One woman's story

I thought I would share the story of woman that I have become friends with here in Tanzania. I first met her when she brought her child to the village of Mairowa because she heard there were doctors and desperately wanted help for her precious little boy. Within only a moment, you know why she is desperate. Her child's head is at least three sizes larger than a normal head; he has hydrosypholus, fluid on the brain. Her love for her child is so evident and so amazing in a culture when children like this are often dismissed, just thrown away. She has wonderful smile that just seems to light a room and affect all that are around her. Honestly, the first time I saw her child, I was taken aback. I could not take my eyes off the child. Then, I realized that except for his head, he was just like any other child. He liked to play and crawl around and laugh at the simple things. Raising a child like that in any culture is different but especially Masaai. She loved her child enough to go with him to the hospital, even though the car ride made her sick and she had to go to a hospital that has dead people that she is afraid to be around. When you visit her home, you realize she is a bit of an outcast. The people in her tribe live in a circle of huts together. One of them is for the husband, the rest for all of his wives. She is outside of the circle. Entering her home is difficult, esepcially for someone as tall as me. Despite her meager resources, she has created a home that is warm and full of love. I asked her about her life and if she was able to get any help. Her husband is too old to help, at least forty years her senior. She was sold by her father to be a wife for cows and is too far away from her family to get help from them. Then, her two eldest daughters were taken from her and sold by her husband and now live far away. I realized that her whole life is her children. When I asked how I could pray for her, she only thought of her child. I asked how she was doing and how she was feeling but she said she thought only of her son. While listening to her, I realized that she has never been allowed to have feelings of her own. She has never counted as a person, never had worth of her own, only the amount of cows she would bring to her father and then by producing daughters, cows she would bring to her husband. No one has ever cared for her, loved her, or showed interest in her feelings. What will happen when all of her children leave? What will she do? How will she feel? I have no idea....