This is Quinta.
Quinta is a fourteen year old ex-street kid and student at Made In the Streets. A few days ago she was gracious enough and brave enough to sit down with me (Kaylee Lockenour: Storyteller Intern) and retell the story of her life before MITS.
This is Quinta’s Story:
At twelve years old, Quinta was living with her mother, her step-father, and her twin sisters. It was a hard time for her family. Food was scarce. Money was scarce.
Her mother sent her into town to get a job, but, as it is illegal for a child to work at such a young age, she had no luck getting hired.
The next best option? Begging.
Foregoing school, foregoing an education, Quinta took to the streets to find money. Her primary begging location took place among the stopped cars of traffic jams, where people would yell at her and say cruel things.
But the occasional driver would give her money.
Soon, Quinta realized that life on the streets would be better than life at home. Home was where her mother beat her. Home was where her father beat her and threatened abuse when she made him angry. Home wasn’t safe.
So Quinta lived on the streets with some other girls who were friends of hers. These kids introduced her to glue. Glue is a common substance used as a drug on the streets. Getting high from the glue, street kids can forget their problems; the cold, their hunger, their discomfort.
When I asked Quinta about life on the streets, these are some descriptions that she gave me:
“So, then sometimes there is no food in the street. There is no food, and the rain, the rain is coming and you don’t have shoes. You don’t have pullover, you are [alone], and you know when you are in base…you do not know God, and so you are like, this my life…I can survive.”
“And then, then if it is night, there is no city council, and the people, if people have a car, a car like a pick up…when they see street child… if you are a girl, they will take you, and they will use your body, or the police, or they will r*** you and then throw you in the water.”
Sometimes, while living on the streets, well-intending policemen would take the kids to a school. This happened to Quinta during that same year, but she said that even though the police meant well, the school she was taken to was abusive:
“But that school, it is not like Made in the Streets. So that school, they will beat you, they will do for you bad things, they will use you like a donkey to do work, they use you, like they beat you, they say “wash this,” “do this,”
So Quinta ran back to the streets, where she stayed until, again, she was taken to a new school.
This school was different than her last school. This one treated her well and was good to the students.
However, because Quinta was so used to life on the streets, she often ran away to get back to her old life.
I run. Because that life of street is in me, it is in my blood.
This went on for awhile. Quinta would run to the streets, they would bring her back, and she would run again. Eventually they brought her back to her mother, telling her that she had lost her chance to stay at the school.
Quinta ran from home again, this time joining a new base on the streets called Central Pack.
Central Pack made her stand on the streets to beg and give whatever she gathered to the other base members.
It was around this time that Quinta met the woman that would change her life forever. This womans’ name was Linda Ntinyari. Linda is a dorm mom in the girls place at MITS, but she also works in Eastleigh during the day with the street ministry team.
Quinta met Linda, who gave her food, encouraged her, and asked her if she wanted to learn and get an education.
Initially, Quinta refused. There were other girls in her base that saw her example and refused as well. Some time passed, and then Quinta changed her mind. She decided that she would go to MITS and learn. That she would stop using glue. That she would make a future for herself.
So next time she saw Linda, she agreed to attend Made in the Streets.
When she arrived, she not only found a new family among the students and teachers, but through a few MITS connections she found her birth father, whom she had never met. Unlike her step-father, he was a kind and loving man. Quinta was able to stay with him and get to know him for a few weeks before starting school, and she realized that she wanted to come back to MITS, study hard, and work to help provide for him.
This is Quinta, and she has big dreams. Although her life at home and on the streets came with unimaginable hardships, she isn’t letting her past define her. Today, she can be found studying hard in her classes, making friends with the other students, using her story for God’s glory, and eating her new favorite snack—marshmallows.
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