These two boys (not the baby) are Advent and Terrent, affectionately known as Addy and Tally. They are brothers, they couldn't be more opposite, and they couldn't have a sadder story.
Advent is one of the sweetest children I have ever encountered. I decided this my first few weeks in Fiwila. While most people here, especially children, will throw rocks or sticks at dogs, or even kick them, I saw Advent reprimand another child for doing this, then bend down the pet the dog. While this is a gesture of kindness and decency in American culture, in Zambian culture it is almost unheard of. If I need water, I have to make sure Addy is not around, because if he sees me walking with my water container he will come and take it from me and go get me my water, no matter how much I protest. While the other kids all want their picture taken, sweeties, dollies, peanut butter, bread, plastic bottles and pretty much anything else they can see in my house the only things advent has ever asked for was laundry soap so bambuya (our grandmother) could do laundry and a candle for bambuya. The baby he is holding is Godwin, his cousin whose mother works full time. Though Godwin spends the day at Bambuya's, Addy does a lot of the care for him. I gave Addy a piece of bread with jam on it once and he immediately found Godwin and gave him 90% of the treat.
Tally is the complete opposite, I tell him all the time he is a troublemaker! He does not have a mean or a cruel streak, but he is a little mischievous guy! He only wants to get water for me if he can use my bike, and he's often in trouble for doing something or another. He has the same kind heart as Addy, but he's got a hellion streak in him too. For example, he climbed onto my dish rack and brought the whole thing tumbling down.
I love these boys, and their story weighs heavy on my heart every day. Their father married their mother and had them. Shortly after Tally was born (he is the younger one) the mother decided that she didn't want to be married to their father anymore, nor did she want her children so she dumped them off at her husband's mother's house, my bambuya. Bambuya was a little over 60 at the time, didn't have a job, and had no way to care for the children, so their father agreed to take them. It turned out that he was a raging alcoholic and shortly after taking them, turned them over to his now ex-wife's mother. Later, Bambuya was told through the village grape vine, that she needed to go to Inshinso (about 50 kilometers away on a hilly dirt road) and rescue her grands, they were dying. So Bambuya and another member of the family made the trek. Nothing could have prepared them for what they found.
They found tally, just a little over 2 years at the time, practically unconscious and skeletal. They found Addy, about 5 at this time, out foraging for fruits on the ground for the two of them to eat. The grandmother they were staying with was also a drunk, and would abandon the children for days at a time, and when she was around did not care for them. So bambuya strapped the dying Tally to her hunched and arthritic back, and helped Addy stagger the 50 kilometers back to Fiwila. She had no idea how she would manage to care for these boys, how she would manage to feed them, to send them to school, to cloth them, but at that point it didn't matter, these were her grandchildren, she loved them and if she didn't take them they were going to die.
So Addy and Tally still live with Bambuya. Addy helps her out with a lot around the house, and Bambuya works hard all year to maintain enough crops to feed the three of them (plus the one or two other grandchildren she is usually taking care of). She rents out a house to some school boys and sells some of her cassava so she is able to buy basic supplies for the boys. Last week I brought Addy a belt because his pants did not fit but bambuya didn't have the funds to buy a luxury like a belt, so he was tying his pants up with string, but he never complained. She doesn't know yet how she will send Addy to school after grade 7 when she will have to start to pay school fees. But she loves those boys, she takes care of those boys, she protects, nurtures, and disciplines them. She is raising and loving them, and you can tell the love and respect they have back for her.
I don't have any grandparents that are still alive, I was very blessed to have four wonderful grandparents for part of my life, but now I have none, or rather I had none. Bambuya treats me as one of her own, she calls me a Mulomo, which is the family name, and I have adopted her as my grandmother. When my parents came to visit, the only way I could describe the visit to her was that my American family was coming to meet my Zambian family. This woman is truly an amazing woman with a deep and long history to tell. This is just one of the many great things this great woman has done.
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