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Friday,
August 24-September 7,
2007, #162 (1429)
By Eter Tsotniashvili Lika knows the
exact moment her life as a street child was over. One can forgive
the street vendor's confusion. It's hard to believe that this 16-year-old
girl, elegant and quietly confident, spent four years living on Tbilisi
streets. The fall from poverty to homeless was sudden. When Lika was seven, her small family lost what little they had in a house fire. With nowhere to go, they slept in the streets. Her mother tried her best to keep the children near and safe, telling Lika never to go off alone. Inevitably, she did. "I was wandering in the streets and I met some other children, also beggars. We were walking along together and they offered me some glue to sniff. I didn't know what it was. I tried it, and it was like I was in a completely different world," remembers Lika. Sniffing glue is a popular high for street children, explains Zaal Assatiani of the NGO Tanadgoma, an anti-drug organization. It's cheap, effective, and available-tubes of glue for shoe repair are commonly used. It can do serious health damage, especially to small children. "There are no exact figures on how many children are using this drug, but their numbers are high. If they use glue from very young ages, children can have developmental problems. It impairs growth and can cause serious body and nerve damage," he says. Assatiani adds that the children's perception of reality can be affected when sniffing glue or other potent inhalants. "When I sniffed glue, I'd hallucinate. I imagined I was swimming in water and talking with fish, or flying in heaven," Lika said. Within a year, her mother was able to rent a small room for the three of them. But Lika was accustomed to street life, and left their new home when she was eight. She didn't have a bad relationship with her mother, she said, but felt at home on the street-and craved inhalants. She and her friends would beg for money to buy food and glue. They slept nights under balconies and in cars. As Lika tells it, she grew ashamed of begging as she got older. She began to steal money from passersby, from shops. The police arrested her several times, once taking her to a juvenile detention facility in Gldani district. She ran away. "It was horrible. They beat us," she recalled. The Messenger was unable to contact the Gldani juvenile prison for comment. It went on like this until she was 13. "When my life got very hard and I was old enough to change my life myself, I asked a street vendor to take me to an orphanage. She was very kind woman; she sometimes helped me with food and clothes," Lika said. It wasn't a simple transition. "Frankly speaking, I was afraid. I didn't know if I could live in an orphanage, or what the situation would be like. First, she took me to Mtskheta's convent. But I left after three days; I was so used to a different life, and I knew I couldn't stay there," she explained. Lika's benefactor didn't give up. The woman took her to an orphanage called Momavlis Saxli, or House of the Future. Lika showed up on their doorstep with ragged clothes and a shaved head. "One day I was walking in the street sniffing glue. A police officer caught me and smeared the glue all over my head," she remembers, smiling. Avlabari district's Momavlis Saxli is home to about 60 children, according to director Gvanca Liparteliani. The orphanage takes in children from six months to 18 years old-and some older, with no place to go. Liparteliani says the orphanage is financed by the Georgian government and the UN. The World Food Program helps them get oil, flour and bread. Lika lives with five or six other young people in one room. Everything is shared: the room, their food, their clothes. Three years here have changed her, she says. "I thought I'd found another world. Everyone was good to me. My life changed bit by bit, and I realized that I didn't want to live in the street any more." Lika had trouble giving up smoking and sniffing. She knew the dangers of sniffing glue, but she recalls many times wanting to inhale just once more. She did her best to put the urges out of her mind. "I've convinced myself that if I continued with that life, it would kill me. I'd have no future. It was difficult to give it all up, but I could do it. It's one of the successes of my life," she recounts. And not the last success. About a year ago, Lika sung in a concert the orphanage put on. She was good, everyone agreed. "I'd never sang before, it was my first try. After the concert people told me I sang very well. It was totally unexpected for me, because I never thought I could sing well. I often told my friends that if only I had a voice, no one could stop me from singing," she laughs. A talented pianist-her family had a piano in their home until the fire-she will start at a music school in September. Two months ago, she sung for a conservatory audition. A smoker for eight years, and with no formal training, her abilities surprised the judges. They asked her to take care of herself. Her voice, they said, is a present from God. "I've dreamed of becoming a famous singer since I was little. I've often imagined standing on a big stage and singing. I want to make my listeners happy, but not because I'm a poor street kid. I don't want anyone to look at me with pity. I want to earn love and respect," Lika says. She's already earning money. A year ago she began working with the Mze television station, making GEL 100 a month as an assistant to a producer of Tabu, a talk show dealing with personal hardships and conflict. "I recited a couple of poems in a show at the orphanage, and afterwards a journalist came up to me and offered the job," she says. Despite what Lika insists is a good relationship with her mother, who still begs to get by, she has no desire to live with her family again. Her brothers are older, with their own families. They have no interest in her life, she claims. The first thing Lika says she'd do with a financial windfall is buy a house for her mother and little brother. "Of course I want my own home, but first my family and then me," she says. And Lika knows where she wants to go from here. "I have one goal-to be a famous and successful singer. I know there'll be many obstacles in my life, but I'll work very hard and do everything for a better future," she declares. Lika hasn't had any more problems with the law-or anything else for that matter. Her life is going well, she reports. She doesn't see her old street friends. But she'd like to, so she can give them the helping hand she received. Lika has moved on in her life, she explains, but she hasn't left anything behind. "I'm a 16-year-old
girl, and so many things have happened in my life," she says. "I've
been living at the orphanage for three years, but it's impossible to
forget my life on the street. It taught me many things, most of all
independence. That's one of the most important things in my life." |
From
the streets to the stage, a young woman plots her path in life
