My list of learning among the orphans of Zim goes on and on,
but at the heart of it all lies deeply-rooted differences in the American
understanding of orphans verses the African understanding of the same. These are important to share as we process
what “neediness” and “family” looks like in different pieces of the world.
We will admit it. We were taken
aback when we came to realize that some of our definitions for words like
“orphan” or “mother” or “husband” seemingly meant nothing in our new
country. We had moved to a complicated
new land with blurred concepts of familial definitions and it was irritating. And
messy. “Her mother is sick? But I
thought she was an orphan…”
In Shona culture, relationships
are often referred to as "family by choice." They are not nuclear and put little emphasis
on blood. This can be irritating because
a person can have twelve uncles or five mothers. And every time a mother is sick, an employee
gets time off... It's hard when we enter as Americans trying to actually
understand who is related to who. But in
the end, our need for a definition on who's related doesn't matter. Family by choice is such a strong bond here,
that if two people claim each other as family, they take on responsibility for
one another with a bond that is beautifully un-separable.
And in the case of an orphan,
this is often a good thing. It often
keeps orphans out of an already unmanageably large institutional system. But it gives those in the system little hope of being adopted, as most capable people in Zim already support large extended families and do not consider taking on other children.
The concept of orphan in Africa is different than in the
US. In the US it typically means that a
child does not have a parent or guardian to provide care. In Zimbabwe an orphan can be a child without
a living relative. But it is often also
a child who does not have a parent or guardian willing or able to provide care.
Many orphans have family members that pick them up on holidays and
special occasions, then drop them back into the orphanage afterward as a cost
saving measure.
I’ve often asked myself, “What is
worse?”
To be a child optionally dumped
back into the system after a holiday?
To be a child with living
relatives that choose not to pick them up?
To be a child with living
relatives that cannot afford to pick them up?
To have no relatives at all?
We came to appreciate the blurry
lines that define a true orphan in Zimbabwe. Because of blurred linguistic
definitions, orphaned children fall under an umbrella of receiving help more
easily than in the American system of technicalities and definitions that often
decide whether a child should be adoptable or fostered. (Please do not get me wrong, I absolutely
still think the no-orphanage system many first world countries have adopted that
forgoes the institution in place of foster is often the lesser of two evils…
But that is a different conversation for another day!)
A Double Orphan is a term in Zim used to describe a child who has two
dead parents. A Single Orphan is a term
in Zim used to describe a child with one dead parent, and one living parent
that is not involved. In a single orphan
situation, often the living parent is a mother.
In the Shona culture, if the mother remarries (often with the intention
of providing for her children), the new father has the right to deny and refuse
all of the children from the woman’s previous marriage at any point that he
likes. When this happens, the children
from the first marriage are thrown out of the household to fend for themselves.
Though they technically have a living parent, children in this situation are
entirely orphans.
An orphan we recently worked with
named Maxwell is an interesting example of this: Maxwell’s father passed away
when he was a toddler. His mother
remarried a man who said he would keep her children. He later changed his mind, and dismissed all
the children from the household.
Maxwell’s mother did the unthinkable; she left the husband to be with
her children. This is extremely rare in the Shona culture. They all lived in poverty, homeless, since. Already Maxwell is expected to eventually provide for his two mothers and three younger brothers. Below, orphan Maxwell introduces us to his two mothers:
