REMEMBERING KEME

 6th April, 2011.

 Keme came into my life today.

 It is almost 8am. I am on my way to the office, to Utako, Abuja. In the cab is my older sister Jane as well. Just outside Philkruz Estate, by the curve just before the road, is a crowd. I get out of the cab.

 A child is sitting outside, on a carton, flattened on the rocks.

 What happened here?

 A young woman tells me the child had been sitting there all night and into the morning.

What has been done?

 Nothing, the lady responds.

If a child is abandoned it should be reported to the police?

There are rapid outbursts that follow my suggestion in Hausa.  The crowd is against inviting the police.

 Is the mother or a relative of this child here? Nobody responds.

‘That boy is HIV positive’, my older sister says almost instinctively, when I returned to the cab. She is a final year medical student at the University of Port Harcourt. She would know.

Directing the driver to the nearest police post in Jabi, I returned with three police constables, Angela and Patience and an older man.

An elderly woman is carrying the baby and feeding him with pap when we got back to the scene. Constable Patience retrieves the child from the woman. Elderly woman tells the Constables she would like to accompany us to the hospital to take care of the child. She would meet us at the police station but she has to change dresses, she says. We were never to see her again.

We took him to the police post at Jabi, and then to the life camp police station to make an entry.  At the Life camp police station, we are told to take the child to a hospital (this was instructed by a superior officer in a car. I did not ask for his designation but finds out much later that he is the DPO.)

 We (the female constables and I) took the baby first to Nisa Premier Hospital at Jabi. The hospital refers us to Garki Hospital, Abuja. The receptionist asks for the baby’s name at the records room. I don’t know yet, I tell her. How come? She asks. I am just meeting him, I tell her. She refers me to a Matron, who refers me to a Social worker attached to the clinic. He is admitted after Constable Patience pledges to bring a police report to the hospital the next day. I also undertake to bear the cost of baby's treatment.

 Baby needs a hospital card. A file under the name 'baby Ara' is opened for him. It is spontaneous, although a miss-spell on the part of the attendant as I intended to call him 'Pere'  which means 'riches' in Ijaw. I do not know what ‘Ara’ means.

The Doctor that examined him assesses Baby to be a little over 2 years.

The initial down payment is paid, the hospital commences treatment. Ara is immunized first, and a drip with drugs administered immediately. He needs a change of clothes and essentials. I leave the hospital with Constable Patience to get them. We buy four set of changing cloths, pampers, a plate, cup, sucker, towel, flask, eva water, soap, cream, powder, milk, cereals, etc.

When we got back to the hospital, baby Ara is taken upstairs to the paediatric ward, is stabilized and already asleep.

The social worker from the hospital calls for me. Her name is Mrs. Adegube. She asks me questions. How did you find him? Where? What did you do then? I tell her about the report at the police station, the trip to other hospitals that would not take him in. She calls a Mrs. Hart, an Assistant Director, child's welfare, at the social development secretariat at area 10, Abuja, Nigeria. Mrs. Hart sends a Nanny. Joy Patience, to stay with the child so I can go to work and return in the evening. I remember for the first time to call my Boss and inform her I would be arriving late to the office. It is almost 12 noon. Constable Patience leaves for the Police station at about 1 pm. I leave for my office at 2pm.  I would return to the hospital at 5pm with my older sister Jane and my niece, Princess Ayi, to see how Ara is doing.

By evening, Baby Ara, became 'Ehud Kurokeme Goodluck Tisan'.

Ehud.  My friend, Kenneth, named him that.

My older sister, Jane, adds another one, Kurokeme, meaning a strong man.

The other mothers at the paediatric ward tending to their sick children named him Goodluck (after President Goodluck Jonathan).

The Nanny named him Tisan,  which simply translated meant, 'our savior'.

…

10: 27pm. Baby Ara is awake but is not talking. A tube goes all the way from his nose to his stomach. He is very uncomfortable. He looks at me, begging me with his eyes to remove them but I dare not. I want him to survive this.

We would leave the hospital at about 11pm tonight. His tiny frail right hand would hold my left index finger for the first time today. I would have a meeting with the Matron, the social worker and Mrs Hart tomorrow. I would hear phrases like ‘are you sure of what you are doing Tutu? Can you handle such a responsibility by yourself?’  

My Niece, Ayi, would always be at the hospital with him. She is always angry at the woman that left him at the stones, to die.

I tell her she is probably sick too. Maybe the only option she had was leave Keme out there, for fate, or hope.

For the next weeks, there would be countless trips to baby shops, calls from and to my family. There would be more meetings with the Police and the Social welfare people at area 10.

The Police would close his investigation file shortly after. Is there no means of finding his Mother?

How about that eager older woman feeding him? Maybe she knows the Biological mother somehow? Did you find her? Question her?

The answers are always in the negative. There would be an inspection to my apartment by the Social worker at the hospital and my Mother would plan a trip to Abuja to see me, to see baby. Before she would make this trip, I would be informed ‘to prepare for the worst’. Keme was in the final stages of battling the AIDS virus. He would die on a Thursday morning. Joy, the nanny that slept at the hospital with him would call me at 5:17 in the morning and cry;

‘ Aunty, Tisan is not breathing’!

Looking at his tiny frame, minutes later, I would remember how he held on to my index finger late into the night until I went to the car to sleep. How he never wanted me to leave his sight the previous day, crying every time I stood up to go anywhere. I would break down in violent sobs, but try not to look hysterical because other families tended to their sick here too.

Yes.

Keme came into my life on the 16^th of April 2011. I had just turned 24, been called to the Nigerian Bar a year ago, and had just recently started living on my own.

Keme came, and for the first time in my life, I learnt how to feed an acutely malnourished child suffering from AIDS, planned a funeral and buried a kid by myself at Kudu cemetery, FCT, Abuja.