SHOW ME YOUR DREAMS

Chapter Four: True Awakening

Three years later, the month of August still remained the most dreadful season for Biko. In fact, memories of his wife's demise were part of it.

Atieno's absence also reminded him that the struggle to fend for his now fast growing three-year old twins and eight-year old daughter will always be a daunting experience to say the least. Even though he had a cousin helping him with some of the chores, he still had to be responsible for their medical needs.

His true awakening came one August day when Opiyo fell ill and he took him to the clinic in Lihanda for treatment. While there, seated next to Biko on the waiting bench, was a father holding a one-year-old boy he perceived could be his son.

The little boy seemed malnourished, his eyes were sunk deeply into their sockets. Indeed, he looked frail and sickly. His poor little mouth was covered with tiny sores, probably caused by yeast. It was an image Biko was sure he had never seen before, and sitting next to such a child evidently dying of starvation gave him goosebumps.

Biko remembered a nurse appearing, took the child from the father, and weighed him. After jotting a few notes down, the nurse then talked to the father, and the sudden grimace on his face meant the diagnosis wasn't good.

Biko watched as the father placed a bottle of milk he had been offered by the nurse into the boy's mouth. The painful wait for the young boy to suckle and swallow was hard for Biko to watch, so he turned his gaze away, and found a few cobwebs on the ceiling something of interest.

Biko knew the boy definitely needed to be treated with antifungal drugs, but the question was whether the clinic even had the capacity to handle that. He wondered where the child's mother was. His greatest fear was that she too could have died during delivery, just like Atieno had.

Feeling pity for the boy's father, and wondering if a witchdoctor could have been a better option for treating his boy, Biko struck a conversation with him. "How old is he?"

"He is barely one year old."

"Can he eat?"

"Oh, yes!" The boy's father replied.

"What does he eat?"

"He can drink porridge," he replied, then quickly added. "Right now, there is no food in my house. If there were food, he would be in perfect health!"

What followed were disturbing stories about a land tussle with his older brothers. When the fights became too much, his wife had ran away, leaving him with three children to fend for. With no cash, his family now faced starvation.

As a single parent too, whatever this father was experiencing touched some raw nerves in Biko's heart. He wished he could help. Only if he could help.

After some moment, the nurse came back. "He is stunted," she told the boy's father. "He needs to be treated for neonatal sepsis and dehydration. He won't survive here in the village. You need to rush him to Maseno General Hospital."

The father seemed hesitant about accepting the news of a trip to Maseno, which was more than fifteen kilometers away.

The defeated look on the boy's father said it all: the boy probably wouldn't survive the night.

A week later, Biko learnt that the boy had died. He was so heartbroken he couldn't eat for days.