Ana's Story Read online

  Ana’s Story

  A Journey of Hope

  Jenna Bush

  Based on her work with UNICEF

  Photographs by Mia Baxter

  For Ana

  and

  children all over the world

  who are

  living with hope

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Ana's Story

  Afterword

  A Letter from Jenna Bush

  You Can Make a Difference

  Protect Yourself, Protect Others

  Websites and Help Lines

  What’s the Real Deal?

  Ten Myths about HIV/AIDS

  Do You Know the Whole Story?

  Ten Myths About Abuse

  Discussion Questions for Ana’s Story

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PREFACE

  In 2006 I began working as an intern with UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. As part of the program, I documented the lives of children raised in poverty, particularly children who were abused, neglected, and marginalized.

  UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean supports and advocates for children and adolescents so that they can overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease, and discrimination create. As part of the program, UNICEF encourages gatherings of young people affected by AIDS. I visited a community group that included women and children living with HIV/AIDS. At the close of the meeting, Ana, a seventeen-year-old mother, stood before the group and said, “We are not dying with AIDS; we are living with it.” She glanced down at her baby daughter balanced on her hip and concluded, “We are survivors.”

  I was impressed with Ana’s maturity and confidence; I was intrigued by her positive outlook despite her infection. Maybe it was her vitality and beauty, or the fact that she was holding her baby, but in that moment Ana seemed so full of life.

  Ana and I arranged to talk the following afternoon. We continued meeting regularly for more than six months. I listened to her tell the details of her past, and I spoke with her family members and other loved ones. The more I spoke with her, the more she inspired me. Hers is a story of survival, strength, and resilience.

  This book is based on Ana’s childhood and adolescence as she told it to me. It is a mosaic of her life, using words instead of shards of broken tile to create an image of her past and a framework for her future. It also embodies all of what I’ve learned working with UNICEF. In order to write it, I interviewed and spent time with many people other than Ana—the people most important to her as well as other children and their families living in similar circumstances, nonprofit leaders and workers, and my knowledgeable UNICEF colleagues.

  While I was moved by Ana’s story, it became clear that she represented all the children I worked with, and I wanted the book to portray both the realities and the emotions of all the people I came to know.

  This is a work of narrative nonfiction. I have written the dialogue based on what others expressed to me. Names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved. I have made every attempt to convey what Ana told me of the situations and emotions in her life honestly and accurately.

  Ana’s story is unique, but many children around the world share similar experiences. The book is set in Latin America because that is where Ana grew up, but her hardships happen far too often to children in the United States and throughout the world. According to UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2007 report, 2.3 million children live with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and millions more suffer from child abuse and neglect. Ana put a face on these statistics; she made these abstract numbers very real and personal.

  Ana exemplifies a universal truth about secrets: Children need to be free to discuss all of life’s issues—including the traumas of physical or sexual abuse, illness, or neglect—with safe and trustworthy adults who can educate them and help them handle their situations. Equipped with information and knowledge, children can then take the steps necessary to protect themselves and to break the cycle that perpetuates abuse and spreads disease from one generation to the next.

  While Ana’s story is compelling in its own right, the final section of this book also provides information about how you can move from knowledge to action.

  It includes:

  Suggestions for how readers can help children in their own communities and around the world

  A list of websites and organizations for readers who want additional information about the themes of the book

  Myths and common misconceptions about HIV/AIDS and abuse

  Discussion questions that can be used while reading the book at school or in book groups to encourage conversations about the challenges Ana and other children face

  Using these resources, you can help UNICEF and other organizations that assist children throughout the world succeed in preventing and easing the suffering of those like Ana. A portion of proceeds from this book will benefit the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

  Ana's Story

  A Journey of Hope

  1

  Ana had one picture of her mother. It was not an original photograph but a color photocopy.

  The image had been laminated, sealed in plastic for protection, so that it would last forever. When she was ten, Ana decorated the corners with sparkly stickers of flowers and stars. She handled the photocopy so often that the corners had started to curl and the plastic had begun to fray and come apart.

  All of her life, Ana’s aunts and uncles told her that she looked just like her mamá. Ana sometimes stood in front of the mirror, holding the photocopy next to her face. She wanted to see if her eyes really were the same as her mother’s. Ana shifted her focus from her eyes to her mother’s eyes until the images blurred and she could not tell where her mother ended and she began.

  In the photocopy, Ana’s mother was young; she was only sixteen when Ana was born. She had big brown eyes and feathers of dyed blond hair. Her skin, the color of cocoa, looked fresh, smooth, and polished. Ana hoped her family was right; she hoped she looked like her beautiful mamá.

  Ana’s mother had been gone for so long that Ana could only recall the curves of her face by looking at the ragged photocopy. Ana taped the picture to the wall of her bedroom at pillow height so that she could stare at it before she went to sleep, comforted in knowing that if she ever forgot what her mother looked like, she could glance over and remember.

  2

  Ana had only one actual memory of her mother. It was not vivid but vague and somewhat confusing. She remembered this piece of her past like a black-and-white movie, the images blurred and out of focus, beyond reach.

  In the memory—Ana’s first—she was three years old. She stood in the hallway outside a bathroom; her mother was on the other side of the door, sobbing and wailing.

  “Mamá,” Ana whispered through the wooden door. “Are you okay?”

  She could hear her mother crying, then trying to catch her breath.

  “Mamá?”

  Ana put her hand on the knob and turned it. She pulled open the door and peeked inside. Her mother leaned against the wall with one hand and turned and looked at Ana through puffy red eyes. Her mother’s hand trembled as she reached up to wipe the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

  “Ana,” her father said from the hall, “leave Mamá alone, por favor.” Ana felt confused and afraid. Her papá’s eyes were also red and he, too, had been crying.

  “Your sister Lucía—,” he started, then stopped. He drew a deep breath and then said quickly, “Your sister has died.”

  Ana heard the words, but she didn’t really understand. She was too young to comprehend the meaning of death and grief. All sh
e saw was that Mamá and Papá were crying, and that made her uneasy and afraid.

  “Okay,” Ana whispered, backing away from the door.

  She knew that her mother had gone to the hospital and given birth to her youngest sister in the summertime. She knew that Lucía was sick and that her mother had come home without the baby. Mamá went to see Lucía at the hospital every morning but always returned home alone.

  Ana had never met her baby sister, and now she never would.

  Lucía died when she was two months old.

  3

  Lucía’s death was Ana’s first secret. During her first days of school, Ana and her classmates marched like sailors, wearing the mandatory school uniforms of her country, white blouses and navy pants or skirts. When anyone asked, “Do you have any sisters or brothers?” she usually responded, “Yes, I have one sister, Isabel, and she looks exactly like me.”

  Ana considered the response truthful, if incomplete. She willingly and openly spoke about Isabel, who was not yet in school because she was two years younger, but she didn’t want to talk about Lucía. Lucía’s life was like a dream, disconnected and private.

  4

  When friends asked about her family, Ana talked about her life as if it belonged to someone else. She recited the facts like poems she memorized at school. But so many memories were missing that her past was like Swiss cheese, filled with holes.

  “Mamá died when I was three,” Ana told anyone who asked where her mother was. This was true, but in the place where childhood memories belong, Ana had nothing—a void. She only repeated what other family members told her about her mamá.

  Ana didn’t remember Mamá growing weak and pale in the months after Lucía’s death. She didn’t remember Mamá’s face becoming gaunt and skeletal; she didn’t remember her mamá’s breathing becoming labored and slow, the pause between breaths growing longer and longer, until her breathing stopped. Ana’s mamá was not yet twenty when she died of AIDS.

  “She was sick,” Ana told those who pressed for more information.

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know,” Ana replied. It was the truth because that’s all she would know for many years.

  5

  Long ago Ana stopped asking for details about Mamá’s sickness. She stopped asking about Lucía’s death. She stopped asking why every morning and night her abuela, her grandmother, walked to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out an orange pill bottle and passed Ana the white pills that she swallowed with water.

  Ana did what she was told. She accepted her life at face value. After Mamá died, Ana and Isabel moved in with their abuela. At age twenty-one, Papá didn’t think he could raise two toddlers on his own, so he took his daughters to live with his mother. Ana and Isabel shared a bed in their grandmother’s small home.

  Abuela’s tin-roofed house was in a poor barrio in the rolling hills just outside the city. Cars and buses sped along the dirt road in front of her house, sharing it with the dogs, chickens, and horses that roamed freely.

  Ana’s barrio looked nothing like the modern, urban skyline of the city just ten miles away. Her country was one of contrasts: rich and poor, modern and traditional.

  Ana’s abuela worked hard to keep her granddaughters fed. She was stern and believed in strict discipline. By the time she was in her early forties, she had already raised four children. Abuela stood no more than five feet two inches tall and had a strong, solid build. She wore her long black hair pulled back in a severe bun; only a few silver-gray strands streaked from her temples.

  When Ana tried to ask her abuela about the past—why her mamá and Lucía died—her grandmother had snapped, “Don’t worry about it. Just do as you’re told.”

  So Ana stopped asking questions. She didn’t know why she took medicine every day. When Ana was ten years old, her abuela decided she was old enough to learn the truth.

  “Mi nieta, my granddaughter, these pills are for HIV/AIDS,” she said. “You were infected with HIV when you were born. You got it from your mamá.” Ana understood from her abuela’s tone that the matter was serious, but she didn’t understand the significance of HIV/AIDS.

  “What does that mean, Abuela?” Ana asked.

  “It means, take your medicine. Every day,” her abuela said forcefully. “That’s all you need to know.”

  The pills, known as antiretrovirals, help to control the HIV infection that causes AIDS. Without the pills, Ana’s immune system would become weaker, and she would be vulnerable to a wide range of diseases. But all her abuela said was “Ana, this is a secret that you must never, ever tell anybody. Not even your best friend or any other amigas. Never.”

  Ana nodded.

  At the time, Ana felt more anxious about keeping the secret than she did about having HIV. Ana didn’t know anything about this infection. She assumed it was like a cold, but a cold that would last forever.

  Ana wasn’t worried about getting sick, but she did worry that somehow other people would be able to look at her and know. She feared that the secret must be bad—something to be ashamed of—and she didn’t want anyone to find out. Ana obeyed her abuela. She tucked this secret in the back of her mind, deep into the place that stored the memories of Lucía and Mamá, the place that contained the things she didn’t talk about.

  6

  When Ana was ten, she played a game when she took her medicine: She pretended that each tiny pill contained a delicious dessert. Each night the dessert would be different. Some nights she imagined she was dining on ice cream with chocolate sauce. Other nights she pretended it was flan with caramel, tres leches cake with strawberries, or cinnamon-sugar churros.

  7

  Secrets didn’t matter when Ana was with her papá. During the week, he drove a taxi, but on Sundays he drove from his apartment through the slums of the city to Abuela’s house to pick up Ana and Isabel for the afternoon.

  “Papá, where are we going?” Ana asked, as she did every time she and Isabel climbed into the backseat of the faded blue taxi.

  “On an adventure, mis hijas,” he always replied.

  With Papá, everything was an adventure. On their outings, they usually went shopping or to the movies or, if the girls were lucky, to McDonald’s for hamburgers, French fries, and chicken strips. When the weather was good, Papá would take them to the docks, where they would stare at the tankers and smaller fishing boats moving in and out of the bay.

  Papá praised his daughters.

  “Te amo,” he whispered to each of the girls, telling them “I love you” and making them feel invincible and safe.

  While she loved shopping and going to the movies, for Ana the most magical part of the evening was when the setting sun painted the skyline a fiery gold and the street bands set up on the sidewalks. When the music started, Papá and his daughters would pause on the street corner by one of the bands and start swinging their arms and stepping in time to the music. Ana’s heart beat in rhythm with the salsa and reggae drums; the energy of the music pulsed through her body. Before long, all three—Papá, Ana, and Isabel—fell under the music’s spell, surrendering to the dance. These times spent dancing with her papá were among Ana’s most cherished moments.

  8

  In Papá’s world, Ana felt safe. When she was with her abuela, Ana felt vulnerable, as if she had done something wrong. Abuela never told her she loved her or kissed her good-night before bed. Ana was always careful not to say too much or to ask too many questions. She tried to be an obedient, quiet girl, as she thought her abuela wanted.

  Once, when Ana and Isabel were preparing to leave the house to play with a friend, their abuela said, “Isabel, go outside. I need to talk to Ana alone.”

  “Why can’t I hear?” Isabel asked. “Is it a secret? I want to know the secret.”

  “Go. Now,” her abuela ordered. “Ana will be there soon.”

  Isabel pouted and stomped off. Ana was alone with her abuela.

  “Ana, I want to remind you not to tell anyone about your il
lness.”

  “I know, I know,” Ana said. She had already heard this many times.

  “I’m telling you this for your safety, your well-being,” Abuela continued, her eyes focusing in on Ana’s. “I have heard stories about girls and boys like you who are forced to leave school because their teachers find out that they have HIV.”

  “What? Why? That’s not fair!”

  “Life’s not fair. If you tell, you’ll be treated badly. People will call you bad, ugly names. They will be afraid of you,” Abuela said.

  Ana was upset. Would her friends really turn on her that way if they knew she had HIV? Why? She wasn’t a monster. Her friends wouldn’t get HIV from sitting close to her, hugging her, or sharing her lunch. She looked and felt fine. She didn’t understand any of this.

  “Ana, keep your mouth shut. Don’t ever tell anyone you have HIV or you will be like the others who are ridiculed and then forced to drop out of school.” And that was all Abuela would say.

  So Ana kept her mouth shut; she loved school and she didn’t want to be kicked out. She had never told anyone she had HIV, not even Ramona, her best friend. When the bell rang at the end of school, Ana would sprint to Ramona’s house, allowing her tube socks to slip down her calves as she ran, only stopping to pull them up once she got there. Sometimes Ana would stay at Ramona’s house into the evening, and Ramona’s abuela would invite her for a dinner of arroz con carne. Ana loved being with Ramona and her family, and she didn’t want anything to ruin that.