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Summary
Summary
The problem by most lights is overwhelming: at least 5,000 children live on the streets of Uganda's capital city of Kampala. Some forget the names of their villages. The youngest may not know the names of their parents. But Gladys Kalibbala--part journalist, part detective, part Good Samaritan--does not hesitate to dive into difficult or even dangerous situations to aid a child. Author of a newspaper column called "Lost and Abandoned," she is a resource that police and others turn to when they stumble across a stranded kid with a hidden history.
Jessica Yu delivers an acutely observed story of this hardnosed and warmhearted woman, the children she helps, and the twists of fate they experience together. The subplot of Gladys's garden--her precarious dream of providing a home and livelihood for her vulnerable charges--adds fascinating depth. Garden of the Lost and Abandoned chronicles one woman's altruism, both ordinary and extraordinary, in a way that is impossible to forget, and impossible not to take to heart.
Author Notes
Jessica Yu is the author of the young adult novel, The Strong and Silent Type, which earned her a Glenfern Fellowship from Writers Victoria 2015. She will receive three months¿ use of a writer¿s studio at Glenfern, a National Trust property in East St Kilda.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This compassionate portrait of Gladys Kalibbala, a Ugandan journalist in the capital city of Kampala, presents an extended look at a woman wired for altruism and forgiveness. Yu, a debut author and documentary filmmaker, covers four years of Kalibbala's work profiling homeless children in "Lost and Abandoned," her Sunday column for a national newspaper. The stories are heart-wrenching, variously involving AIDS, addiction, abuse, and grinding poverty. Kalibbala emerges as a generous soul and fierce advocate, reconnecting the children with family members, getting them into schools, and even setting up a small farm outside the city to raise funds and provide some children with a place to stay. Her personality and implacable determination mark every anecdote, most of which radiate an essential optimism even when the ending is not unqualifiedly happy. This is deeply researched personal journalism, but the focus is so close that a broader context-whether of Uganda's history, the African AIDS crisis, or the struggles of developing countries in general-rarely comes through. Yu's intense close-up on her charismatic heroine results in an inspirational narrative but neglects that story's dense, complicated background. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An Academy Award-winning filmmaker makes her literary debut with the stunning account of Gladys Kalibbala, who has devoted herself to rescuing lost children in Uganda.Yu, who met her subject while working on a documentary about population issues and spent some time over the past few years shadowing her, provides a richly detailed account of this remarkable woman. Kalibbala has a feature column in the Kampala newspaper New Vision, in which she tries to reunite lost and/or abandoned children with their familiesor to place the youngsters in settings where they will have a chance. The author delivers a moving collection of cases that have confronted Kalibbala, some of which have produced remarkable success and others, not so much. All of the stories have an immediacy because Yu has included generous amounts of dialogue and local color, all indicating the author's observational skills and attention to details. Kalibbala emerges as a magnetic personality with a huge heart and boundless spirit, a strong faith in human beings (a faith that her clients sometimes betray), and a tongue she sometimes wields like an edged blade against those who lie to her. Many of the cases are enormously complexnone more so than the one that consumes seven chapters, the story of a boy whose identity keeps unfolding with increasing complexity as the narrative continues. (Yu gives us a break after a few chapters of his story and then returns to him.) There are also some wrenching accounts of betrayal, especially the case of a boy Kalibbala rescued who then stole from heras did a family member. Wrenching, too, is the case of the autistic boy for whom Kalibbala struggles continually to find the right setting, "a place that could provide both freedom and constant supervision."An eloquent affirmation of the vast capacity of the human heart. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gladys Kalibbala is a force to be reckoned with. Her weekly newspaper column highlights the lost and abandoned children in Uganda's capital, Kampala, in the hope that the publicity will help locate their families. Haunted by the children who go unclaimed, she uses all of her contacts and meager funds to assist as many as she can, trying to be a constant and stabilizing adult presence in their lives. Filmmaker Yu focuses on the personal narratives of Kalibbala and the children, enriching her account with vivid details and extensive dialogue. This tight focus leads to a compelling, page-turning read, but no contextual information is provided, not even further information for those interested in contributing to Kalibbala's work. Yu's evenhanded narrative reveals the balance between bighearted Kalibbala's struggles with a sometimes-uncaring system and the support the children receive from police and her own triumphs. This is a powerful and inspiring tale of how one woman can make a tremendous difference in her community.--Rothschild, Jennifer Copyright 2018 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A single mom without a college degree boldly walks into a newspaper office, asks for a job as a reporter, and gets it. This is the story of that woman: Gladys -Kalibbaba, a successful human-interest reporter for the New Vision newspaper in Uganda. Her column, Lost and Abandoned, focuses on adrift children in Uganda's urban centers, with the goal of reuniting them with their parents. Impatient for happy endings, Kalibbaba frequently takes matters into her own hands and finds a home and schooling for children until their families can be located. Academy Award-winning director Yu first profiled Kalibbaba in the documentary Misconception (2014). In her first book, Yu shares the stories of over a dozen children rescued by Kalibbaba and her network of supporters. She then connects these stories to larger societal issues such as women's rights, family planning, health care, education, and job training. VERDICT This heartfelt book should be on a list of the best uplifting true stories; readers looking for inspiring narrative nonfiction or insight into life in other countries and cultures will thoroughly enjoy.-Beth Dalton, Littleton, CO © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Thirsty Baby The bottle of water sat on Officer Harriet's desk, its contents clear, its slightly crumpled label depicting the ice-capped Rwenzori Mountains. In spite of the heat, the policewoman and the reporter looked upon it not with thirst but with suspicion. It was Monday at Kawempe CPU -- Child and Family Protection Unit -- and the two women had a sick baby, a missing mother, and a clue. A nine-month-old boy, naked and feverish, had been brought to a clinic by his mother. She reported his name as Brasio Seguyo. The nurses diagnosed malaria and put the baby on an IV drip. The mother paid a small deposit on the treatment fee, saying she would come back with the rest of the money. Two days later, she had not returned. Only the bottle of water had been delivered, with a note saying it was for the baby. The plastic cap had clearly been twisted open; the seal on its neck was absent. The baby in question lay draped over Officer Harriet's shoulder, his body as limp as a warm chapati. Lacking boys' clothes, the clinic had sent him to the police in a blue-and-pink-flowered dress, its bottom now damp-dark from a diaper worn overnight. Harriet flipped through a report folder, expertly avoiding the wet spot as she supported the baby with her other arm. Harriet Nantaba was one of Gladys's favorite officers. It was easy for CPU officers to become overwhelmed by the daily flood of domestic disputes and abuse cases, but Harriet could always be counted on to gather the Who, What, Where, and When that Gladys needed for her newspaper column about lost children. In addition to being efficient, Harriet was always neatly groomed, her olive-green uniform perfectly fitted -- a modern vision of a young policewoman. Children in particular seemed to like her, perhaps because Harriet was also pretty, her classic features offset only by a disarming gap-toothed smile. "Did the nurses give the baby the water?" Gladys asked. "I don't know. That's how they brought it. They said they feared --" "-- it may contain something." "Yes," said Harriet. "It could be contaminated. Maybe the mother wanted to have the baby killed or something like that. So this is an exhibit now for police." "Yes, we are holding it as an exhibit." "Hmm." Their eyes locked on the bottled water. They sweated and stared, the heat swelling with the silence. The CPU was always hot. While Kawempe Police Station was a proper building, with two stories and a parking area for motorbikes in the front, its Child and Family Protection Unit was an eight-by-twenty-foot shipping container donated by a Finnish NGO. Plunked down on a dirt lot next to an ever-smoldering trash pile, the metal box housed two desks, two sets of bookshelves, four wooden benches, half a dozen plastic chairs, and frequently the maximum seating capacity of bodies. Two small windows provided air but no cross breeze, as they were cut into the same side of the wall. Under the steady glare of the Kampala sun, the steel walls that provided the material fortitude for stacking on a cargo ship became an oven. Gladys noticed that while she and Harriet sweated, the baby did not. His forehead had the dull surface of a stone. "He's very dehydrated," she remarked. "We tried to give him some juice, but he vomited." Gladys shook her head. "He looks really, really, bad off." "He needs the drip treatment. He only got a little bit." Harriet explained that when Brasio's mother had not shown up with the money, the baby had been taken off the IV. "The clinic realized no one is coming to claim for the child, so they stopped treatment." "He didn't get a full dose." "No, of course, he couldn't. Because there was no one to pay." Gladys sighed. "Now, Harriet, I know we need profits for our businesses. But in such cases, can't someone sympathize with a baby like this and complete the dose?" Harriet demurred. "I'm not very sure . . ." "O-kay," Gladys said, steering away from the dead end of the rhetorical. She flipped to a clean page. "And what was the name of this clinic?" "Family Hope Clinic." The irony escaped the room like an unswatted mosquito. Outside, the sun shone directly on the wilted line of supplicants sitting in front of the shipping container, and grumbling voices rose up to its tiny windows. Gladys frowned down at her notebook, weighing the possible outcomes of including Brasio's story in her column. Would the mother come forward? If she did, could the police analyze the contents of the mysterious bottle of water? What if she was not sane? They could not release the child to a mother who intended to poison him. But perhaps another family member would recognize Brasio and come forward to claim him. As she readied her camera, Gladys wished they had boy's clothes to put Brasio in, so as to avoid any doubts planted by the flowered dress. "Hold him up so I can see his face," she directed Harriet. Harriet lifted Brasio away from her shoulder and turned him toward Gladys. The boy's eyes fluttered open, and the sight of the water bottle on the desk momentarily energized him. He moaned and thrust out an unsteady arm. "Ah, ah," Harriet soothed. Gladys snapped photos as the baby pined for the water; she needed a clear look at his face. It felt bad not to reward him with a drink, but there was nothing else to offer. Given their low wages, police did not have money for amenities like bottled water. "I wish you could remove that bottle from there," Gladys said. Harriet gingerly relocated the exhibit to a stack of boxes by the wall. "Good," said Gladys. "I'm worried that someone may feel thirsty and pick it up." "It is me. It is me who is thirsty." Harriet laughed, showing the friendly gap in her teeth. Gladys sighed. Everybody was thirsty. After a few phone calls, Gladys enlisted a social worker to help her deliver Brasio to St. Catherine's Clinic. There the infant drifted in and out of consciousness, failing to stir even when the nurse pricked his fingers for a blood sample. Gladys had endured malaria many times, and she knew the crushing, invisible weight the disease placed on the will as well as the body. This body, limp as a doll's, looked spent, and there was little sign of will. Who could say whether the child was still clinging to this life or it was only the hands of others detaining him a few moments longer? If the doctor knew, his mild expression gave nothing away. Gladys lingered by the examining table as he gently prodded Brasio's swollen belly. "I'm worried about that stomach," she murmured. The doctor did not think the swelling was due to malaria. "It's probably malnutrition." "Ah." Gladys nodded, unsure if that was good news. The doctor moved to the head of the table, and Gladys now saw that Brasio's eyes were half open, revealing only empty white crescents. The sight froze her in place. How could she leave, with the baby looking so much worse than when she had first seen him? "Thank you for these good works," she managed, by way of farewell. "For my abandoned babies." The doctor's nod answered her unspoken question. Only time would tell. Excerpted from Garden of the Lost and Abandoned: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and Hundreds of Kids by Jessica Yu All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.