He is beautiful; the most beautiful little boy I have ever seen. His eyes are long and wide, very exotic. The irises are a deep chocolate brown floating over an ivory backdrop, more yellow than white—the telltale sign of a Kenyan. His hair is short, almost non-existent, on his large, round head, slightly cone-shaped. His forehead is broad and shiny, reflecting the light of the bright African sun in the midday heat. His face narrows into a neatly pointed chin, which is taken over by his wide mouth, and large lips that, when he smiles, stretch far across his little face into deep dimples on each side. His petite ears splay away from his skull, turning out at the plane level with his eyes.
His nose is wide, the outer edge of the nostrils in line with the inner corners of his eyes; the bridge, flat and gradual. There is often dry snot crusted around his nostrils. He has a healthy glow to his skin, but he is not healthy. He is a very sick little boy, and although he still tries to play and run with the other eight-year-olds, he cannot keep up, doubling over in fits of coughing midway through their soccer games.
He doesn’t let his illness stop him from loving life, however. He dances with the other children and teaches them new moves he’s invented in his time on the sideline. He helps tie plastic bags with twine to make the homemade soccer balls he won’t often use. His little hands sometimes shake when he works, but he is persistent and insists on finishing the job. He stops every few minutes to wipe his dripping nose with the back of his hand, dark mahogany like the rest of his body, flashing the muted taupe of his palm as he rotates his wrist. He smiles up at me when he notices me watching him.
Sometimes, when I hug him I can feel his little heart beating furiously under his hot skin. It’s frantic, as am I for his health, pounding far too fast for a resting child. His entire body is perpetually overheated, his forehead feverish more often than not. At first I convinced myself it was a natural adaptation to the glaring African sun, though the more natives I met, the more I began to realize this was not true: there was something wrong with Jefferson.
Still, from every other angle, he is a typical Kenyan boy from the slum. He runs around barefoot in the dry dirt, or sometimes wears makeshift sandals fashioned from old tires. He wears the same stained pants and shirt for weeks at a time: black trousers turned gray from layers of dust and dirt, with cargo pockets and a jersey shirt boasting “Jazz 56” across the blaze-orange chest, bordered by white short sleeves with raised adidas-like strips masking the stitching. There is a rip along the front left seam of his shirt, creating a large gap in between the orange and white fabrics in which the brown of his skin peeks through. Snags abound along the mesh material, flocked by stains and wrinkles. At first glance, you hardly even notice his clothes, however, distracted by his vibrant face.
I remember the first time I spoke to Jefferson. He was watching some of his friends practice a new dance move in the courtyard of the house I was sharing with fellow students in Kibera. I watched silently from the porch of the house until the rest of the children dispersed to play soccer. Jefferson looked lonely and bored watching on the sidelines, so he started to practice the dance with a rung from the wrought iron gate surrounding the house. I walked over to him and asked if he could teach me the dance step.
“I don’t know it yet. I’m practicing,” he responded shyly. Like many people, his vibrant personality did not shine through until you reached a certain level of trust with him.
“It’s okay. I don’t know any of the dances, but I’ll practice with you if you want,” I offered. He looked up at me curiously with his big and beautiful eyes, and then smiled slightly.
“Okay,” he agreed, and he began to teach me the dance step, eyeing me every so often with intrigue. After a few minutes, his body began to loosen up, and an energetic spring developed in his step as we practiced the dance. He laughed when we stepped on each other’s feet and chided me playfully when I ruined the rhythm. The first time he smiled at me, I couldn’t look away from his bright teeth framed in the carefree embrace of his lips. There was nothing more I wanted at that moment than to make Jefferson happy.
The reality is that Jefferson lives in one of the largest slums in the world with little and primitive medical care, poor access to nutrition, and daily contact with more viruses and infectious diseases than many Westerners will ever encounter in their lives. But Jefferson is also a kid who understands that his circumstances don’t have to dictate how he lives his life, even at his young age. The way he looks, the way he acts, the way he smiles and laughs and lives are no different than your average middle-class American child. But he’s not an average child: he is a child in a horribly destitute situation who is embracing his life and enjoying every moment of it.
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