I sat perfectly still on the mat under the jacaranda tree in our yard. My mother’s fingers, braiding my hair, felt soft and gentle. They made me want to sleep. But I didn’t. I sat straight up without Mama having to tell me once not to slump.
If I am very good, I thought, maybe Mama won’t get tired before she finishes. I didn’t want her to stop. I wanted her to go on touching me forever.
***
But Mama did get tired, and it was Lindiwe’s embittered, older cousin Grace who finished braiding her hair. When Grace talks openly of Mama’s coming death, the girls quarrel and Lindiwe runs off. Only when Lindiwe finds Grace crying over the loss of her own parents, and they are able to share their pain and hurt, can the two become partners in helping their family.
About Writing Beads and Braids:
Africa has more than 12 million orphans, and many more who are living with sick and dying parents. That is more than every child in the U.S. states of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Tennessee, and Wisconsin put together. But 12 million is not just a huge number. Each child is an individual who needs to know God’s love, who needs to see wise choices modeled, who needs to be encouraged not to give up on life. Fiction stories about children like themselves, struggling with the same issues, help young people to know that they are not alone.
I was writing a story about God’s love in a world of HIV and decided to do a more in-depth character study of the main character. As I worked through a series of questions, answering them in Lindiwe’s voice as if she were telling me all about it, I realized how important her pretty braids and the beads given to her by her dead father would be as a link with the happy time before illness tore her family apart. Loss is felt not only in the big things, but in the small details of life. When I went back to my story, thinking I would begin with the hair-braiding under the tree and move into what I had written earlier, I found myself writing a completely different story instead. Most of my books have gone through revision after revision before going to a publisher. (
Glastonbury Tor went through so less than eleven drafts!) But
Beads and Braids is now virtually as it came to me that day.
Find out about other projects to help people affected by
HIV/AIDS.
Writing Tip
Take the time to know your characters ahead of time. Ask yourself questions about what the character looks like, how he or she talks and acts when happy or sad, favorite foods, best friends, worst enemies, what she can’t stand, etc. I like to write the answers as though the character is telling me all about it, with all the emotions and side comments that make that character come alive for me.
***
Things to Talk About
A brief activity is included in the back of the book Beads and Braids
. Here are some further questions that can be used for guided discussion. Don’t try to use them all at once, but choose the questions most appropriate to your group.
1. How can you tell that Lindiwe loves her mother? Why are the beads for her hair so important to her?
2. What did Grace have to remind her of her parents? Do you have something special to remind you of someone you love?
3. Grace seems mean at first, but inside she is sad just like Lindiwe. What has made Grace sad? If someone has been mean to you, can you think of a reason why that person might be sad and need you to be kind?
4. Why doesn’t Lindiwe want to even think about AIDS? What worries her that she finally asks Grace about at the end?
5. Lindiwe didn’t want to hear those words “when your mama passes.” Why are people afraid to talk about death?
6. How does it help when we talk about things we are afraid of? What are you afraid of?
7. Why won’t Sibongile’s mother let her walk to school with Lindiwe?
8. Are people in your community afraid of people living with AIDS? You can’t get AIDS by being friends with someone who is sick, so why are people afraid?
9. Lindiwe’s father thought AIDS was something that happened to other people. Talk with your parents or teacher about how you can protect yourself against AIDS.
10. Read what the Bible says about whose job it is to take care of people in need:
The kind of religion God likes is to help people, especially children with no parents and women whose husbands have died. James 1:27 (author’s paraphrase)
[Jesus] will say, “This is the truth: poor people are my brothers and sisters. If you help them, you are helping me.” Matthew 25:40 (author’s paraphrase)
11. Whose job is it to take care of sick people and children with no parents? Do you know anyone who is sick? How can you show love to sick people and children with no parents like Jesus would?
***
Other books for young adults about HIV in Africa
The Key Reader Series from
Shuter and Shooter (of which
Beads and Braids is a part) includes 28 books, four on each of seven reading levels. Each set of four includes one non-fiction title and three stories, all with HIV-related themes. The stories are lively and inviting. Only a few are self-consciously didactic. Attractive, full color illustrations show children from a variety of racial backgrounds with Africans predominant. For my full review of all 28 titles and other books for children about HIV/AIDS, go to
my Goodreads page. You will find adult books about HIV/AIDS on a separate shelf.
Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis. (2004) Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Markham, Ontario.
Binti’s father runs a coffin shop, but when he dies of AIDS, Binti and her siblings are split up and sent to relatives all over Malawi. They suffer increasing hardship until they are reunited through the influence of their formidable grandmother.
Crossing the Line by Lutz van Dijk. (2006) Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Shuter and Shooter.
Growing up in a rural area, Themba loves soccer. Can he make the national team even though his family is suffering with AIDS? Is his mother the only one in the family with the virus or is Themba infected, too?
Praise Song by Jenny Robson. (2006) Cape Town, Tafelberg.
“No one knows who killed her.” Jenny Robson grabs the reader with her first line. And of course, by the end of the book, the reader knows who killed the teacher whose body was found on the waste ground on page one, but it is the shocking retribution the killer receives that makes this young adult novel about HIV unforgettable.
