LINDA SOKO TEMBO writes
@SunZambian
THERE is a lot of discrimination that mothers and children with albinism face in society.
Some think having such a child is a curse and not a blessing.
The story is different for Tengwa Banda, a mother of four children with one who is an albino. She looks at her child as a blessing and a gift from God and not a curse as society sees children born with albinism.
Ms Banda narrated to the Sun the pain and challenges she suffers after giving birth to her second child, who was is an albino.
Sun: What is your name?
Banda: My name is Tengwa Banda.
Sun: What happened after you gave birth to your albino child?
Banda: I was married and we were just a young couple when I gave birth to our second-born child in 2009. There are many challenges that I have been experiencing from the time the child was born.
At the time my child, Mapalo, was born my husband rejected her and said it was not possible for him to have such a child because he was too young to have such a child.
I was equally young when my husband divorced me for having given birth to an albino child and wanted nothing to do with the child. He looked at her as a sign of bad luck.
He told me he wanted to settle with another woman because by being with me he risked having another albino child who could bring him bad luck that’s how the marriage ended.
I thank God because my parents were alive at the time. They took me in and told me the child was not a misfortune but a blessing.
Sun: Does your child face any challenges?
Banda: My daughtertells me when she goes to school her friends laugh at her because she is the only one who is different in class.
Her classmates say she does not look nice like them. And when some of them see her they become abusive and spit saliva inside there cloths on their chest so that they do not have an albino born in their family.
I tell her she is unique and to forget what people say about her.
The other challenge I faced was buying cream for Mapalo. With her condition there is a special type of cream she uses. Before I was introduced to Zambian Albinism Matters, an organisation that advocates that albino’s lives matter, last year I used to buy the cream at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) at K325. Her cream lasts for two weeks only and it makes her skin look good. It used to be a huge cost on me especially that I am not working.
People would tell me that Government had a policy of giving the cream free but every time I visited the health personnel to help me access free cream at UTH they told me Government did not have free creams. What they had was for sale.
I stopped buying the cream last year in April because Zambian Albinism Matters gives my daughter the cream free. I am so happy and thank God.
Sun: Tell us how you were affected having such a child.
Banda: When I had my child people used to ask me questions like why I had given birth to such a child because of the many myths that surround such children.
I really used to get affected.
I would question myself why did I give birth to such a child? Was it because I was cursed or because I had done something bad and I was been punished?
With time, people started educating me that albinism is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern, which means both copies of a gene in each cell have mutations.
That’s how I look at the situation as normal and I love her like her siblings. I have four children. She is the only one who is light and different from the others.
Sun: After your divorce did you get married?
Banda: From the time my husband left me I have not married again.
Sun: And does the father support Mapalo?
Banda: From the time the father left us, he has not supported this child. For the last 10 years I have struggle alone.
And he has since married another woman and they have one child who is not an albino.
I am appealing to well-wishers to sponsor my child to go to school. Sometimes I face challenges to provide all her school needs.
I really want my child to have a good education so that she can have a great future.
And if there are people who are willing they can empower me with skills or capital so that I can work hard and provide for my child and her siblings.
