DECEMBER 2 — Giggling and screams of delight fill the air. Not shy, tinkling giggles, but serious deep giggles interwoven with shrieks and exclamations of “thank you Auntie” surround me.
Smiles that reach from ear to ear cover faces which are now swirling and dancing around. Promises to be ready at the appointed time the next morning, bathed and with clean clothes and all given solemnly.
I shut my door and start my engine and wave goodbye and my heart sinks to my stomach. No matter how I try and avoid it, bile often fills my throat in these moments as I think about what was and what continues to be, at least psychologically.
These girls, the oldest of which is 15 and the youngest who is 9, didn’t win the lottery. I didn’t give them a trip to Disneyland or a day’s adventure somewhere. I simply told them I was going to take them to KFC for lunch the next day. KFC, a place that most of us don’t even want to go, and yet we could if we wanted to. A place that is a dream come true for these girls.
These girls; each and every one has been exploited, most were in the sex trade, many were raped, all were abused. When I first met them, they were an awkward combination of girl and woman. They did not yet have breasts, but they knew things most girls don’t know.
They knew what it was like to be hungry and have nothing to fill their stomachs. Knew what it was to be cold and have nothing with which to cover themselves. They knew what it was like to be hurt, to be used, to be beaten. They knew what they had to do to keep those things from happening.
They had seen the pit of hell already in life, and life had little purpose.
I had not seen them for a few months. When I arrived back to see them they were in school, and I was shocked by what I saw when I visited them at school. Suddenly the young girl-women I had known, whom I had loved and whom I had somehow come to accept that they were no longer children; stood in front of me with their school uniforms on looking so young, younger than I had been expecting. They are in Year 3, as their education has been almost nothing to this point, and are studying with much younger students, and the reality that they, themselves, are still just children is very obvious.
It was easier for me to deal with their stories as young women than it was to deal with their stories facing the truth; that they are just girls. That life has been cruelly unfair to them. And that the world stood by and let it happen to them and millions of others.
I arrived the next morning and found them ready. Excitement filled the air. Even I now smiled and laughed and was ready for the adventure that the day would hold. We loaded into the car, the white foreigner chauffeuring a bunch of girls to town, we were a strange sight to be sure.
I took them to the largest mall in the city, we got on the lift for the first time in their life, some more willingly than others, and we stepped onto an escalator, for the first time. They saw Christmas decorations and a dancing, singing Santa and their eyes lit with joy. And then came KFC.
Once the food came, everyone was hesitant. They didn’t know if they should dig in like they wanted to or be polite and wait for me. Slowly they let themselves go and ate, but still with caution. Not allowing themselves to enjoy to much or show too much. They were quiet, contemplative. As the meal neared the end I asked if anyone wanted ice cream, and eyes lit up again, bright and happy.
We bought cones of soft serve, to everyone’s delight. Everyone was beginning to relax now but no one really knew how to eat the cone. A few took a lick, and soon everyone began, but a mess soon ensued as drips ran down the back. I tried to show each how to eat an ice cream by making sure they got the drips and rotated the cone. Who knew eating an ice cream cone wasn’t just instinct? I don’t remember anyone needing to teach me how to eat ice cream.
We spent some more time walking the mall. Soon everyone needed the toilet and what I expected to be a quick trip took at least 30 minutes. Each person was fascinated with the hand dryer and had to wash their hands at least twice to try it.
Everyone was disappointed when I said we were going but said little to me. I could not find it in myself to take them back so I took them to another nice restaurant for cake and tea. Cake and tea ended up being soda, cake, tea, pizza, colouring and small toys, oh yes, and the fried grasshoppers we bought along the way. This time no one was reserved. They tried the cake and pizza with joy and told me just how they felt about it all.
As I watched them colour and try new things, tears filled my eyes. My childhood was so protected and safe and I never lacked for anything. In contrast they had never had anything and had never been protected or safe.
But yesterday they regained just a tiny bit of those lost moments. Yesterday, and hopefully for many days to come, they will learn to be kids, instead of learn to be women. Now they are safe, now they are protected, and now, with time, they will reclaim what was stolen from them by a world which didn’t care.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
