Monday was a really hard day for Sophie. On Saturday evening, I got a call from the mother of one of the babies telling me she would come on Sunday to pick her youngest daughter up. Hekima Place has been awarded custody by the court in Ngong of both of this woman’s daughters. The mother is a widow who has AIDS, an alcohol problem, and mental health issues. And she is in no position financially or emotionally to take care of her daughters. We have been doing our best to keep her away from the girls, but she came and took the older one with her for the school holiday. We have all been worried about that. So I was very concerned when she told me she wanted the baby, too. The mother didn’t explain anything to me, and then phoned several times on Sunday but would hang up when I answered the phone. I think her English is poor and she didn’t want to try to talk to me.
Sophie got here after church and I explained what was going on to her. She has had pretty good luck dealing with this woman before, so she called the mother and got the story from her. The mom had some kind of court hearing regarding the girls on Monday and wanted to come get the little one to take to the hearing. Sophie convinced her it made more sense to leave the baby here and let Sophie bring her to the hearing. It didn’t make any sense for me to go because I wouldn’t have understood what was going on (much of it in Kiswahili). Sophie was really the only one here who could do it.
So early on Monday, Sophie headed to where ever this woman lives to meet her at the hearing. Apparently the woman was bringing a suit against us (not real clear on that) for stealing her children, practicing witchcraft on them, and making them ill. The authorities in that court referred the case to the Ngong court because that’s the venue that had previously handled the children’s cases when they were transferred to us. In Ngong, the woman repeated her charges and demanded both her children back. The officer of the court pointed out that Hekima Place had been granted legal guardianship of the girls, but the mother insisted they should come with her. The judge asked the older one who she wanted to go with and she tearfully said she wanted to go with Mum Sophie back to Hekima Place. At this point, the judge quietly urged Sophie to ‘run away with the girls’! Sophie felt she needed to stay and try to calm the mother down so she got the girls out to the car where Victor could drive them home. The mother figured out what was going on and pursued Victor down the street shouting at the top of her lungs that he was stealing her children. Victor said he just drove, looking not right or left, just trying to get out of there as fast as he could!
Sophie did spend time with the mother and I hope got her settled down. It seems the issue is this. An AIDS agency was providing the mom with food and a place to live as long as she had the girls with her. But now that she no longer has the girls, all she is receiving is a place to live. She has a part time job and I guess it was felt she could buy her own food. Sophie concluded the mom wanted the daughters back so she would continue to receive the food aid in addition to housing. She had some discussion with the authorities about this situation, but I don’t exactly know what the conclusion of that was.
I was in a meeting of the Trustees all afternoon while this wild stuff was going on and was receiving intermittent updates from Sophie by phone during the meeting - trying to pay attention to both at once while taking meeting notes. During the meeting, Victor returned with the two little girls and the younger ones here ran out to greet them, shouting their names in a raucous welcome. Sophie arrived much later having made her way back by matatu through a driving rain storm, completely wrung out by the events of the day. Both the girls, especially the older one who’d spent a week with her mom, seemed very happy to be back and safe at Hekima.
I tell you, I can’t say enough good things about the staff here and what they’re willing to do for the sake of these girls!
No comments:
Post a Comment