Social Work in Swaziliand: "Do you believe in demons?"

For a few months now we've been very concerned about a family of seven orphan children living on their own, without any apparent adult oversight. The oldest child in the family is a girl of fifteen, and the youngest is around three years old. Scott first visited them with the Home-Based Care Team about three months ago. He came home shell-shocked by what he'd seen: seven kids fending for themselves, living in squalor, with no food. The team had examined the children and left them some food, but, unfortunately, such families of orphans are not uncommon here, and the team had felt there was little else to be done for them other than to keep an eye on them each month. After Scott told me about the dire situation of these children, we both felt that we had to do something. Unfortunately, as is all too common here due to the extreme need we encounter at every turn, every day, we did nothing at the time.

Two of the children in front of their house.

After the Home-Based Care Team visited the children again about a month ago, we made a renewed commitment to help these kids. We had heard of a place called Bulembu, an abandoned mining town which is being converted into a non-traditional orphanage -- a sort of "city of children," in which small groups of eight children live together in refurbished homes under the care of a Mage (pronounced MA-gay, and meaning "mother"), who runs the house, provides emotional support, and teaches life skills to the children. Siblings are kept together in the same home. In addition, Bulembu has an excellent primary school, which students attend free of charge. The whole operation is supported by a consortium of Christian groups, and there is no charge whatsoever for children to live there. (You can read about our recent visit to Bulembu on Scott's blog.)

As good as Bulembu is, there are some obstacles to getting children accepted there. Approval is needed from a government social worker to take children from their families. Though this would seem to be relatively straightforward, since these children have no parents and no one at all looking out for them, it's not quite that simple. Due to the way the extended family structure works in Swaziland, permission is still required from some member of the family, no matter how remote, and they may not always be willing to send the children away. It's a sad fact of life here that some adults benefit from having vulnerable children at their disposal -- perhaps to help them in the fields, but often for more unsettling reasons. For example, when the children receive food donations from Home-Based Care Team, relatives and/or neighbors will often descend on the home to take the food for themselves, leaving only a small portion, if any, for the children. You can also imagine how the children are vulnerable to other serious types of abuse, including sexual molestation and rape.

Two more children on the homestead.

After we visited Bulembu, and found that they had the capacity and were actively seeking to enroll more children, we decided to make a concerted effort to get this family of seven children accepted there. In the process we found out that there is only a single social worker for the entire eastern region of the country, comprising a population of around 250,000 people. Consequently, she is only in her office in Siteki on Mondays and Fridays, spending the rest of her time in other parts of the region. This past Monday (May 11) I went to the social worker's office with Deborah Maphosa, one of the Home-Based Care nurses, to act as translator.

I was immediately impressed by the efficiency of the social worker. She wanted to know all about the children -- where they lived, how many of them, what ages, their family situation, their health status, were they in school or not? Deborah and I filled her in on their situation, and then, without prompting from us, she declared that she knew the perfect place for them: Bulembu. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, however, she announced that she could do nothing further for us that day, since she had another pressing appointment: she had to go and pray over some of her other clients. "I hate to tell you this, doctor (she, like so many others here automatically assumes I'm a doctor), but pills, injections, operations, medicine in general just don't work. It's all about demons, and until you get rid of the demons you will never cure anyone."

As I was processing this pronouncement, she looked me in the eye, and said "You do believe in demons, don't you?"

"Yes, there certainly are lots of demons in this world," I replied, not wanting to risk her help with the orphan family. She then proceeded to tell me that she is a prophet, sent by God to help the poor. Like all prophets, she has been marked by a special sign from God; in her case, she has had nothing whatsoever to drink in four years -- not a single drop of any kind of liquid, including water.

She didn't seem to expect any response to this as she went on that she is "still awaiting a sign from God to begin my own radio show so that sick people can call in and be healed over the phone." I wished her luck with that, and then asked when I might return to take her to see the orphans. She immediately snapped back into business mode and asked me to return the next day. As Deborah and I drove back to the hospital, Deborah said with classic understatement "That woman has two sides to her personality -- but she's wonderful at what she does."

The next day, Tuesday, Deborah and I, along with Scott this time, returned to the social worker's office. She was ready and waiting for us to go. At the orphans' homestead, we found the children preparing their breakfast, a small pot of maize meal. The social worker quickly surveyed the homestead and then began gently interviewing the children, focusing on the oldest girl. I couldn't understand most of what was being said, since they were speaking in SiSwati, but the social worker was taking copious notes, and seemed to put the children at ease. After about 45 minutes, the social worker came out of the small house and said to Deborah, Scott, and I, "These children must go to Bulembu." She then began explaining to the children just what Bulembu was, a place where they would live together in their own home, and receive food, clothing, education, and health care all free of charge. One of the little girls began jumping up and down and clapping, and all of them had big smiles on their faces. Scott said it was the first time he'd ever seen any of them smile.

I had another appointment that day, but Scott spent the rest of the day with the social worker, trying to track down an adult relative of these children to sign off on their referral to Bulembu. In the end, Scott came home and informed me that, amazingly, the children are not orphans at all -- both parents are alive and living in different parts of Swaziland -- they have simply abandoned their children. Despite the horrible implications of such a situation, the good news is that, based on their abandonment, the children are still eligible to live at Bulembu. If all goes well -- that is, if one of the parents who have abandoned these children will sign a piece of paper releasing them to Bulembu -- they will be transferred there by the end of May.

One of the orphan boys.

This entire experience is, to me, indicative of the way things run in Swaziland, for better and for worse. The situations we encounter here daily are often quite stark and dramatic -- a family of seven children living on their own, for instance. But our attempts to help can be stymied by the most mundane bureaucratic procedures -- getting a permission to help such children from an over-worked social worker and a relative who has already abandoned them. On the other hand, Bulembu exists, and will help improve the lives of these children exponentially. Even our interaction with the social worker was generally positive; while I may not share her views on modern medicine, she acted quickly and efficiently to help these children.

Just for the record, I do believe in demons -- we encountered clear evidence of them throughout this experience. The demons I'm referring to may not be the same ones the social worker believes in, but nonetheless she helped these children immensely in beginning to exorcise the demons from their lives.