Kasama

Rosa Harris

by Rosa HarrisFor International Women’s Day, March 8.

Heat rises from the pavement like a wave. The sweat runs down my forehead. I sink back onto the rugged brick of the wall. The heat is everywhere. It mingles with the smell of sweat and poverty. My most precious, my son, Mal is here next to me. Everything I have is in four bags that I can barely carry. They sit around me like pieces of my life. I can’t leave them for a second. When I go into the nearby bathroom I know what it feels like to be a refugee.

I am sick. It is hard to put one foot in front of the other. My joints are swollen, and I try to ignore the pain. It is hard to catch my breath.

Mal tells me that he is hot and thirsty. And hungry. I don’t have an answer. The stairs seem too high to climb, even to fill our coke bottle with water. I sink down onto the large bag filled with my clothing to wait.

He asks if he can go fill up the bottle. I’m terrified to let him out of my sight. Can I lose him too in the middle of this nightmare? And if I did, if something happened to him, what would be left? But, of course, one of us has to go for water. I watch the bags. He returns a few minutes later with the water and some candy that someone has given him upstairs and settles down on the worn backpack beside me.

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