Women and girls carry the burden of care

I am a twelve-year-old girl from Mozambique. Although I am struggling to keep up with my lessons, what I enjoy most is going to school. I can eat well at school, and the teacher gives me food for my aunt and my young cousins. I also get free schoolbooks there. But I do worry about my aunt when I am at school. I wonder how she and my baby cousin are coping without me.

 

We have been on holiday from school for two days, so it is two days since we have eaten. We are all hungry, but I worry most about my aunt, because she refuses to take her tablets for tuberculosis when she has no food. She says they make her feel sick when she takes them on an empty stomach. She is getting very thin. I am frightened for her.

 

We weren’t always like this. We live in Zambezia province, which produces most of the food in the country. The land is very fertile. Most of the people here are farmers. We used to produce lots of crops, like maize and beans. We used to eat well. Our family had a large plot of land; we cultivated enough for us to eat and sometimes to even sell at the market nearby; that was before we had to sell the land. We sold the land when my aunt fell sick and my uncle left her. I don’t like to talk about when we sold our land because it makes my aunt cry.

 

My aunt has tried to look after us well, but now she is too weak, so I look after her.

 

We have had to sell most of our possessions to survive. My five cousins, my aunt and I live in this one-roomed hut, which is falling apart. Inside our home, which is made of mud, sticks and grass, it is damp. It has just been raining and water seeps through the zinc roofing. We have only a few belongings left: a couple of old pots and a few torn clothes, which I fold neatly on a mat.

 

We are all orphans. My mother and father were very sick and died, so too were my aunts and uncles, just like my grandparents. And now my only surviving aunt is sick too, and will probably die.

 

Some visitors have just come with Aunty Anita, the neighbour who visits my aunt at least once a week. They have given me money to go to the market. It is a 15-minute walk through long grass. The visitors seemed concerned that we hadn’t eaten. Aunty Anita explained to the visitors that she had no money to help.

 

When we get to the market with all this money, the neighbours are talking to me again. They all want to be my friends. Usually, I get the feeling that they no longer want to know our family. It is as if they are scared of us, because so many of us have fallen sick and died. But now they all want to talk to me. I buy a big bag of maize, fruit and vegetables. I carry the maize on my head, which seems to surprise the visitors who are foreigners. I think they thought that because I am so skinny, I am not strong. But I am used to carrying heavy things. Each day I fetch water. I put the barrel of water on my head. I also fetch firewood; and I have to lift my aunt. I give my aunt baths, and after school I also work in the houses of the neighbours or on their plots and they pay me whatever they can. Besides, the physical work, I cook for the family – that is when we have food to cook.

 

And each day I carry my aunt to the mat on the verandah so she can see the sun. Inside our home it is very dark. We have no windows and the mats on the ground are worn out. It makes the ground cold.

 

It is becoming more difficult for me. Some days I can’t attend classes because as my aunt gets sicker, she needs me more. She is now too ill to walk to the hospital, so I go to fetch the tablets she needs. I don’t want to drop out of school, but sometimes I wonder how I will manage to stay on in school.

 

It helps me a lot when Aunty Anita arrives to visit us. My aunt likes to talk to Aunty Anita and she understands my aunt’s illness. She also helps look after her. Then I have more time to work on other people’s plots or in their homes to earn some money for us. I also have to look after my two year-old cousin. He is the child of my other aunt who died. He is very close to me and cries when I am not around.

 

When I have time, I like to get my hair plaited. I like to look nice even though my clothes are old. I don’t have any plans for my future. These days I don’t think about too much. In fact don’t think about anything much these days.

 

(One month after the interview with the child, her aunt died. All the children were forced out of their home and were taken into the home of the KEWA activist, Anita Martinho, the carer who used to visit the house. Their names have not been used to protect their privacy.)