Auma's Long Run

Auma's Long Run

Juvenile fiction
"One afternoon, as I looked at Baba, a silent fear gripped my heart.
Whatever strength Baba had seemed to have gained over Christmas was
long gone. He spent every day in bed, he barely ate, and his cough
was worse. Everyone had completely stopped talking about his
illness. Even Baby stopped asking when Baba was going to get better
so he could swing her around and around."
Auma, narrator of Eucabeth Odhiambo's Auma's Long Run, is a
strong runner who has won races for her primary school. With a father
who spends much of the year working in Nairobi and sends home pay, she
and her siblings have been able to afford school fees and uniforms.
In fact she plans to ace the qualifying exams and attend high school
on a track scholarship.
Only Auma knows that there is something horribly wrong in her
village. Many people are dying of a mysterious disease. Parents are
leaving their children orphaned. Some blame evil spirits. Some say
there is a filthy disease only sinners get. Auma is determined to
find the cause and cure so that friends, kin, and community members
won't keep dying.
One day Baba comes home from Nairobi unexpectedly. His illness
becomes worse until he dies. Auma's mother follows shortly. She and
her remaining family, a fragile grandmother and three younger
siblings, are in a terrible plight. How will they even have enough to
eat, never mind keep the children in school? There is no help for
orphans in the village. Auma's best friend's little sister had
starved to death at the age of four.
Auma's grandmother wants her to drop out of school and marry so
that a husband will keep the family from starving. She feels that
giving up on her dream would be like dying inside. But she feels the
suffering of her siblings very keenly. You'll have to read the book
to see how she resolves this terrible dilemma, heavier than the ones
most of us in America face as adults.
Odhiambo grew up in Kenya in the '80s and 90's. HIV/AIDS was
spreading while information was sparse and the topic was taboo. In
the 2000s she studied HIV/AIDS education in schools in her native
land. She talked to AIDS orphans who had nursed their parents and
then had to keep themselves and their siblings from starving.
"In some sense I wrote the story of all of us--my story, the
story of the girls and women I grew up around. I wanted to explore
some of the issues that thread through the lives of women: a woman's
place in society, relationships, marriage, childbearing, motherhood,
strength, confidence, and respect. Above all I wanted to honor the
resilience of HIV/AIDS orphans, many of whom overcame their trauma to
be successful adults but have no platform to tell their stories..."
Odhiambo has the amazing ability to take a frightening plight
and make it something school children can understand and develop
empathy for. This is her debut novel. I hope she has the writing bug
something fierce and is, even as I write this, working on another
brilliant novel.
On a personal note, Wednesday at the blood drive I had an unexpected
epiphany hit me like an unpredicted burst of sunshine on a rainy day.
Probably the seed for it had been sown Monday. I'd gone to the Bears
Den for a ginger ale. One of the workers asked me if I was still at
Wells. I quipped back, "Did you read my obituary in the newspaper?"
Another worker who must not have gotten the vocabulary word in her
school days asked in an excited voice if my obituary was in the
newspaper. Not exactly the kind of question you expect to hear...
...unless a zombie apocalypse has started. Anyway that word must have
embedded itself in my subconscience because on Wednesday...
...you'll have to read my next review to catch the next part of the
story.
A great big shout out goes out to all who work to help HIV/AIDS orphans.
jules hathaway



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