As African nations gained independence from European powers, many fell into civil war that raged for decades: the Sudan, Chad, Mozambique, Angola-these are just a few examples. The de-stabilization that occurred during these periods of war caused many children to be stranded or homeless, through death or poverty.
Disease has also been a factor. In the last decade, the epidemic of AIDS has orphaned many children. Although many grandparents are caring for their grandchildren, the burden has become overwhelming for some and these children have been forced to take to the streets. Like all the children mentioned above, there are those who are of the streets (meaning permanently there, sleeping & eating & working) and those who are on the streets (working & eating there but sometimes or frequently going to a family member's house to sleep). Those who are of the streets constitute about 20% of the street children population (Kilbride 2).
I remember the disappointment I felt when I walked to the field in the mornings and saw kids I knew rummaging in the trash, or sniffing glue. I asked Patrick, the street kid who cooked food in the mornings, why so many sniffed glue. What was the appeal? "If you sniff glue, you don't feel cold at night when you're sleeping on the street," he said. "You don't feel hungry. You don't care if the police come and throw you in jail."
A friend of mine asked me recently where kids got the idea to sniff glue. I don't know-but apparently, the behavior emerged where shoe industries sprang up (Kilbride 4). I don't know if there is actual physical addiction to glue or if it is a purely psychological addiction. One night, a girl named Maria who had been coming daily for breakfast and lunch came off of her glue-inspired high in my living room. It wasn't a pretty sight. She had said she wanted to come off of it but in the end she struggled, thrashing around, screaming, her clothes slipping off her shoulders and revealing breasts. When at last she was "sober," and the glue bottle had been taken and thrown away, she sat silently, heaving sobs. We gave her some bread and she held it in her hands, not eating, staring at the floor, lost somewhere in her head where we couldn't go. It wasn't clear if she was glad to be "off" the drug or whether she would be back on it within hours after she left the house. As a street girl, she had a lot more pressures than the street boys-she probably had to fend off rape nightly and likely survived at least partially through sex, which put her at risk for STDs and pregnancy. If I were in her shoes, I'd probably want something stronger than glue to get my mind off of things.
