier words with pictures were the only things to catch the eye. The older sister, who is studying in the fourth grade is teaching her seven year old brother with the help of the poster, who is not attending school yet. Their parents are dead so they are living with their aunt, who isn’t able to support or school them.
With consent from the aunt we decided that the younger brother is going to school the next day with his sister to start his studies in the first grade. Obviously the boy didn’t have clothes for school. There was only a big raggedy jacket, shorts and torn slippers in which he showed up at the school gate the next day. Fortunately we had set aside some clothes earlier in the headmistress’ office. So we managed to dress the little boy and walk him to class with exercise books and a backpack. He was so happy for it. Every time I see him sitting in the first row in grade one I have to hold back my tears. Every day I see how his sister plays with him and takes care of him in the schoolyard. They are merely children but sometimes it seems that they are like small old people because they have been through a lot in their short lives – all this despair is written in their faces.
The next day I was visiting another family. Mother and four children. The mother has a small stand attached to the house where she sells tomatoes, potatoes, barbere and other bits and pieces. Oldest brother is already a grown-up and is working as a hairdresser at the university. Two younger ones are attending school but the youngest one is still too young for that. Their father is dead and they didn’t even have money for the funeral. They are living in state provided accommodation and they have two small rooms. Bedroom is at the rear one, where lies a bed for one and a half people where all of them sleep together. In the front room there are some chairs. It was so dark in the front room that a stronger bulb is used to make out the arriving guests. From there we also found a brother who was in rags and without shoes. He also accompanied his sister to school the next day, where exactly the same process took place, as with the boy described earlier.
I visited few more homes and the situation was the same: children were sleeping on the floor, some on mattresses, some not. There might stand a cupboard in the corner of the room or a couple of chairs, but that was all. The furniture often might not even belong to them but was there previously.
Sometimes people show up at school and ask if we could help their children because they themselves lack the means to put them through school. Then I make another home visit.
ANNIKA