As I closed the truck door, my boots stirred the dust into small, swirling clouds. Before me stood a collection of ramshackle structures—what I’d call mud huts. Doors hung off their hinges, paint flaked away, and thatch roofs looked ready to collapse. Yet, despite the disrepair, the dirt around the huts had been swept immaculately clean, the brush marks still visible from the makeshift broom leaning against the wall.
Inside the sagging fence, fashioned from rough-hewn poles and rusty barbed wire, chickens darted through the gaps. Amid it all, a young woman caught my eye. She looked 16, though we’d been told she was 20. Her clothes were tattered, her face streaked with dust, and her expression—those deep, sorrowful eyes—was haunting.
She spoke through an interpreter, recounting the story of her father’s death. He’d been walking through the bush when an elephant attacked, trampling him to death. She delivered the account matter-of-factly, without tears, as though sadness had given way to survival. Six children clung to her, the youngest barely a year old, his tiny body coated in dirt, his tears carving clean streaks down his cheeks.
When I asked if the government had helped, the interpreter shook his head. Four months had passed, and nothing. I looked around—at the huts, the children, the chickens—and wondered, What does she do next? How does anyone move forward from this?
As we left, the weight of her story settled in silence. Back in the car, I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel and prayed—grateful it wasn’t my reality, but shaken by the knowledge that for so many, it is. This is the hard truth we need to confront. These are the stories that demand to be told.