Adanna's Story

I read this heart wrenching story in the book "Red Letters: Living A Faith That Bleeds" by Tom Davis, and it broke the deepest parts of my heart and opened my eyes to the injustice that is so prevailant in our world today.

“Adanna’s name is a beautiful African word meaning “father’s daughter.” But Adanna won’t live until the next harvest unless something drastic happens. In her home country of Zimbabwe, there are no jobs, there is no money, and the only thing certain is the death that surrounds her.
The expected life span for people in her country is only thirty-three. She has watched her mother, father, and her sister waste away to AIDS. Adanna is now in charge of her family. She is the head of the household.
She is ten years old.
Adanna’s parents left no way for her to care for herself and the rest of her family. She has exhausted every favor from her neighbors, every form of assistance from surviving relatives, and sold her last possession for food. But she and her brother and sister woke up starving again this morning.
There is only on way for them to survive. Adanna has heard about a group of local men who will trade food for sex. Dare she even consider such a thing? For all of her life she has dreamed of someday having a family of her own. She has protected her purity because she wants the man she marries to be the only lover she ever knows. Her mother taught her this.
Adanna’s dreams and her purity mean everything to her, but if she doesn’t eat soon, neither will matter. She will be dead.
Children grow up fast in Africa. She makes a decision. A terrible, necessary decision. She goes to these men. Perhaps they’ll have compassion for her. Perhaps they’ll give her food without asking anything in return. They look at her, they grab her, they fondle her, and they laugh. They refuse to give her food. “Why should we give you anything, you ugly little mongrel?” they shout.
They tell her to go into the back room of the store and wait. She steps into a room that smells of urine and mold. She is shaking. A sickly man is sleeping in the corner.
Suddenly, three men come in drinking and shouting. They approach her not as a human being but as a mere animal. She screams. She cries. Nobody is listening. Nobody cares.
And they steal her dreams.
She leaves with food. Enough to keep her alive. But what kind of life? She has just contracted HIV. She will die of AIDS within three years.”