Her name was Fadimatou. Or Fadi. Or, just to me, Rock Baby. She lived in my compound. She was beautiful. Just the biggest black eyes. She was the most polite little kid I’ve ever known. When she’d enter my yard she’d solemnly take off her holey little flip-flops. We’d spend hours together on my outside bed, flipping through magazines. She never learned to talk, but she’d point and babble at all the pictures she thought were interesting. At night she’d curl up in my outside bed, and I’d have to carry her back to her parents. She was too small to know how to do much of anything, but she knew how to love. She loved everyone in her small little life like crazy.
And she got love, too. Her sister was a pretty outspoken four year old, but whenever I’d give her something, she’d always tear it in half and give the bigger half to Fadi. Her mother was a little crazy. Perhaps reasonably so- she’s lost two out of four kids and she can’t be more than twenty. But her family loved her. Every night her dad would come home from his job hauling water and wheel her around the yard in his pushcart. And of course I loved her. We spent most of our evenings together. She shared my food. She danced in my yard to music from my shortwave radio. She was one of my favorite people in the world.
I knew her for just about her whole life. From when she was a tiny baby to when she was old enough to run up and hug me when I came home. I never thought I’d be a big part of her life. I thought she’d get some school. get married, have kids of her own. It wouldn’t have been a spectacular life. They were poor people from a poor town. But there would have been room for happiness.
I’m sad. I wish I could go to the funeral. It would be in my own shared yard. We’d spend three days sitting with the family, drinking millet porridge, sitting on mats and crying. Women inside the compound and men outside. Our shoes would be piled up at the entrance. That is the most terrifying sight in Cameroon. A bunch of men sitting on a mat in front of a house in your neighborhood. More terrifying than anything in a horror movie.
I wish I had heard a better way. Someone who is there just off-handedly said “Oh Rock Baby died.” She surely didn’t know how much I cared about that kid. I wish I could have saved her. It was surely malaria or dysentery or something else that could be fixed with five dollars. I wish God didn’t put little loving kids on this Earth, give them next to nothing, and then kill them off when they are still babies.
Anyway, what a sad day. This isn’t my drama at all. But still. Fadi, you were loved. You won’t be forgotten.
:: Death is always tough to deal with, especially when it comes so early. May you be able to grieve for the loss of that special part of your life in Cameroon and come to peace with it in time.
I will look for any organization where I (and any Dopers that choose to) can donate some money, so that other children will have vaccinations and clean water, and don’t have to die like Fadi did. (still crying as I type, off to hug my daughter)
I was in Cameroon from June 2006-2008, teaching high school with the Peace Corps. I lived in a a typical Cameroonian house, which was in a walled compound with a large yard and a few houses. I lived with an old woman and Fadi’s family. We spent a lot of time together since we shared a common space and Cameroonian daily life mostly spent outdoors. Every night I’d sit in my yard cooking and reading and listening to my radio. Eventually the kids would wander in and I’d share my dinner with them and they’d have a chance to color and play with the toys I had for them. These evenings were some of my favorite times in Cameroon.
Their parents tried hard, but they were as poor as a family could get and had some other problems- the kids only had one set of clothes at a time and their toys were a prized collection of rusty tin cans. Their parents were busy scratching out a living as best they could. So I think the kids really appreciated having someone pay attention to them. Their lives were pretty much the dirt yard, the mud walls, their busy and slightly crazy parents, an old woman who lived in the compound and me. The community was definitely watching out for the kids, but there was only so much they could do.
Fadi was maybe 2 and a half when I left, so she’d be three now. I’m not sure how she died. Malaria and dysentery are still the number one killers of kids in the world, and it was almost certainly that. It comes on quick. Kids will be fine one day and then two days later you’ll hear they are dead. Most parents in Cameroon expect to lose a few children. I honestly don’t know how they can bear it.
I was saddened by the initial post, but that line makes me a lot sadder. The amount of “waste” produced in western society is staggering, and yet these children get no more than rusty cans for toys.
If anyone out there wants to help, try groups like Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres. They provide doctors, medications, and medical supplies for teams that go around the world to try to help the needy. (Check their privacy policy if that sort of thing concerns you - their standard is to require you to contact by e-mail/phone/letter to opt out of them sharing your contact info with other similarly-minded non-profits.)
Heifer International allows you to donate various directly useful gifts to improve someone’s standard of living and financial situation. I was reading a magazine today that specifically mentioned Cameroon as one place that gifts can go. You can contribute money for bees, goats, a water buffalo, and so on. As little as $20 can give chicks, geese, or ducks to a family.
If you’re a knitter or crocheter and want to make something by hand for a child who has no decent toys, Mother Bear Project targets children in developing nations (mainly ones affected by HIV/AIDS, either if infected themselves or from a family where a parent is ill or dead from it) - the charity is basically one woman in Minnesota and assorted volunteers, who collect mailed-in handknit/crocheted teddy bears, attach a little heart to each chest and a name tag to each bear, and send them out. The stories and photos on the website are touching, heartbreaking. I get a little handwritten postcard of thanks from the woman who organizes this charity each time I send a bear.
even sven, check your E-mail (from your profile) some time soon.
Thank you for telling us about Fadi.
: Death is always tough to deal with, especially when it comes so early. May you be able to grieve for the loss of that special part of your life in Cameroon and come to peace with it in time.