Filip Skrońc
Don't Hurt Him
2020
/
30 min.
From 2014 to 2019, I worked on a non-fiction book exploring the persecution of people with albinism in Tanzania and other African countries. The book was published in Polish by Czarne Publishing House. Below is a small excerpt from the work.
I
Leaving the city center isn’t easy. If you hit rush hour, you can add an hour of sitting in traffic to any journey. Taxi drivers often switch off their engines, patiently waiting for the line to move forward. The more resourceful ones manage to nap. From the window, you can buy roasted peanuts, cigarettes, fruit, or a chilled bottle of water.
Soon, the tall buildings and asphalt branches of the main road disappear. In their place are brick houses covered with uneven asbestos sheets. Most serve as homes, but some hide hair salons, shops, and restaurants. Occasionally, green patches appear, looking like islands spreading along the roadside—swamps or drying streams filled with plastic, trash, and remnants of life. Birds claw at the edges, cream-colored dogs cling to them, while women and children wade through the remains, some doing laundry.
The bus conductor stands in the doorway throughout the journey, rhythmically flipping coins with damp banknotes wedged between his fingers. He signals me to get off near a tall church and suggests I look for a boda boda, a motorcycle taxi.
A teenager in a red shirt and a brown checkered blazer makes room for me on the seat. The space is so tight that I can feel the warmth of his back against my stomach. A helmet dangles from the handlebar, its strap clanging against the motorcycle throughout the ride.
The road starts with a gentle curve, then slopes downhill. We pass a row of small service points made of bricks, wood, and corrugated metal sheets. Each has a narrow bridge of planks over a drainage ditch leading to its entrance. Inside, you can buy meals, sugar by the spoonful, or phone credit. Behind a whitewashed wall is a primary school. We bounce along the uneven road until we stop near a wooden structure shaped like an “H.” The driver gestures that he’ll wait for me to finish my meeting.
I get off the motorcycle and approach a table covered in cables, metal casings, and spare parts for televisions and fans. The walls of the low buildings are unplastered, revealing mortar seams and rectangular holes covered with plastic instead of windows.
Beyond the walls, trees rise, their branches and leaves offering shade but no relief from the heat radiating off the concrete. Outside the house I’ve come to visit, a group of people sits, all staring at me, squinting in the light.
It’s an odd moment, an odd feeling.
But it’s not strange that they’re watching me. Nor is it strange that three of them have albinism.
We haven’t even introduced ourselves, yet I already know the boy in the polo shirt sings, and the one sitting by the door dreams of something bigger. I recognize the woman in the turquoise shirt layered with a floral dress.
Their faces appeared in documentaries and online clips. They were also in one of the first photographs I ever saw on the subject of albinism in Tanzania. It was a simple picture: three individuals with albinism on a couch—a young girl and two boys, one slightly older than the other, all with shaved heads. A lime-green wall, a blue carpet, a burgundy seat cushion. A broken pink umbrella leaned against the couch.
The boy in the middle sat upright, proud, and confident, staring into the camera as if he knew why it was there. The girl on the edge had her eyes closed. The younger boy’s hands rested unnaturally on his thighs, fear etched into his gaze.
Beneath the photo, a caption read: “A family with albinism from the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From left to right: Tania (38), Abduli (14), and Moodi (8). Their father tried to sell one of the children on the black market.”
Standing in front of these same individuals years later, I’m struck by how much has changed. The boys are taller, and the girl now has braids woven close to her scalp. She’s older than I imagined.
The woman introduces herself as Zainabu Said, the grandmother of the boys. She wears a white satin blouse with oversized pink flowers, cinched with a navy sash embroidered with golden-green accents. She limps slightly as we follow her into the house at her pace.
The bare brick walls reveal every mortar seam. The floor is an uneven concrete slab. Above us, a corrugated metal roof. Windows are just vertical bars without panes. In a corner stands an old tube television and a decoder. Dusty pots, Chinese plates, and an oil lamp clutter a faded sideboard. I sit on the couch from the photo.
I introduce myself, asking my hosts to do the same. This is where the narrative breaks down. Names, ages, and family relationships don’t match the photo’s caption.
The girl isn’t Tania but Siwasahahu, and she’s not the sister of Abduli and Moodi but the aunt of Ally and the mother of Salum—the two boys in the original photo. She also has twins, Abdal and Asisa, who don’t have albinism.
Ally’s parents died years ago. His mother was the first to pass, followed shortly by his father, both victims of skin cancer. Saidi Tamin, Ally’s father, had worked delivering charcoal in the area.
Earlier, I’d thought I would end this conversation by asking about the father who allegedly tried to sell his children. Now, I realize that question is irrelevant. Instead, I ask about their daily lives and if they fear attacks.
“We were scared at first,” Siwasahahu replies. “I feared for my son, and my husband feared for me. Now we’re calmer.”
Her son, Salum, starred in the film White Shadow, which premiered in Venice and won awards at major festivals. Critics praised it for its brutal portrayal of the realities faced by people with albinism in Tanzania. In one haunting scene, Salum’s character screams in terror as a machete is raised, followed by laughter and singing in the next frame.
When I ask about the movie, Siwasahahu says, “I only saw it once, at a public screening. I don’t remember that scene.” She adds, “On a daily basis, we fear hunger more than death.”
I realize that for them, the looming specter of starvation outweighs even the threat of violence.
II
The louder the scream, the stronger the elixir. I learned this from Ester when we first met in Geita’s town center.
In the light of the setting sun, I noticed her face. A scar began under her right temple, crossing her eye and nose before disappearing near the corner of her mouth. Her right eyelid drooped, and her skin stretched unnaturally with every change of expression. Ester pulled back her pink blouse embroidered with flowers to show scars on her shoulder.
We smiled at each other, waiting for a translator. I stared at her face, a mix of shame and anger welling inside me. I wanted to say something, but there was no one nearby to translate. Ester didn’t speak English, and I hadn’t anticipated that she wouldn’t want to speak Swahili. Sukuma was her first language. When the translator arrived, my first question was about the date of the attack. The dates in newspapers and news reports varied.
“February 15,” Ester said, her voice steady. “On February 15, they took him and killed him. Two days later, his body was found buried near the house.”
Her words hit me like a wave of heat. I realized I was asking about her son’s death exactly one year later. The sun was setting over Geita as February 15, 2016, came to an end.
We spoke while leaning against a small tree. There was no time to sit in a restaurant or hotel lobby. A neighbor had been watching her children all day, and Ester still had a long journey home. She asked to meet again on another day, giving detailed instructions to the translator on how to find her. When the translator stepped away, I handed Ester money for the bus, dinner, and medicine. She quickly hid it in her bra and disappeared toward the main road.
Now, I know how far she lives and how difficult it is to reach her without a vehicle.
I step out of the Toyota, ducking under a line of freshly washed laundry. A small group of curious neighbors gathers in front of brick houses. Behind me is the translator. The parents sitting outside their homes look both shy and amused. No one speaks. Life seems to have paused.
Few people visit this place. Cars are sometimes sent for Ester, and her travel costs are covered, but rarely does anyone come to her home. Besides, her story has filled newspaper columns and appeared on websites in multiple languages. Everything could be written based on those reports.
Why bother asking her how she felt when her son was torn from her arms? What could it add to what’s already been published? A mother lost her child. The child was murdered. Isn’t that enough?
Dar es Salaam / Warsaw, 2020
