More often than not, the cause of death is AIDS. This East African nation is a hot spot of an epidemic that has swept the continent during the past 20 years, killing some 20 million men, women and children and leaving more than 12 million orphans. An estimated one out of seven adult Kenyans is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Which is why Hugh, 60, and Marty, 57, leave their modest brick house in Arvada, Colo., twice a year to spend a few weeks at Lake Victoria. They run the Lalmba Association, a relief agency whose small size—fewer than 200 volunteer doctors and project directors and a handful of low-wage local employees—belies its grand mission. "Lalmba means 'place of hope,' " says Hugh. "That's what we're about. We create hope."
The Downeys have been bringing hope of various kinds to Kenya since 1986. (The organization also has outposts in Ethiopia and Eritrea.) They operate a no-interest-loan bank and a reforestation program and two clinics that serve hundreds of people a day, treating everything from hippo bites to cholera. But medicine is nearly helpless against AIDS in this impoverished part of the world. Drugs to fight the virus itself are scarce; doctors can only offer painkillers and treat secondary infections like tuberculosis. Despite Lalmba's efforts, "people are dying in the prime of life," laments Wanda McLure, who, with husband Dave (both are 51), oversees Lalmba's Kenyan branch. "Fathers and mothers with small children."
So the organization concentrates increasingly on rescuing the kids left behind. In March the Downeys launched a program that sends social workers to care for more than 300 AIDS orphans in bush villages, where they might otherwise be forced to fend for themselves. And since 1997 they have operated a home for the neediest of those children in the lakeside town of Ongoro. The orphanage houses and educates 24 boys and girls, ages 4 to 15. (Only one is HIV-positive.) Built for $10,000, the complex of six huts and bungalows is austere by Western standards. Yet when one child left for boarding school early this year, 67 vied to take his place. "A lot of homes are empty except for children, grandparents and graves," says Domitila Omoyo, 33, who teaches at the orphanage. Around here, adds Dave McLure, the Ongoro orphans are seen as the "elite kids."
Over a recent lunch of rice, beans, kale and flat chapati bread, the Downeys' charges were asked what they planned to be when they grew up. A doctor, replied Kenneth Omdi, 12. A nurse, said Lensa Ajwang, 7. President of Kenya, boasted 15-year-old Samwel Owino. "I don't see children anymore," said Hugh, beaming. "I see these things they will become."
The Downeys' own beginnings were in Kansas City, Mo. Hugh, the son of an attorney and a homemaker, was one of five siblings; Marty, daughter of a box-factory owner and his wife, was one of four. Hugh was known as a troublemaker at their Catholic grade school. Indeed, the first time Marty noticed him, she remembers, a nun was shouting, "Hugh Downey, you are terrible." Yet the pair fell in love in high school. While Marty went on to earn an education degree from nearby Avila College, Hugh dropped out of two universities, then joined the U.S. Army. "I was a good soldier," says Hugh, who was posted to a base in Ethiopia. "But that was not my calling."
He soon discovered what was. One day in 1963, he met a man in the town of Keren, now part of Eritrea, who dreamed of building a school. "I said, 'That's not hard,' " Hugh recalls. " 'All we need is cement.' " By the time he finished his tour of duty two years later, he had built 10 schools in the area.
Soon afterward, Hugh decided to open an orphanage for Keren's parentless street children. With $20,000 raised through a letter-writing campaign to friends and family, he started the nonprofit Lalmba Association. Then he went back to the States to recruit Marty. "On our first date [after his return]," she remembers, "Hugh said, 'Would you like to go to Africa with me?' I said, 'Yeah,' and he kissed me. So that was that." They married in November 1965.
Marty cried a lot when she first reached Ethiopia. "Hugh had shown me these gorgeous slides," she says. "But he didn't bother explaining that there were flies that got in your eyes and smells you'd never smelled before." Soon, however, she was too busy to notice. By 1967 the orphanage held more than 100 boys. That year Marty became pregnant with their own first child. But the baby, named Mary, died shortly after birth of congenital defects. "Had she been born in the U.S.," says Marty, "she would probably be alive today."
From sympathetic neighbors she learned that her tragedy was far from rare in Ethiopia. "There was 80 percent infant mortality," Marty says. So the Downeys started an obstetrics clinic in Mary's name. Later—with the help of another letter-writing campaign—they built a small hospital. By the early '70s they had brought two more children into the world: their son Mikael, now 32 and a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and daughter Keren, 29, a social worker near Denver. But in 1978, when the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea intensified, Hugh and Marty fled with thousands of others to Sudan.
After establishing relief sites for the refugees, the couple resettled in Colorado, where they had moved their kids (under the care of grandparents) three years earlier. Yet they continued to operate aid projects, flying overseas whenever necessary, and opened their first clinic in Kenya in 1986. The Downeys support themselves with part-time jobs (Marty is a registered nurse, Hugh a Catholic deacon). "The house is paid for," notes Hugh, "and our cars are 12 years old." They run Lalmba on a shoestring annual budget of $300,000, all of it from private donors. The entire operation in Kenya costs only $140,000 a year.
On a recent night the Downeys greeted patients at their clinic in Matoso, a mile from the orphanage. One young woman was so emaciated by AIDS that the nurse had to hunt for a vein to start a saline drip. The woman's wizened mother cradled her spindly 18-month-old grandchild, wearily reporting that her own husband was also sick.
As Marty examined the baby, Hugh said that scenes like this inspired him to work harder to save the orphans. For these adults, he explained, the battle was already over. "Where we're going to win," he pledged, "is with the children."
William Plummer
Vickie Bane in Arvada and Simon Perry in Ongoro
- Contributors:
- Vickie Bane,
- Simon Perry.
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