Fund for Kenia Moravelo

This is a letter from my agent Victoria Sanders. I'm planning to help and I hope you will too:

Hello,

I am seeking any and all help in securing medical treatment for a young girl whose heart-breaking story I first learned about in the New York Times, as reported by journalist Sharon LaFraniere (December 1, 2006) . The article is copied below.

Kenia Moravelo was a 9 year old girl in Madagascar when her uncle raped her so brutally and repeatedly that she lost control of her bowels. She was forced to quit school due to her medical condition and has not received proper medical treatment to date.

Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital are arranging to treat her free of charge and a UNICEF representative is helping with visa and passport paperwork but there are still other costs to consider: the airfare for Kenia, her parents and a translator (they only speak Malagasy), visa and passport fees, meals and even clothing as the family has very little.

We are asking you to lend a hand by donating to a fund that has been set up for Kenia. Brown University is accepting and holding the donations until Kenia and her parents can arrive in the country.

Please keep in mind that any donation amount is welcomed. Individually, it may not seem like much but together we can really make a tremendous impact in Kenia’s life. All checks should be made out to:

BROWN UNIVERSITY, KENIA FUND and mailed to:

Victoria Sanders & Associates
Attn: Kenia’s Fund
241 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 11H
New York, NY 10014

I plan on forwarding all checks by March 21st and look forward to whatever support you can provide to help with our goal of raising $100, 000. Please also check for matching funds through your employer.

Thank you,

Victoria Sanders
Victoria Sanders & Associates
www.victoriasanders.com

From the New York Times
December 1, 2006
Sex Abuse of Girls Is Stubborn Scourge in Africa
By SHARON LAFRANIERE
Thirty miles outside this down-at-the-heels seaside town, Justin Betombo tends his vanilla plants and cheers the local soccer team as if he had not a care in the world. And in fact, what was once his greatest worry has been almost magically lifted from his shoulders.
In the local prosecutor's office, a file filled with accusations that he had sodomized his 9-year-old niece has vanished.
Mr. Betombo was arrested in 2003 after the girl, Kenia, said he had savagely assaulted her. The police obtained his confession, which he later recanted, and a doctor's certificate that Kenia had been sexually violated, rendering her incontinent and anorexic. Twice they sent the case file to the prosecutor.
There matters ended. Mr. Betombo attended one hearing in the prosecutor's office, but Kenia's parents say they were not told about it. The records are nowhere to be found. And Mr. Betombo walked away a free man. Kenia's parents, distressed by what they saw as a travesty of justice, asked that her name be published, hoping that her case would set an example.
Among sub-Saharan Africa's children, such stories are disturbingly common. Even as this region races to adopt many of the developed world's norms for children, including universal education and limits on child labor, one problem -- child sexual abuse -- remains stubbornly resistant to change.
In much of the continent, child advocates say, perpetrators are shielded by the traditionally low status of girls, a lingering view that sexual abuse should be dealt with privately, and justice systems that constitute obstacle courses for victims. Data is sparse and sexual violence is notoriously underreported. But South African police reports give an inkling of the sweep of child victimization. In the 12 months ending in March 2005, the police reported more than 22,000 cases of child rape. In contrast, England and Wales, with nine million more people than South Africa, reported just 13,300 rapes of women and girls in the most recent 12-month period.
''The prevalence of child rape in South Africa goes from really, really high to astronomically high,'' said Dr. Rachel Jewkes, a specialist on sexual violence with South Africa's Medical Research Council.
Africa is not unique in its high rates of abuse. While a survey of nine countries last year by the World Health Organization found the highest incidence of child sexual abuse in Namibia -- more than one in five women there reported being sexually abused before age 15 -- it also found frequent abuse in Peru, Japan and Brazil, among other nations. Relatives are frequent perpetrators in Africa, as in much of the world. But this continent's children face added risks, especially at school. Half of Malawian schoolgirls surveyed in 2006 said male teachers or classmates had touched them in a sexual manner without their permission.
The number of abuse cases is rising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries, statistics show. Whether that means more children are being victimized or more are coming forward -- or both -- is impossible to determine, experts say.
Researchers cite various reasons that abuse is so common: poverty, which makes it harder for parents to keep children safe; a legacy of violent, oppressed societies, and cultural mores that allow offenders to escape criminal punishment, often by marrying their victims or compensating their victims' families.
But, ultimately, said Dr. Jewkes, of the Medical Research Council, the vast gap between the status of men and boys and that of women and girls explains much of the climate of relative tolerance. ''If I had to put my finger on one overriding issue, it would be gender inequality,'' she said.
Increasingly, African nations are openly acknowledging the problem, partly because AIDS has made children more likely to fall ill or die from sexual abuse. Campaigns against abuse are under way in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Kenya, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.
The impact is apparent in Zimbabwe, where a child rights group estimates that at least 2,000 child rape victims have died of AIDS since 1998. ''Literally for the first time in Zimbabwe's history, child abuse is no longer a taboo subject,'' said James Elder, a Unicef spokesman.
That said, the response is minuscule compared with the extent of abuse, said Pamela Shifman, a child protection specialist at Unicef headquarters in New York. ''We see huge numbers of girls affected,'' she said. ''These crimes are still treated as the fault or the problem of the victim.''
South Africa is perhaps furthest along in developing the specialized courts, medical treatment and counseling that have long been standard fare in the West. But even there, Dr. Jewkes said, appalling police work -- for example, not verifying the addresses of suspects and accusers -- routinely dooms prosecutions.
Beyond that, said Joan van Niekerk, national coordinator of Childline, which runs South Africa's child crisis hot lines, children regularly complain that coping with the criminal justice system is worse than the sexual abuse itself.
Like much of the region, Madagascar, an island of 18 million off Africa's southeastern coast, is making headway, but still falls short of even South Africa's low standard.
Since 2000, Unicef has set up 11 child-protection teams of doctors, educators and judges to inform the public about sex abuse and assist victims. Hassan Mouigni, who leads vice investigations at the main police station in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital of 1.4 million, sees some results. This year, he said, the station has investigated 95 cases, compared with 40 in all of 2003.
But medical and legal authorities say the vast majority of families still hew to a tradition of accepting payment from perpetrators. The few who press charges are plunged into a criminal justice process that Mr. Mouigni calls deeply frustrating.
He can offer victims who arrive at his station little more than an officer behind a typewriter -- no counselors, no video cameras to record testimony, no toy-filled rooms or friendly intermediaries. Instead, girls as young as 5 are expected to confront their tormentors face to face. Perhaps most daunting, poor families must produce at least $15 to cover investigation costs like gloves and paper for medical exams.
That was nearly enough to deter Claudine Ravoniarisoa, who appeared at Mr. Mouigni's station one recent Thursday with her 15-year-old daughter. Wringing her hands nonstop, the girl told officers that a neighbor had raped her while her mother was hospitalized. ''He destroyed my life and my body,'' she said.
But once her mother learned of the costs, she decided to identify the perpetrator only as ''Mr. X.''
''I have no money to pursue this,'' she protested, while an officer tried to persuade her to do so.
In another room, Domoima Rahamtanirima pressed a case against her brother-in-law in the molestation of her 5-year-old, Menja. For two weeks afterward, Mrs. Rahamtanirima said, the girl cried when she urinated.
Mrs. Rahamtanirima borrowed money for the required medical exam. Nothing was left to buy the medicine the doctor had prescribed for Menja. Her file complete, the little girl traipsed in her frilly white dress to a courthouse as packed with accusers, accused and their supporters as a New York subway station at rush hour. She waited four hours, then sat down at a table before them all and, in a tiny voice, identified her uncle, seated across from her, as her assailant.
''We had to do it,'' said her mother, who said that everyone in her village knew about the case and asked that her daughter's name and picture be used. ''Everybody should be aware that things like this should not happen to children.'' A Quest for Redress
Kenia's parents, Antoine and Joazandry Moravelo, are equally passionate about the need for justice for their daughter. But after four fruitless years, they have all but given up hope. Though her photograph and name have appeared in local newspapers, they say, no one has been held accountable.
Kenia, the sixth of eight children, moved in with her aunt and uncle Lydia and Justin Betombo at the age of 8 after they promised to educate her. Sharing child care is common in Africa, and the Betombos, who lived 45 minutes away, had more than the Moravelos: a car and a two-room, tree-shaded house with sheet metal walls instead of the Moravelos' thatched-roof reed hut.
But Kenia said the house was no haven. She said, ''my uncle showed me his penis whenever he had a chance, and I always ran away.'' Her aunt's stock response, she said, was, ''Don't talk about that.''
One night in mid-2002, when her aunt was out, Kenia said, her uncle summoned her to his bed. ''Because I refused, he came over to my bed,'' she said. Afterward, she said, he told her, ''If you talk about what happened, I will kill you.'' She said she told her aunt anyway, and was instructed to keep quiet. The physical consequences of the attack, however, were hard to hide.
Kenia lost control of her bowels, had to quit school and was increasingly homebound. For six months or more, her only treatment was from a traditional healer who told her to boil herbs and wash with them. Finally, emaciated and weak, Kenia approached a neighbor. ''She said, 'I am sick; I am sick,' and she was crying,'' said the neighbor, Suzanne Mboty, who knew Kenia's parents.
Hours after the neighbor reached his village, Mr. Moravelo retrieved Kenia. ''She was so thin, so thin, I couldn't believe it,'' he said. Her mother said Kenia could not even sit down. ''I opened her bag, and I saw all her underwear full of feces,'' she said. ''I said, 'My God, what is this?' ''
Kenia refused to say. But at the local health clinic, the nurse held up scissors and threatened to operate if Kenia did not talk.
That began nearly four years of medical procedures for Kenia, including a colostomy, two operations to close it, and repeated hospitalizations for wasting, incontinence and anorexia. Her mother said she sometimes refuses to eat because defecation is painful. Medical reports indicate that the muscle controlling defecation has been largely destroyed and her anal canal is heavily scarred.
The family is rent: Kenia's parents had to sell their rice field and move to Diego-Suarez in the north for her treatment. Most of their other children remained behind, in the care of elder siblings. Kenia, now 13, is temporarily in Antananarivo, where a doctor is trying to treat her with a special diet.
A surgeon who recently examined her said a full recovery was unlikely. The uncertainty preys on Kenia, her mother said. ''Sometimes she tells me, 'My body is hurting. I have so many problems. I don't go to school. I just feel this sickness all around me,' '' she said.
The family's legal efforts have met even less success. Mr. Moravelo lodged a complaint with the cash-short police, but the officers had no car; he hired a taxi so they could pick up Mr. Betombo for questioning. Frightened and sobbing, Kenia confronted her uncle at the chaotic station. Justice Subverted
Mr. Betombo and his wife denied Kenia's account. But ultimately -- after the police beat him, Mr. Betombo said -- he signed a confession, was arrested and carted off to the prosecutor's office in nearby Antalaha.
Kenia's father said that was the last he heard until a few days later, when friends told him that Justin Betombo was ''free and happy'' back in his village.
Mr. Betombo said he had convinced the prosecutor that his confession was false. Kenia's parents say they were never summoned to contradict him.
''I took this girl in as my daughter,'' Mr. Betombo said. ''I really can't understand why they say that I could have done such an awful thing to her. I think they were jealous of me and they wanted to ruin my life.''
Sambava's police department again sent the file to the prosecutor's office months later. But Sophie Ramahakaraha, the prosecutor in charge, now says that she has no record or memory of it. Real instances of child rape are rare, she said. ''Very often the parents are poor and they use this procedure to get money,'' she said.
But to Daul Randriamalaza, a Sambava police inspector, there is no question about who was the victim here.
''I don't want to talk about corruption here, but that is what could have happened in this case,'' he said as prisoners watched from the station's tiny cell.
''I have children myself. How can I be happy about this?''

Sugar inventory

I just made myself a cup of cocoa with unsweetened cocoa powder, Splenda and the last little bite of Dagoba 87% cacao Eclipse bar. At first I was very proud of myself that the Dagoba bar lasted me a whole month. Then I started to add up that I had also had 3 fruit-juice sweetened cookies in the last month, which didn't sound like the diet of someone who had "gone off sugar."

But then I compared last month's intake with what used to be a typical month of sugar gorging. I'd say my sugar intake for the last 30 days would have looked something like this:

40-50 tablespoons of refined sugar added to tea and decaf coffee
25-40 sodas or sugary fruit drinks
8-12 donuts & pastries (there were at least 2 donut-eating opportunities at work in the last month & Hubby and I surely would have had some at least one weekend)
2 slices of banana bread (a staff meeting)
2 pieces of Starbucks coffee cake (maybe low-fat, maybe not, but definitely high-sugar)
1/2-3/4 "big party bag" of M&M's (which I would have eaten on top of popcorn & washed down with some of the above sodas!)
6 chocolate chip cookies or chocolate chip muffins
12 pieces of candy from the many candy bowls at work
20 slices of white toast with butter (sometimes with jam)
Probably a couple servings of grape jelly on a PB&J
5 servings of white pasta
3 giant servings of white rice & flour tortillas (Chipotle burritos)
And finally for the last nail in the coffin, Hubby bought some French vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and Spanish peanuts this weekend. I definitely would have joined him! Instead I had unsweeted yogurt with unsweetened frozen (thawed) strawberries with Splenda.


Wow. I never wrote it all down before. These are all guesses, but they're pretty close (give or take a pound) to the amount of sugar I'd eat & drink in a typical month. Just the thought of it all makes me sick to my stomach. I'm back to feeling pretty good about my Dagoba and air cookies!

Good one

"If there weren't any blacks, Jews or gays, there wouldn't be any Oscars...or probably anyone named Oscar." -- Ellen DeGeneres

Welcome to the Blogosphere Merry Peri

The Pajama Gardener has just become aware of a cool new blog: The Merry Peri: Musings of a middle-aged woman intent on changing her world. She's got a very ambitious list of things she wants to do before she turns 50. Will she succeed?

What's on your list of things to accomplish before (or after) the big 5-0? I'm going to ponder that question myself. Thanks Ms. Peri for the (sugar-free) food for thought!

Learning from the past

Each year for our anniversary, my husband gives me a gift based on wedding etiquette (we use the list in the New York Public Library Desk Reference). The 1st year was paper, the 2nd year cotton and so on. This year was our 8th anniversary and the gift was to be bronze or electrical appliances.

This year, he gave me a bronze Sankofa bird. The Sankofa bird represents the West African belief that one learns from the past to benefit the present and the future. I've seen different pictures. My Sankofa bird has 2 heads (one that looks toward the now and the future and one that looks to the past).

I keep it on my computer desk right above my monitor so I see it every day. There's nothing like writing (maybe parenting?) to make you doubt what you know. It's good to have something remind me that everything I've experienced up to now has taught me what I need to know for where I am.

In Praise of Nina Simone

The professor taught us to worship the great men of jazz, but it was the women who drew me in: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey. They were queens, priestesses, goddesses — encouraging me, pointing me away from danger, schooling me in the ways of life. Especially Nina Simone.
From Orange Mint and Honey (Ballantine 2008)

That’s my character Shay Dixon speaking about the late Nina Simone, who would have turned 74 today.

Known as the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone was fierce, brave and maybe a touch crazy (actually, she might have been clinically depressed or might have suffered from borderline personality disorder).

She was a black woman who wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1963 after four little girls were bombed in a church in Birmingham. She was a dark-skinned woman who put the words “Young, Gifted and Black” together at a time when many black folks couldn’t imagine gifted and black being used in the same sentence. Raised in a tiny town in the Jim Crow South, she grew up to stand on stages around the world in front of wealthy white folks and command their attention (and sometimes berated them if they didn’t give it to her).

In other words, she did things you’d have to be brave and maybe a touch crazy to do. May we all be so brave and crazy.

At the beginning of my novel Shay listens to Nina Simone’s version of "House of the Rising Sun" and it sets her on an unexpected path back to her mother. (You can watch Nina Simone performing the song here.)

Interesting coincidence: Nina Simone is a mother-figure for Shay, and my mother died on Nina Simone’s birthday (which I didn’t know when Nina Simone first appeared to me as a character). So yes, today is also the anniversary of when my mother passed, six days after she turned 45.

Happy Birthday Dr. Nina Simone. And here’s to all our queens, priestesses, goddesses, mothers of the spirit, play-mamas and real mamas!

Take 2 (or 3)

At the risk of repeating myself, here's more garden green: daffodil sprouts are coming up! And yes, I have yet another birthday to celebrate. My bestest friend Diane turns 32 again today. Happy Birthday D!

Coincidence?

Hmmm. Two months off sugar, and Hershey's announces it's laying off 1,500 employees. Could it be because I'm not doing my part any more? Employees at M&Ms Mars better look out: this is the first time I've gone this long without an M&M. :-)

My mother's birthday

February is birthday month at The Pajama Gardener. Today would have been my mother’s 60th birthday. She died 15 years ago, and pictures of her can still make me cry. But they make me laugh too. These photos are just a few of her many incarnations. Clearly, we all have gone through some changes; that would be me with the groovy shag.

She and my father are so young in these pictures (my mother was just 16 and my father was only 18 when they had me--she is pregnant with me in the first photo, and I'm the littlest girl below her on the bike). I could have kids their age now. I want to reach into these pictures and pinch their apple cheeks, hold their unlined hands, tell them everything is OK. But I always felt more mother to my mother than mothered by her.

I try to imagine what it would be like if she was still here. At 60 she would still be lovely. Most assuredly, men young enough to be her sons would ask her to dance and men old enough to be her father would promise her she’d never have to work another day if she would just please baby baby please be theirs. She’d still be ready to rip and run (and shop and party and eat and drink) and leave sleeping for when you get old. She would still be great friends with all kinds of people: children, gamblers, dope men, lawyers, doctors, councilmen, ladies of the church, winos. She would be tickled to pieces by her grandchildren (and now one great-grandchild).

At 60, she would be changed by the change and would have learned all the lessons one learns from being on the earth 15 extra years. But she’d still call me to see if I was watching some show that wouldn’t air for another hour because she wouldn’t remember I was in a different time zone. She’d still ask “Is that what you’re wearing?” meaning “Please go and change.” She’d still watch me when we were together like she couldn’t get enough of looking at me. We’d still drive each other crazy and love each other deeply.

But she's not here, so I celebrate her without her. Over the years, to honor my mother's birthday I've lighted candles at the basilica, bought things I didn't need and drank tequila in a black lace mini-skirt. I'll spend part of today with the kids at the Head Start, trying to give them the love of reading she gave to me. And I'll spend part of the day editing my book about a daughter and the mother who drives her crazy and who she loves deeply.

Happy 18th Birthday Candace!!

To one of my all time favorite nieces,

I wish you a wonderful birthday and an even better year. Exciting things are coming your way, kid. Or, excuse me: Exciting things are coming your way, young woman. Enjoy!

Love,

Aunt Carleen

Green!

Do you see it?! This is some yarrow that I moved from the front yard and planted in the back near the house. The snow hasn't completely melted, but where it has there are little patches of glorious, amazing, beautiful GREEN!

He's in!

Buckle your seatbelts, America! We officially have an African American man, a woman and a Latino man running for president. Dems, we can make history. Let's do this!

My husband asked me last night if I was going to work the election again this year. Oh yeah! If I could knock on doors and hold up street signs for John Kerry, who I wasn't even passionate about, I will definitely be on board for this campaign. If fact, it's my "Rosa resolution."

Why does this bother me?

Is it just me or is there something creepy about all this? I know Flip Wilson did it, and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon did it, and many others did it. But it feels a little like what Dave Chappelle talked about when he quit his show on Comedy Central: Is the audience laughing with Madea, Big Momma and Rasputia or at them and the real women like them? Or is the audience laughing with or at the actors hidden under all the latex? In other words, who's the butt of the joke: fat black women or emasculated black men?

Tyler Perry's portrayal of Madea feels loving, and so maybe doesn't belong in the same category as the others, but still I'm glad his new movie goes in another direction.

One way to get a book deal

It worked (sort of) for O.J. Now Lisa Marie Nowak, the astronaut accused of attempting to kidnap and murder her rival, has a book deal. Galleycat has the news.

Make a "Rosa resolution"

Elaine Lee sent me this video in an email with a note that says "love him or hate him Rev. Al makes a point." The video is Al Sharpton eulogizing Rosa Parks, and he makes a few points. One that I'm taking to heart is to make a Rosa resolution, to do something meaningful to honor her memory. He also has a powerful line about a mirror being for reflection AND correction. Artists, listen up.

Congrats Colts!

Way to go Tony Dungy!

Congrats to LaFreya and Maryann and all the other Colts fans!

Let it all out

Got a beef with your agent or editor? Author J.A. Konrath has created an online place to vent. Writers, editors, agents, publicists and anybody else in publishing is invited to stop by the Anonymous Publishing Vent Club and get it off their chests. Even if you don't have a beef, you might learn something. So far, there's a post from a pissed-off publicist (writers, be nice!), an author suspicious about why some white-haired writers were dumped by their publishers and a few other folks.

Go Bears!

I had a dear, dear friend named Lovie who passed a few years ago, so in her honor I'm rooting for Lovie Smith.

Which team are you rooting for?

Pajama Chat coming soon

Stay tuned for the Pajama Chat with Stephanie Rose Bird. Hope to get it posted very soon!