Maro's struggle
on M&S Diary (Sierra Leone), 19/Sep/2006 17:20, 34 days ago
I spent last week in bed. At first the doctor threatened me with Malaria but in the end I think it was just a nasty virus. Lying under a mosquito net for five days gives you time to think. Cocooned under my white web I felt cut off from the world outside. As a listened to children shout in the street below my window I thought a lot about the gulf that divides me from them– and from almost everyone I encounter on a daily basis. I thought about my wealth and the world of opportunities it brings me – opportunities that most people around me are denied. I am blessed with the freedom to choose what work I pursue, where I live, which places I visit, how many childrenI have, who I have those children with, how I spend my leisure time, what I have for breakfast – and the list goes on. Indeed it is almost endless. There are certain constraints of course but in relative terms I am free to make decisions about almost every aspect of how I live my life.I have the freedom to choose because I was born with the privilege of being able to take a number of things for granted. Things which most of us consider universal human rights– access to education, healthcare, enough food to eat – I was provided with these things in excess. And because I am healthy and educated and have money I am able to decide how I live my life. Most people here are denied those choices. Edwin and Francis are hard-working and have high aspirations. They dream of becoming world-class lawyers and human rights activists. But in the end I wonder how much choice they will really have about what they do. I visited a woman today in hospital dying of AIDS. If it wasn’t for support from SWAASL her poverty would deny her the right to choose to receive healthcare. As I sit here, I wonder about the circumstances that caused her to contract the virus. I doubt she has ever been in a position to make any real choices about how she lives her life – not in the way I know choice.I struggle to make sense of these thoughts and my relationship to the people I spend my days with. At times I wonder whether I am faced with barriers that are insurmountable. But in other moments I am reminded of how essentially similar all people are. This morning a woman came into the office with her week old baby. As we talked about his name, age, how well he was sleeping and smiled together at how small and new he was, we could have been two women anywhere in the world. At lunch time I shared some Jollof rice with three of the other girls who work in day-care centre. As we scooped up hot mouthfuls from a single heap on someones desk and laughed at our greedy, sticky fingers I felt no great distance between us. And now, listening to the children shouting in the street outside– if I don’t strain to hear what language they are calling to each other in – their sounds could be those made by children on any continent.Perhaps the paradox between these essential similarities in nature and fundamental differences in circumstance cannot be reconciled. I suppose it is why I am here, and it’s only right that I continue to struggle with them.