She was 13 when she left her home. A dreary, dismal shack with a roof that
dripped, walls that allowed in all the elements, a floor that harbored creepy
crawlers. A home dense with a grouchy
grandmother, overworked mother, drunk father and young siblings full of
piercing wails, runny noses, muddy feet, frayed knees, squeals from hunger
pangs. A home that was one of the many
shacks of her village she left behind, family who was one of many other
attachments she didn’t look back for, a mother who was like all others in the
village she turned her back on and walked down the dirt road, away, toward the
bright lights, concrete buildings, bustling city.
Wide eyed and bare feet she stepped onto tarred road
following its path into a neighborhood.
Her lips cracked, tongue parched, hair disheveled, stomach growling, she
walked aimlessly from one street to another.
Turning a bend, she stood in front of a multi-story bungalow and looked
up in awe. As her head leaned back, eyes
reached up to the sky, the sun glared at her squinted glance. The world swirled around her as she lost
feeling in her knees and submitted to the ground beneath.
Sprawled in front of the massive gate on the driveway, the
owner of the bungalow found her. He got
off his air-conditioned, sound proof, leather-lined, darkened windows vehicle
and walked up to the urchin-like form blocking his entryway. Carrying her in his strong arms, he took her
in.
Weeks turned to months and in no time, a year had passed. She lived in a room in the back of the house,
slept on a soft mattress on a single bed, watched shows on her tiny television
set, and worked six days of the week doing simple household tasks. Her mornings started early with a tutor who
introduced her to the world of lettering and languages, numbers and nature,
past and future. He opened her world to
questions beyond the shack she had lived in, beyond the village she belonged
to, beyond the world that currently surrounded her. She obsessed for answers, seeking them from
people, books, and media and the more she learned, the more she
questioned. Her years in the bungalow
grew, from a girl she bloomed, confident and independent. Her time to leave the big house had come, to
move to bigger and higher places.
Thanking her benefactor, clutching his blessings close to her heart, she
moved to the bigger city and continued her learning.
She was 23 when she enrolled into the residency program, her
medical degree in hand. Patient after
patient, clinic after clinic, villages after villages, diseases after
sicknesses she found her way back to the shack that was once home. Crowded with new faces, but familiar eyes she
made her way to the far corner to a disheveled form held together with bones
and transparent skin. Peering into the
sickly eyes, she recognized the sadness, the exhaustion, the despair, the one
she had seen all of her 13 years in the shack.
She had felt helpless then to help her and equally powerless now despite
all the medical capabilities in her. But
now, at least there was hope. She picked
up her mother and took her out of the shack to the newly established clinic of
the village.
