Seeing the Depths of Hell in a Hungry Child's Eyes

Seeing the Depths of Hell in a Hungry Child's Eyes

huffingtonpost.com

Michealene Cristini Risley
Posted October 16, 2007 | 11:38 AM (EST)

Dear President Mugabe,

I am haunted by the current situation in your country. I am haunted by the
hunger I see in a little girl's eyes. I met her in a rural village that I
cannot list here, for fear of danger to many lives. I do not know this
child's name. She had walked many miles with her grandmother and younger
brother to thank my friend for her gift of blankets. I look into those deep,
hollow eyes and see through to the depths of hell. I cannot look away,
terrified as I am by this images being thrust at me.

I am haunted by my memories of your country -- one that I cannot stop
thinking about . Yet, I am forced into silence. To speak brings
interrogation, punishment, even death. I am followed by horrific images as
unwanted as a stalker that follows me to the car wash or out to dinner. The
voice cries out in my head. I feel so spoiled, so privileged, so American --
and yet, so helpless. The helplessness is the worst of all feelings, for I
cannot assist these kids or alleviate their condition. I have seen young
girls who have been raped and abused. A common occurrence in Zimbabwe
brought about by men who seek to rid themselves from HIV/AIDS by raping
young virgins. I have talked to a doctor, shook the hand of a man who talks
about the rape of a one-day-old girl. The ignorance and apathy is
incomprehensible.

I have also seen the unintended consequences of celebrity adoptions in
Africa. Men are going to villages, taking advantage of those events, telling
mothers that their daughters are going to be adopted by "celebrities" and
"wealthy American families" -- and that they can now cease to worry. The men
give families $100 dollars and take their daughters away. These unknowing
children are raped first and sent into sexual slavery. A few children
adopted, thousands put at risk. I cannot even speak these words aloud for
fear of repercussions. I am a still a prisoner in Zimbabwe. A prison not of
my own making but one that forces me to be silent against the daily
atrocities in your country.

I can still smell the suffering and feel the tension throughout the air.
Food is scarce, water is scarcer. Electricity is sporadic at best. Your
country is on the verge of collapse. Yet denial plays like a cheap filmstrip
upon your ugly back. A barrage of requests for media interviews come to my
apartment. But the safety of my friends comes first. Haunted, hunted and
trapped in hell. The Hell you have created.

You are a smart man, Mr. Mugabe. For I am one of many forced to be silent. I
have never thought my world could be like this, but here I am. What can I do
with this knowledge to save people? What harm will my attempts cause? What
deaths and torture lay upon my actions? I exaggerate not.

You're clever in your torture methods. Don't feign ignorance because you
know it is so. The first one is the old-fashioned beating. The beatings by
your thugs with their hands and feet. I know of one man who survived a
beating with a plank of wood covered in nails. He was thrown in the river to
be eaten by the alligators. Even the alligators had some mercy and left his
punctured body on the banks. The second kind of torture used is poisoning.
This happens often in prisons. It is easy for you to hide this kind, for
many people never come out from behind those bars. Who has money for
autopsies there -- when there is no food to eat? Most people know the truth
anyway, even if you make it illegal to say it. The last type of torture is
electrical wires that touch against both sides of the victim's body. The
body smells as it is slowly electrocuted. People will say anything when
tortured.

I went to a party last weekend in a local neighborhood. It is an annual
event hosted by good, decent people who are active in our community. The
couple is in the midst of doing a remodel on their house yet still hosted
the event. A large pig slowly turned on the roasting pit, waiting for its
final crispness. In the midst of laughter and good food, I walked up the
hill to the top of the driveway. I looked down at the guests who milled
around the plates of food. The laughter floated up to me. There were some
children that followed me up to where I sat on the cement. The kids via
their imagination created little monsters that were gong to "eat us up."
"Ah! Those tree-suckers are coming", said one child. He began to describe
the one-eyed monsters to his companion. I got up to take them back to the
party, as I could see they had begun to scare themselves into fear. A hot
tub filled with fear that I am already soaking in.

I am surrounded by my own monsters now. Monsters that you have created and
you can eliminate. My monster has eyes everywhere, and I cannot escape. Can
you?

I got stuck in a cell in one of the many prisons in your country. A 5-by-5
holding cell that had one small bench. One woman lay sprawled on the wooden
platform. She was asthmatic and clutched her inhaler close to her chest.
There were a number of women there arrested for selling food on the street.
Street vending is an illegal activity in Zimbabwe. Even so, the roads are
littered with the site of makeshift tables displaying sale items. These
women are aware of the law, but have no other way to feed their children.
They sell items on the streets to feed their little ones, and hope not to
get caught. Who will watch their children when they are caught? No one. They
do get caught, and are arrested and incarcerated. They go before the courts
and pay a fine -- if they have the money. I do not know what happens to them
if they cannot pay the fine. I dare not ask.

I am grateful that I had the money. It allowed me to bribe every shift of
guards while I was incarcerated. We avoided going up to the holding pen on
the third floor. That floor was covered with feces and urine. Woman lay
scattered across the floor barefoot. A prisoner must be barefoot in prison.
It is the only way a guard can tell the prisoners from the guests. I step on
the substance and it oozes through my big toe. I try not to gag.

We talked through the night and the women shared their stories. They came in
all shapes and sizes but there stories were remarkably similar. Their tales
depicted desperate mothers forced to break the law to feed their children. I
had no answers for them. I wept when they told me their stories. A few of
them asked me why I cried, and I explained that I wept for their suffering.
They seemed puzzled by this. "This is our life", they explained, "Why do you
cry for us?" They did not seem to comprehend my grief.

One woman had a series of photos that she clutched in her hands. She shared
the photos with our group. The photos captured her after being severely
beaten by her husband. Her face was so swollen and beaten that she was
unrecognizable as the women who sat in front of me. Shocked, I asked "Why
are you here" She said that her husband told the police that she stole
something and they arrested her. She started to cry. I got angry.

Surely, we must be spoiled here. We complain so much as people, and don't
take action. In America, we squander our rights. As a country we can't seem
to even get the majority of our population out to vote. In Zimbabwe their
rights are trampled on daily, yet they do not complain. They get beaten to a
pulp by their spouses and thrown into jail with trumped up charges. They are
silent. We complain, we yell, we fight and then we sit and stuff ourselves
with a rib-eye steak. I am ashamed.

I think again of the young child in tattered clothing. Of her trying to
cross her emaciated legs and sit down, when a plate of food is put in front
of her. Her desire to gorge on the plate of food is palpable. I have lost my
appetite. She grabs a potato with her hands and begins eating quickly. I
watch her waiting for some sense of satisfaction, to light up her eyes, but
it never comes.

I sign my name here.


.

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