Today I will continue with my stories of the children & today it is the turn of Jennifer.
Jennifer is 9 years old & has been at the Hospice for 4 years now. Jenny is one of the HIV negative children which is great. Jenny came to be here 4 years ago through a family decision. She, like Suresh who I recently reported on, is also from a very poor village. Her father died from HIV a number of years ago but her mother who is also HIV positive is still alive & comes to visit Jenny every 2-3 weeks & they seem to have quite a close relationship which is very nice.
Now Jenny's family seemed to need to make a decision between her & her brother. Being very poor they could only afford to care for one child & they decided to keep her brother with them because, again, the male inherits the property. When I was told this, again it seemed another case of a bit of a cold & even sexist choice but after hearing more of the story & understanding more about what happened it occurred to me how hard life is for these people & in the situation they were in they had to make a hard choice, which is easy for people like me to make snap judgements on but they had to make a very hard choice & in this case I guess it's quite a rational one.
Her brother will inherit & she will get an education. In this case I think it was not a matter of 'getting rid' of a child as it has been in other cases as there is still a strong bond between mother & daughter. Although thinking about it I have never seen her grandparents or brother or other family visit her. :(
Anyway Jenny seems quite happy with her life here and has quite a strong personality. Now don't let her pretty smile fool you! If you cross her you better be sure she will take you to the cleaners! She has a scowl that would make a pack of starving Hyenas think twice. I would like to take a photo to show you what I mean, but I'm worried if I did & she caught me, I would have no face left afterwards.
Actually then again I caught her on video giving one of the kids a piece of her mind over some issue over a toothbrush.
Here's the link;
http:/youtu.be/R63XbBpqWVU
See what I mean? I think she will grow up to be a very strong woman (and probably a bit of a hen-pecker to some poor man one day hehe) :) But actually if you haven't made the mistake of upsetting her she's actually a very sweet girl.
Anyway that's all from me for now catch you later friends hope you are all well and having fun :) x x x
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