Habeshaviews’s Weblog

Hanna March 30, 2009

This is the story of Hanna. She is four. She spends her day at a mall  in Merkato,the biggest open market in Addis and Africa.

 At a glance, she looks happy and cheerful. Her Mom makes a living from begging. If you can call it a living ,that is. They can barely afford a place to spend the night at. In the days her mom doesn’t make enough money to rent a bed , they spend the night on the streets. Hanna doesn’t like it when that happens. Whenever her mom manages to find someone who would pay some cash for sex she would take Hanna with her.

On the good days, people at the mall would offer to take her to their houses for the night. There are weeks in which she spends each day in a different house. In those days where no one offered to take her ,you would find Hanna sitting at a corner looking depressed and worried. Her eyes get fixed on something and no more of her usual laughter or scream can be heard. 

Hanna is four

At a glance you would never take her for a street kid. She is usually neat (People bath her whenever she spends the night at their place). She usually gets new clothes. The mall people either buy it for her or give her those that are out of fashion. She leaves these clothes and shoes at one of the shops around. Whenever she goes to spend the night with her mom she asks people to dress her poorly in torn clothes fearing that her mom would sell the nice ones.

Hanna is Four

She understands things way better than others the same age. She is already learning how to survive in the streets. She would give you tips as well. She can tell you not to go near the big boys as they might touch you inappropriately. She worries a lot about her mother who gets sick often. Whenever she is offered something to eat she either take it to her mom or talk about her while eating ” You know Emama is really sick now”

It breaks my heart to think what will happen in the coming years.