Monday Morning

I've been intending to write about what I do each day here -- the various organizations I'm working with and the various projects I'm working on -- and I will describe those in some future post. But this morning has already been so busy and filled with so many different experiences that I'm simply going to describe my day thus far. (It is now 10 a.m.)

Scott and I arrived at the hospital at 8 a.m. I have been working with a nurse at the hospital, Deborah Maposa, who is also a community organizer -- or really a mother figure in her neighborhood of Makhewu, to whom many of the local people turn when they need help with problems of any kind: food, clothing, housing, school fees, or medical issues. She's part of the home-based care team Scott works with, and she's kept me busy with referrals of students who need help with their school fees. Deborah and I had scheduled a meeting to discuss three high school students that we have been working on placing in local high schools. When I arrived, the mother of one of the students was waiting to speak with me. She had come to the hospital by bus (actually, small vans, called "coombies" here -- the backbone of Swaziland's transportation network) just to thank me for helping her daughter. She thanked me profusely and at great length (all in Siswati, translated for me by Deborah), praising God at length for sending me to help her daughter. This sort of praise happens fairly often to both Scott and me, and is rather embarrassing, but is a formal and accepted part of the social exchange here. The woman had come a long way just to thank me, so I gave her bus fare for her return trip.

Next, Deborah told me about a particularly sad case, an orphan girl of 15, who had been receiving government support for her schooling, but who, at the end of last week was handed a bill for almost 4,500 emalengani (about $450) and told that her government support had ended. Deborah wanted me to go with her to see the headmaster at the girl's school to see if he would allow the girl to continue to attend classes while we worked things out with the department of education or found someone to sponsor the girl. So we hopped in my car and headed down the road to the high school. (That's one of the things that's both wonderful and exasperating about this place -- you can just show up somewhere, no appointments needed, and meet and work out whatever issue is at hand. In fact, it's probably best not to make appointments, as people often don't keep them, and even if they do, invariably show up late.) On our way to the high school, we saw another student we are supporting walking up the road toward the hospital from town (about a 1/2 hour walk). This student was the daughter of the woman who had come in earlier to thank me, and she thought that she was required to be there as well, so had walked all the way from town. I told her to hop in the back seat and that I would take her back to school when we were done with our meeting at the other high school.

We continued on to our original destination, where we stood in line with a bunch of other anxious parents waiting to see the headmaster. While we were there, Deborah realized that yet another student we are assisting (third one of the morning) was also a student at this school, and that I should meet him so that he could thank me as well. She sent for him, and the young man soon showed up and began thanking me profusely for helping him and vowing that he would be a diligent student and make me very proud to be his son! (I have given up trying to explain that I am not personally paying for each of these students, that I am only working to find other sponsors. To those of you who have sent money or offered to help support a student, I pass all this thanks and praise along to you, and I promise to take pictures of these students and pass them along to you ASAP.) We then met with the headmaster, who readily agreed that the orphan girl could continue her studies while we seek to get her government funding reinstated.

On the way home from that meeting, we dropped off the girl we'd encountered on the road at her high school, and returned to the hospital. I ran in to Scott right away, who was standing there talking with one of the hospital orderlies, a young man who wants to try to attend nursing school in the United States. We told him that he needed to research Swazi and U.S. immigration policies, and that we would do some research on nursing programs in U.S. that might offer scholarships or support to African students.

As we were speaking with this young man, we saw a woman who occassionally cleans and does our laundry for us walking down from the out-patient department with two of her young children -- one on her back and the other holding her hand. She is a lovely woman, and we greeted her by saying "Unjani" or "How are you today?" She hesitated for a moment before saying quietly, "I am not fine" -- her toddler had just tested positive for HIV. This came as a shock to both of us, and she must still have been in a state of shock herself, but, sadly, there is also something so every-day about hearing the news here. She is herself HIV-positive, and she is now very worried not only about her toddler, but also the new-born on her back. Scott counseled her a bit, and then she took off down the road to her house. Scott and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. We had thought she was one of the lucky ones; she has a steady job and seems relatively well-off, but more and more it seems to us that virtually everyone here is HIV-positive. The official statistic of a 40% infection rate, high as it is, seems vastly understated based on what we see everyday.

I have an appointement at 10:30 a.m. in town to meet with an Italian aid agency, so I decided to stop at the internet cafe to catch up on email and write this entry. On my way into the cafe, I saw one of the nurses from the hospital carrying a beautiful young girl of about two or three years old who promptly reached out for me with a big smile. I greeted the nurse, and I asked if the young girl was her child. She said, no, that she was a girl who had been abandoned at the hospital. I remarked how friendly and outgoing the young child was, and the nurse responded with a rueful laugh, "Yes, she is an adorable child -- she has no one, so she is friendly with everyone."

All of this occurred between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. this morning -- a far cry from my quiet desk at the Russell Sage Foundation.

I write all this not to tug on any heart-strings, but just to provide some idea of what passes for normal here -- the continual, ongoing evidence of human need of any and all kinds. Though it can all be a bit overwhelming at times, I must say that I also find it rather bracing and invigorating -- perhaps only relative to what I used to think of as my own "needs."