A & J

I sat and watched Akay as she cradled Jack. They are a gorgeous pair. Akay, with her perfect ebony skin and high cheek bones is a stunningly beautiful young woman. Jack's big dark eyes and his round face are handsome but its when he lights it all up with a smile that you realise just how handsome. Akay holds her young son close, leaning forward and rubbing the front of her chin on his forehead making him giggle.

Akay's brother is sitting next to her mother on the bench beside me. I don't say much on visits to their home like this one. Theirs is a family of storytellers and so I just enjoy the free flowing entertainment. A lady from the village comes to sell some really nice traditional clothing and before his mother knows what is happening, Akay's brother is trying on his favourite. He sends a joke in Jack's direction about how much more handsome he is than his little nephew. Akay sucks her teeth in disagreement and points out Jack's smile and his red lips to back up her argument. Her brother looks at his mother and says, “Aren't you going to speak up for your son, Ma?” She looks at her teenage boy and sighs. He laughs good naturedly and, referring to how much he looks like a young version of his father, says, “Mama says that Papa has gotten old and ugly and that I have stolen his body.” Akay joins the joke now, flashing her own broad smile and laughing, “Oh, Mama looks at you and she remembers those days!” They both clap their hands, hum a beat and pretend to dance, laughing hard at the idea of their parents doing the same in their younger years.

Akay lives in a mud hut with no electricity and no toilet. She gets her water from a stream behind her home which is where people from her village also bathe. I didn't tell you that at first because I was afraid you would make her an “African” in your head, a cardboard cut-out that was decorated for you by oversimplified news stories, one dimensional charity advertisements and half remembered school projects. I believe that one of the biggest barriers to people's compassion towards the absolute poor is their inability to understand them as real, living, breathing, teasing their sisters and laughing at their ageing fathers people. People just like you. Akay and her brother are two particularly powerful examples of the world's inequality of opportunity. If they had been in your class at school they would have not only been the coolest kids in the place but quite possibly amongst the most successful afterwards. They just brim over with talent and potential. With the help of COTN, their parents and others who care for them, the prayer is that they will defy the odds and live the kind of lives they might dream of. Remember the kinds of dreams you had as you entered your last year of school? Yeah...lives like that...

With the sun beating a hasty evening retreat, and no torch in my bag, I got up to say my goodbyes and go home. Akay got up to “leave” me, which means walk with me a little of the way back, but as she moved she tripped and fell forward. After regaining her balance, she turned to me, stood up perfectly straight and smiled one of those embarrassed little smiles which say, “Ahem...let's pretend that didn't happen...”

Which I thought was cool because that's exactly what you probably would have done...