"There Is No Me Without You" Excerpt
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Wondertime is proud to present an excerpt from award-winning journalist and novelist Melissa Fay Greene's newest book, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children (Bloomsbury). Greene candidly unfolds the story of Haregowoin Teferra in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Following the death of her husband and young daughter, Haregowoin begins to care for hundreds of the more than 12 million children orphaned by AIDS in Africa in an unofficial orphanage in her home, providing each with a second chance at childhood.
— Lexi Walters
There Is No Me Without You
By Melissa Fay Greene
So, on one side, contagion, deformities, horror, secrecy, stigma, shame, killings, and panic. A new elite world class of disease experts. A new world underclass of untouchables. Another reason for Africa to founder. A human landslide.
And, on the other side, two little girls.
Within a few days of each other, Selamawit and Meskerem were dropped off at Haregewoin's house. The first to arrive — a round-faced, large-boned girl — had been distracted, by hunger, from the business of throwing herself into life and ferreting out everybody's gossip and news. For Selamawit's first year with Haregewoin, whether it was getting close to mealtime and what was on the menu were her chief concerns. With a full tummy, she was a jolly girl, fearless and honest, sociable and silly. Haregewoin marveled, she was another Suzie!
Selamawit had been shuffled about from place to place for a long time, but she held on to memories of her mother.
"I had happy times with her, especially at holidays," Selamawit told Haregewoin. "We had fun, danced, and ate popcorn. I took care of my mother when she got sick, such as feeding her and making coffee for her, while neighbors and relatives would not come close to her."
Having had her prospects ruined at a young age, with the death of her mother, Selamawit had bravely accepted whatever small kindnesses fell her way. Out of bits and pieces of transient attention, she had pieced together what felt like a supported life. If someone knit springy braids all over her head, she wore them; if not, she banged back her thick hair with a hairbrush. She felt full-hearted interest in other people, assumed others felt the same toward her, and met them more than halfway. At night, in her dreams, her late mother visited and reassured Selamawit that she no longer felt pain.
Later that same week, Haregewoin saw six-year-old Meskerem for the first time, alone and forlorn on the ripped leather seat of the Catholic charity van. Thick black eyebrows had been sketched as if in charcoal upon the classic oval Ethiopian face; huge round eyes midface were full of intelligence and melancholy. The girl was encased in filthy sacklike clothing, which she picked at with long, elegant fingers. "Come to me," Haregewoin said, opening her arms, and Meskerem stooped to exit the van and allowed herself to be hugged. So thin! Over Meskerem's back, Haregewoin raised her eyes questioningly.
"She was living alone with her mother when her mother died," said the MMM staff woman. "She moved to her father's house, but she was very unhappy. Her older half brother brought her to us."
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