The professional lady sat behind her large desk, the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. She had been sitting like that for about half an hour. Papers were strewn across her desk, the mouse lay motionless in her hand. Her mouth was moving but her colleague across the hall could not hear what she was saying. As she was packing up her things to go home for the weekend, the other lady noticed her wipe her eyes as she put down the phone.
As in the inner city, there isn't much real privacy on the hillside. Often three or four families call one building home. There's not much to keep secret when you share the same balcony, and the same bathroom out back. Conversations, and arguments are seldom between only two people.
In the afternoon, on our way home from work, 10-year-old Pinky* plays in the sun on the packed dirt patio stolen from the steep hillside with her two younger brothers, the neighbor's two kids and the puppy. She has the new baby strapped to her back. Two of the missus of the house sit in the sun as they clean the beans for the evening meal.
Pinky's bare legs stick out of her too-short dress. Soon she will be responsible to cover them up in public. She is already responsible for whatever her brothers need and much of what the baby needs. If there's going to be rice for supper, it will be Pinyk's job to cook it.
The children's father won't be home from work for at least a couple more hours. The sisters-in-law tell me their mother hasn't cleaned her house since the baby came. She sits in the windowless main room--kitchen, living room and master bedroom combined--and has hardly bathed in a month and a half. In the early mornings before her husband goes to work we can hear their voices carry across the amphitheater hills. The baby cries. The children, when they're not in school, spend a lot of time outside even on the cold days.
My husband is a mental health counselor. He speaks a different language than they do. Are we responsible? If we report it, Pinky's dad might lose his job. Would that help? Then what would they do? Where would they live? Maybe Pinky's mother could go back to her mother in the village. Is it better for the children to be without a mother at all?
*name changed for protection
As in the inner city, there isn't much real privacy on the hillside. Often three or four families call one building home. There's not much to keep secret when you share the same balcony, and the same bathroom out back. Conversations, and arguments are seldom between only two people.
In the afternoon, on our way home from work, 10-year-old Pinky* plays in the sun on the packed dirt patio stolen from the steep hillside with her two younger brothers, the neighbor's two kids and the puppy. She has the new baby strapped to her back. Two of the missus of the house sit in the sun as they clean the beans for the evening meal.
Pinky's bare legs stick out of her too-short dress. Soon she will be responsible to cover them up in public. She is already responsible for whatever her brothers need and much of what the baby needs. If there's going to be rice for supper, it will be Pinyk's job to cook it.
The children's father won't be home from work for at least a couple more hours. The sisters-in-law tell me their mother hasn't cleaned her house since the baby came. She sits in the windowless main room--kitchen, living room and master bedroom combined--and has hardly bathed in a month and a half. In the early mornings before her husband goes to work we can hear their voices carry across the amphitheater hills. The baby cries. The children, when they're not in school, spend a lot of time outside even on the cold days.
My husband is a mental health counselor. He speaks a different language than they do. Are we responsible? If we report it, Pinky's dad might lose his job. Would that help? Then what would they do? Where would they live? Maybe Pinky's mother could go back to her mother in the village. Is it better for the children to be without a mother at all?
*name changed for protection
No comments:
Post a Comment