Esther’s Visit

Yesterday, a Kenyan woman stopped Leila on the road from Njabini and told her that she was in Big Trouble.  She needed Help.  Leila invited her back to the Children’s Center to discuss.

An hour later, the woman arrived with a very sick baby in tow, and introduced herself as Esther.  Esther explained that her Trouble was this: her husband brought her and their two sons to Njabini so that he could find work as a day laborer.  However, this promise of work, which would lead to money and sustenance, never materialized.  (As she told her story, her baby was gulping down food as fast as we could give it him).

There was no work, and her husband was becoming increasingly frustrated and taking it out on her older son, a four-year-old, who received nightly beatings from his father – a twisted punishment stemming from the man’s own shortcomings and disappointment.  Would your older son like a meal as well, we asked?  As soon as the invitation reached her ears, she dropped the baby into Leila’s arms and raced down the road through the pouring rain.  An hour later, she was back with the older child, who was in even worse shape than the first.

Esther explained that she wanted to leave her husband and return to the village where her family lived.  She was desperate to protect her sons from any more harm from this man – so desperate that she had been willing to approach a stranger on the road to beg for help.

What would have Esther done if she lived in the US and wanted to leave her abusive husband?  Pick up a yellow pages and look up domestic abuse.   Go to a community center.  There are options.  Here?  No one to reach out to, except for a white person she found on the road.  All suffering is not equal.  We gave her the shillings to pay for transportation back home.  Hopefully Esther is escaping, but what about all the other women who need help, who need empowerment?

The root of Esther in Hebrew is hester, meaning “hidden.”  Esther is hidden, hidden in her poverty, in her despair, like so many others here in Njabini and throughout Kenya.

Esther and her sons