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Lucy and her letter
of pain
A young woman speaks
her mind about the plight of the disable people, writes JACK METTA
YOU know, writing about that aspiring
female politician Mary Karo last week, I was vaguely aware that
something was amiss.
Then it dawned. The name Karo had triggered off a recent memory
about a letter.
You see, I had glanced at a letter from Kongoho Village,
Popondetta in the Oro province, dated March 1 a couple of weeks
ago and set it aside to come back to it at a later date because
the letter was somewhat moving and compelling.
I needed some time to condense the essence of the expressions and
respond in my own way. But like everything else on a newsroom
desk, new reports and news documents relegate it under a mounting
pile and eventually, it either becomes another tedious task of
retrieval or filed away in the usual place with the rest of the
unused documents.
The letter was signed Lucy M Karo.
Lucy, by the way, is a young woman, confined to the Kongoho
village because of physical disability.
She is a paraplegic and had written her letter to Rootmettas in a
hope of airing the plight of ones such as her on the occasion of
the International Day of the Disable on March 29.
Neatly handwritten on the pages of an exercise book, Lucy
apologised: “I’m sorry for using this pages of an exercise book –
writing pads in Oro is very expensive for a poor disable woman
like me …
“I want to say I always enjoy reading your stories in the
Weekender. It always ends with the words of the Wise Counsellor. I
used to save K1.50 for the Friday edition of The National.”
She didn’t say much about herself or her disability except: “My
father is from Oro and mother from Central. I was born with a
disability. I completed Grade 10 and got a job. I worked for 10
years and had to resign due to my disability. I live with my
family in our small village (Kongoho) just outside Popondetta
township.”
Her next words were harsh but you sort of get the feeling that
they were born of frustration and anger. And no doubt, she had
harboured that pain in her mind for some years. Naturally she had
to vent these emotions somehow; get it off her system and perhaps
bring it to the notice of the powers that be to respond in the
most appropriate way.
She wrote “questions, concerns, anger, frustrations as a concerned
disable person” and the following was exactly as she wrote it.
The contents may offend some in our midst but she is entitled to
her opinion.
I have not endeavoured to seek answers to her questions nor sought
such from the relevant agents as I believe her concerns and
questions is food for thought and perhaps responses could be
directed to her at her address at the end of this article. Her
concerns are as follows:
1. Why is the National Government giving more attention to the
HIV/ AIDS affected people?
2. Why is the National Government spending millions of kina for
the HIV/AIDS infected people?
3. Why is the National Government neglecting the disable people?
4. The disable people were here all the time, long before the
HIV/AIDS victims but no-one saw them or gave them serious thoughts
or concerns or attention for their sufferings.
5. Today, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic came to our country, my
goodness, everybody seems to be weeping and wailing and mourning
for those HIV/AIDS victims.
6. Why is everybody so concerned and worried for those HIV/ AIDS
victims? All those HIV/AIDS victims used their good able bodies to
get this terrible sickness, so they got nobody to blame but
themselves. But the disable people got every good reason to be
concerned for, to be worried for and to be helped because some
were born with disabilities, some were disabled due to accidents
and some were disabled due to incurable disease.
7. The disable people need the highest attention, care and help,
more than those HIV/AIDS victims.
8. The sufferings of the HIV/AIDS victims are less compared to the
sufferings of the disable people.
9. Why spend millions of kina on HIV/AIDS awareness and its
victims when there is no cure?
10. Why spend millions of kina when people are getting HIV/AIDS
overnight?
11. Why spend millions of kina when people are dying each day from
HIV/AIDS?
12. The truth is the disable people live long and survive longer
than those HIV/AIDS victims.
As I mentioned earlier, Lucy is entitled to her opinion and I am
in no position to explain these things to her. But I do know that
hundreds of millions of kina are being spent not so much on
helping HIV/AIDS infected people, but on the awareness campaign to
stop people from contracting and spreading it.
The biggest fear in this regard is the devastation of the
country’s life force – the working class people and the young
generation which is primed by nature to replace the working class
in their old age.
The devastation of HIV/ AIDS through this rank and file will
render vacuum in the ongoing natural process, creating a sinkhole
effect that will suck all the progressive good in the delicate
social, political and economic fabric of our society.
When that happens, the whole country stands to be sucked down that
hole too, leaving it vulnerable to sinister outside forces.
Ultimately, we may not even have a country we could call our own
or dread of dreads, be strangers in our own country.
Lucy may be a naďve, marginalised young woman, and in all sense of
the word, not perfect. She is feeling the pressures of a life
lacking any real, meaningful and tangible benefit from the powers
that be, reminiscent perhaps of the greater picture in this
country of total neglect for the welfare of the people far and
wide in this beautiful country of ours.
She feels like the neglected road and transport infrastructure,
run-down aid posts, clinics and schools and the frustrations over
lack of jobs and economic opportunities. She feels that she is a
victim of corruption, non-transparency and bad governance.
She hears leaders talk about these issues in the corridors of
power and sees some of them standing before Leadership Tribunals
attempting to deny the hypocrites they are.
Lucy knows she is not perfect but then again who is? She knows and
acknowledges that the Government of the people is elected by the
people for the people.
After years of neglect, is it any wonder now that she is raising
her voice in protest?
All she wants is a little support and attention from the powers
that be. She and many like her want to live and enjoy life as
normal, productive members of the society at large.
I am reminded of a boy who loved listening to music becoming
bitterly disappointed because he could neither play nor sing.
But a kindly gentleman encouraged him with these words: “There are
many ways of making music. What matters is the song in your
heart.”
That little boy – Antonio Stradivarius – took the man at his word
… and became the world’s greatest violin maker.
Does this not then echo the Wise Counsellor’s sentiments: “God,
who needs nothing, created a whole range of unnecessary creatures
so that he could love and perfect them …”
Ps: Lucy’s address is:
C/- Catholic Church,
PO box 49,
Popondetta, Oro Prov.
Her phone contact is through parish priest Father Sebastian on Ph
3297183.
 
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