‘It is a small nation I come from. We used to be part of a big empire. Tyranny was all we knew.
My mother was young when she got sick and needed a kidney
transplant. I was a teenager then. I was horrified I would lose her. I
developed a plan how I could help her.
I went to the marketplace in a big city and I looked for an idle man
who would be willing to sell his kidney. I played with some piglets
that a farmer was selling from his horse-drawn cart. A man came and
bought them. He put them in a burlap sack and tied it up with a string.
The piglets were moving vigorously. I played with them through the
fabric of the sack. My hair was blond. My hair was long. My eyes were
blue. The man agreed to become a donor but he wanted something more
than money. He made me promise that I would marry him after the
transplant surgery. I agreed to marry him when my mother feels good
enough to dance at our wedding.
My family and the donor went across the border together. Things went
well. My mother was feeling well. The donor was also feeling well. Soon
he returned to our tiny country. My family headed off for the world.
Many years have passed but the man keeps calling our home from his
tiny village of seventy houses. My mother cannot understand why I do not
want to talk to the man who saved her life.’
