Hannah

       Every Friday, the Adera Foundation hosts a Girl’s Club at the Community Center with doors open to every middle and high school girl in the neighborhood. The girls come together for food, fellowship, and, of course, a craft. On my first trip to Adera, my suitcase was packed with dozens of felt flowers, hot glue sticks, and metal barrettes. We hauled it all to the Community Center on Friday and watched the chaos unfold as we set 50 girls loose on the supplies. 

       The girls treasured their flower hair clip creations with pride, turning the halls of the Community Center into runways. It was not exactly the peaceful arts and crafts hour we had planned, but we were having too much fun to care. We laughed as we watched their parade, but I needed a minute away from the chaos and stepped outside.

       Just out the door, I found a little girl in a little pink dress playing by herself. She looked a little too young to be part of the Girl’s Club crowd. I didn’t quite understand the rules of the game she was playing: she hopped back and forth on one leg, switching her feet seemingly at random. Her legs were as thin as a chicken’s, and her stringy braids flew out behind her. I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of her. Hearing me, she turned around and put a shy end to her hopping. I smiled and crouched down to her level.

       “Simih mano?”* 

       I had to repeat the bumbled phrase before her eyes sparked with recognition.

       “Enih sihm Hannah.”**

       My Amharic was as limited as her English, and we didn’t get very far beyond names. Fortunately for me, hopping does not require a great deal of communication. She held my finger in her tiny hand and led me through her hopping game, the rules of which I never fully deciphered. We hopped around the courtyard until I thought my calves would explode, when she finally decided she had had enough. We went to the steps and she climbed into my lap and didn’t move for the rest of the afternoon.

       When you hold Hannah, you feel instinctively that you are holding something precious. She is so tiny it seems like she might break in your arms, but somehow she gives the biggest bear hugs imaginable. Her big brown eyes never fail to be filled with the purest look of love. While the anarchy continued just inside, we sat in happy silence, her fiddling with my bracelets and hair. In less than an hour, I fell in love with Hannah, and I have loved her dearly ever since.

       After Girl’s Club ended, I discovered that Hannah had been waiting for her big sister, who emerged from the building and called to her to come home. Hannah’s little arms were unwilling to relinquish their grip around my neck, and I was equally as reluctant to let her go. 

       As we returned inside to clean up, I asked the Adera leadership if they knew anything about Hannah or her family, and I was shocked to hear her story. 

      When the Adera Foundation first discovered Hannah’s mom, she was a single mother to Hannah’s older sister and pregnant with Hannah. They were utterly starving. Hannah’s mother, a victim of domestic abuse who is HIV positive, had no way to fend for herself or provide for her children. Hannah was born so severely malnourished that it was unclear whether she would survive. Without the help of the Adera Foundation, she almost certainly would not have. 

       It is hard to imagine a child as sweet as Hannah living under such horrendous conditions. She deserves all the best things life has to offer, but she and her family were utterly powerless against the crippling cycle of poverty they faced. Because of Adera, Hannah’s mother was given the medical treatment she needed to deliver a healthy baby. Adera made sure that the family had enough to eat, not only to survive but to recover fully from their starvation. And when her mother recovered, Adera offered her a job in the Adera Bead House. 

       At the Adera Bead House, mothers are paid a living wage in a safe environment with true community. For the first time in their lives, they find a place free of the guilt and shame of poverty they have known their whole lives. They are surrounded by women who share their hardships and pass on their encouragement. More than that, while they work, they know their children are safe at a school the Adera Foundation selects and finances. Because of the Adera Foundation, that is the world Hannah gets to exist in. She was born into hopelessness, but she is growing up in hope.

When I said goodbye to Hannah for the first time, we both parted with tears in our eyes. While I gave her one last hug, I felt her fingers twisting through my hair, but I figured she was just fiddling with it again. But once she left, I realized she had clipped a little flower barrette in my hair. 

      Over the past four years, I have gotten to see Hannah grow from that precious little girl to a graceful young lady. She still wraps me in tight hugs every time she sees me, and I am still willing to hold her for as long as she pleases. She never fails to amaze me with the simple purity of her goodness. Hannah’s story is the truest testament to quiet strength that I have ever witnessed.

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*The phonetic spelling of the Amharic phrase for “What’s your name?”

**The phonetic spelling of the Amharic phrase for “My name is…”