Moments

Return from Africa

We say goodbye to families, to young children. I don't know if they will live to my age. Maybe they will be shot, or injured and die from complications. Disease. Starvation. All I can hope is that they have a life full of opportunities. Get out of the poverty cycle. Most of us run around giving hugs to kids and their parents. The parents are mostly younger than me, the ones who I have asked. Small spaces, but six, seven, eight kids in the family. Most will die at a young age. I tell them I will come back some day. I turned around to see the 11 year old girl who tapped me on the back, Aniso. Finish your schooling and earn good money, I say as I straighten her uniform. Stand tall, I tell her. With her best hat on, she saluted me the best she could. I fixed her salute to palm facing outward rather than downward. I told her that she was not looking for anyone. She laughed. And then I returned the salute. She smiled. As far as I can remember, she's a little short for her age, I don't know if it's just me, but malnutrition does this and it's irreversible.

I stepped off the plane and back into the English weather. I checked my phone and Niall had texted me a few times, including several missed calls. I can't answer the phone on the plane, silly. I texted him saying so, and that I loved him. It's all over the internet too, somehow, they even know that I said it first. And there's a reaction to it on social media other than Twitter.

I saw them. I wasn't expecting that many of them: Louis was there too. And he didn't seem too happy to have to be here. I gave him a hug, Zayn a hug, and then Niall a third hug. Zayn seemed extra happy. A different happy from his usual "So how's life?"

"For me, it's pretty good being back. You?"

"I'm brilliant-"

"He's gonna be a dad," Louis interrupted, annoyed about getting to the point.

"Awesome. Congratulations."

"How's the Horn?"

"We got a whole crowd of villagers running because they got raided, but apart from that and the dying kids, I'm fine with that."

"Mate, I don't need to know, I've got a kid on the way, man."

"It's the reality of the world, Zayn. If I was born in Africa into a starving community and I couldn't get out of there, I would never think of having kids and condemning them to suffering. I could never do that. I don’t even know about now." Niall took a bag off me, slung an arm around me.

"So what's with this 'don't want kids' thing?"

"If you really want kids then I guess I'm fine with that."

"No, I mean what do you mean by that? Why don't you want kids yet?"

"I'm not talking about me not being ready, I'm talking about… ever."

"The church wouldn't allow that. Dispensation wouldn't cover for that, Annabelle. It's canon law."

"Just… stop with the canon thing for a minute, would you? I'm just not thinking of having kids. Not when there a others, our age and younger, with dying kids. And they're starving as well. With a growing population, it's not going to be sustainable and the only people losing out on it are the people in developing countries. China's got that dud one child policy, my dad's side has four kids. Others have 10, 12 siblings. They each have two or three kids like other countries do, that's 30 grandkids. My dad told a story all the time, he went to his classmate's house, saw a grown man, called him uncle. His friend told him that was his eldest brother, 12 years older than him. Now that's pretty extreme. As the population trend is going at the moment, what's going to happen to the people in Africa? India? South-East Asia and the Pacific area? Preventable deaths. They're growing cash crops, they can't eat it. Those crops fail, they starve. I might be like this still in 2 years, 5 years, maybe never change. Your choice."