William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD

CHILDREN ON THE STREETS

William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD: Children on the Streets
HIV Infected Child in Kenya: Kajiado – February 2006The war on poverty often appears to be lost.
See those small street-free AIDS ORPHANS
Holding glue sniffing bags in their hands.
The deadly fumes remove pangs of Hunger.
These are the wee waifs of the Nairobi slum;
They watch the municipal truck glide by
Stopping to pick up dead bodies from the street.
Some died of hunger or were murdered after dark!

Selling baby kittens and new born puppies
To Masungus in passing cars, picking fleas:
Standing outside of makeshift beer bars
Selling their bodies to perverts in the night
Hoping for food: bananas and ugali.
A little boy who sucks a penis;
He is given a cob of roasted maize
Or if lucky, 10 or 20 Kenyan Shillings!

A girl is slapped and beaten by drunken strangers;
They use her body and throw her aside.
These children of the street mostly go un-noticed
By the busy crowds or shoppers and workers.
Citizens of poverty themselves with defeated lives –
Barely keeping their own children in food and shelter
And when young adults die of the HIV and AIDS virus
Their children often find the path to the mean streets.

Some survive amongst their peers of other hungry children
And some left this morning as their cold, rigid, prone bodies,
Were tossed unceremoniously into the back of the white Datsun.
We in the West give little or no thought to these children
Yes, at times humanity seems to be losing the war on poverty.
Except a small light shines forth with the efforts of the Sisters of Charity;
Mother Theresa’s field workers who do hands on care for the dying.
Their works of mercy continue to make a difference. Will you help?