At 3 am she woke up to screams coming from outside her house. Diana and her family got up and looked out the door and there below them, water rushed past from heavy rains tearing apart the structures around them. The houses below their house were already washed away and people were fleeing up the hill. Diana and her family left their home and their only possessions and ran for their lives up the hill.
The flood took everything. They didn’t have much because her mom worked daily wage jobs and her dad wasted the money he earned on alcohol. But what little they did have, was now gone.
Our partner Fanuel was quick to try and help as many flood victims as possible and within a few days he got Diana’s family a new place to stay and helped furnish it a bit.
But, in the stress, cold, and exhaustion of it all, Diana’s mom was getting sick. She had a pre-existing heart condition that flared up and now Diana was worried about her mom. Diana called Fanuel and he immediately sent a motorcycle to pick them up with some cash to go to the health clinic. When they got there though, the staff told them they couldn’t help her and to send her to the hospital. So Diana called Fanuel again and he sent more money and a driver, and that time he met them at the hospital.
Diana was telling Kacie and me this story through tears in a small home in Mathare. I asked what happened next and Fanuel said that the cost of treatment for Diana’s mom was too much for them all. He said the expenses were heavy, “Oxygen alone was 500 shillings an hour.” So they had to stop the treatment and shortly after, Diana’s mom passed away.
When he said this I was taken aback. 500 shillings is only $5. Diana had to say goodbye to her mom because the oxygen costs $5 an hour.
Sometimes, if I’m honest, poverty doesn’t look too bad. I meet a really nice family on a sunny day. They have a small home but we play games, we smile, and there is still a strong sense that we’re all just humans. It’s tempting to think it doesn’t seem that bad. But it’s in moments like this story where poverty can really bare its teeth. Poverty eliminates options. It eliminates protection. It eliminates any degree of control. And on a good day, that might feel okay. But when the water comes rushing through your neighborhood and your home is made of sticks and tin, and your mom has been battling a heart condition on her own because there’s no money for doctor visits, you can loose everything you love so fast.
Diana smiled and joked with Fanuel during the story. She’s still very much human. She still finds moments of joy and even hope, but there is a burden on her shoulders that is too great. She’s asked now to navigate life and take care of her sisters with very little opportunity.
In the midst of all this, we have been able to get her a scholarship to go to college. She wants to learn about business. I’m devastated that the things poverty has taken from Diana are not things we can give back—her mom, the comfort of her old home, or her childhood for that matter. But I am hopeful that a chance to go to college might open a new door—one that had previously been closed. I’m hopeful that by funding an incredible community leader like Fanuel, he can start to prevent more kids from poverty’s devastating effects.
We can’t take away the pain of the past, but we can help try to pave new futures.
