C.M. Paul

Korr (Kenya) — A mentally challenged Kenyan tribal teenage girl surprised relief workers in Kaisut desert with practical lessons in mothering and sharing. Salesian Fr Jiji Kalavanal director of Don Bosco Image Kochi on a documfilm shoot in Korr, northern Kenya narrates his encounter with the amazing Rendire tribe girl.

“On a very hot afternoon,” Fr Kalavanal says, “the vehicle of the missionaries pulled up at a remote manyatta (village). Soon a number of children and elderly people came flocking around hoping to get something to eat. The women from the village had gone in search of water, leaving the children to the care of elderly ladies or older children. A number of children had a smaller child on their back.”

Soon a Nirmaladasi Sister starts attending to the children and distributing medicine and the Salesian missionary supervised the orderly distribution of food.

Fr Kalavanal recalls, “As my camera rolled on, a teen-aged girl came into focus – she was shabbily dressed, looked awfully dirty, and was carrying a child. On closer observation, it was noticed that she was carrying not one but two babies – one clinging to her neck in front and another at her back! Obviously it was not her children… she was “mothering” someone else’s children!”

Observing her further, the priest camera man was convinced that, “she was herself a mentally challenged girl but proving a mother to the children clinging to her.”

The priest’s camera captured her face, clothes, fingers, nails… the flies niggling around the nose of the children… the sediments of dirt under their untrimmed nails …their sore eyes…their parched lips…their dry skin, the scabies and the wounds.

Then one of the babies started crying and the girl began to sing. When someone called out for silence for the singer to be heard, another commented that she was after all a ‘mentally challenged singer’… but undeterred she sang… and the baby stopped crying.

It was then time for candies to be distributed… children sat on the sand caressingly licking them… they were relishing this very rare moment with silent smiles writ large on their faces… the ‘mentally challenged singer’ too had one in her hand… she too licked it with great relish… it tasted good… then like any caring mother she shared her joy with ‘her babies’… a little sweetness for their dry lips… those children mattered to her… she was happy to share and bringing a little joy also into their lives.

The experience of travelling with the relief supply vehicles of the missionaries shows one that even each child patiently awaits his/her turn … there is never a rush, they don’t try to grab, they gratefully receive what is offered and they SHARE what they get!

The incident made Fr Kalavanal reflect, “A tiny piece of candy gave them a moment of joy… and the star among them was that ‘mentally challenged, differently abled girl’ with the two babies clinging to her… she shared the little she had received with a great motherly heart…She truly proved herself to be a ‘differently-abled girl.’”

The desert girl’s mothering and sharing story is brilliantly captured on film entitled: When I was hungry you gave me to eat – https://youtu.be/SMN98aFHDm0.

The Don Bosco Mission of Korr, in the Kaisut Desert of East Africa, was established in 1980. Since then Salesians have been working to uplift the people, especially those of the Sambru and Rendire tribes. One of the main concerns of the missionaries during drought is the distribution of relief food to some 4,805 households. Their focus is to reach the most vulnerable groups, particularly women, children, the elderly and those with disabilities and sicknesses. END