It has come down to this...

Dear Despair,

Thanks to Ad's blog, I became aware of a of an article describing the unfortunate phenomenon of a self-made narcotic, Jenkem -- a "noxious mixture made from fermented sewage." When glue is unavailable and gas is too dangerous to steal Zambian teenagers literally scoop sewage into bottles, leave them to ferment, and then get high when enough methane has formed at the top. At complete disregard from where the product came from, children are looking for any means of escape -- this high lasts about and hour and comes at no monetary cost.

While Jenkem in itself is sickening, it is even more disheartening to ask the children and teenagers why they choose to partake in such a practice. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zambia is said to affect at least 25% of adults in urban areas. This combined with government policies among other factors is destroying the domestic economy resulting in huge waves of children being sent out onto the street. With the traditional backbone of any society rapidly disintegrating, the youth are forced to fend for themselves. Boys try to find any labour, and girls are often forced to sell their bodies. It seems as if the national economic problems of Zambia are being taken out on those that are supposed to be the future of the country. These youth are being driven to find and then hold onto anything that will allow them to survive that much longer.

Image courtesy of Mother's Movement

An employee of the Zambian Drug Enforcement Agency summarizes it best when he said, "It's unimaginable. It hits right at the heart to see a human being coming down a level, to be able to dip his hand into a sewage pond, picking out the material and not caring about anything but the feeling of getting high." I suppose then, it doesn't seem to surprising that these street children have found a means in which to free themselves from the burdens they carry, even if it is only for an hour.

Source: BBC News