July Update

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to see and experience all that we do, especially some of the more sad and painful situations, and then to relive it by writing about it. Often I just want to forget it all with a good book, a cocktail, or by watching a movie on my laptop. But I've heard from enough of you that you enjoy and/or get something out of reading my entries that I promise to try and write more often. Following is an update on some of the people and situations I've written about previously, along with one or two new ones:

THABISO

Thabiso is the hardest to write about, so I'll start with him. After his mother's death, he went to live with an aunt, Make Sacolo. His aunt seemed genuinely to care for Thabiso, and with eight other kids of various ages in the family, it seemed that he would have companionship and a good support structure at her home. We had high hopes that he'd fit in with his new family. Unfortunately, things were rocky all along, mainly because Thabiso is used to running wild and doing his own thing. On the bright side, he has been going to school almost every day for a few months now. He seems to realize the importance of that minimum amount of structure in his life. On the down side, he simply didn't like living with his aunt, and he often ran away when required to do simple chores like fetching fire wood or tending the family's goats. A couple of weeks ago, he left for good and simply refused to go back to his aunt's house at all. He returned to the empty hut where he had lived with his mother, and is now living there alone. An older male cousin and his girlfriend live in a separate hut on the same compound, but they provide little real supervision or support for Thabiso. Essentially he is now an eleven-year-old boy living on his own. Sadly, this is not uncommon here. I feel very sad about his situation, but I have begun to distance myself from much further involvement with him, as I am not sure we will be able to do much more for him in the four months we have left in Swaziland. (You can read more about Thabiso here and here.)

ORPHAN FAMILY

I first reported on this family of seven children living on their own in this post. Unfortunately, since then, not much has changed. The social worker who had promised to help us, has turned out to be even more severely mentally disturbed than I first thought, and she now refuses to see me when I go to see her to check on their status. On the bright side, it appears that an adult female relative from another town has moved in with them and is now providing some supervision. Our ultimate goal remains to get them moved to Bulembu, the old mining town that is now a well-run "city of children," where hundreds of orphans just like them are receiving caring supervision, a secure roof over their heads, regular meals, and good schooling.

KHULILE: "FOUR LOLLIPOPS WOMAN"

I wrote about our wrenching experience with Khulile here. Since then, Scott and I have been regularly providing her with food for herself and her family. Khulile has gained weight and seems to be doing much better than when we first met her. It is amazing how just a little food makes such a big difference especially for people on HIV medication. Scott and I spend less than $50 a month to provide her with basic food supplies, but this has helped her to tolerate the drugs much better, giving her a whole new lease on life. Unfortunately, on a visit to her just over a month ago, her young six-year-old son, Ndu, who had been looking sickly, tested positive for HIV. Since then we have been trying to work through the truly Orwellian system of trying to get him initiated on anti-retroviral drugs, but even with our help it is taking a long time. It is amazing that anyone gets started on the drugs given the bureaucratic obstacles and incompetence we have encountered at every turn.

ELSIE'S NEW HOUSE

I think it's time for something more uplifting. I haven't written about Elsie and her family before. They are Home-Based Care patients who Scott visits each month, and whom we have come to know and like. Elsie is a strong, intelligent, independent, and very likeable woman in her 40's. She lives with her six-year-old daughter Siphesihle and her 18-month old son Thembenkhosi on a very poor, rocky homestead. Two of her adult sisters live in separate huts on the same homestead. As they will be the first to tell you, they are a family of sick women: everyone on the homestead is HIV-positive. But Elsie is doing well on ARV's and is seemingly strong as an ox. She wants to work to support her family, but there are no jobs. Her daughter Siphesihle is an adorable girl and one of Scott's special favorites; we call her his "girlfriend."

Elsie has long needed a new house. The mud hut she lives in is literally falling down, and the thatched roof is disintegrating such that it provides no shelter from rain or wind. On her own, Elsie had begun work on a new hut made of sticks, stones and mud, but she had stopped half-way through because she had no money to buy nails to continue building the frame. When Scott's good friend John visited us a few weeks ago, he generously volunteered to pay for completing the structure Elsie had begun. That new hut is nearly complete, but as Elsie was finishing it, it became apparent that it would only be a stop-gap building; what was really needed was a more permanent structure to house her ailing family. Scott and I decided that we would help her build a one-room brick house with a tin roof. My parents are now visiting us, and when we took them to visit Elsie, they fell for her infectious good humor and hardy work ethic. They are now generously funding the entire project, which is also now well underway. For about $1,500 Elsie and her children will now have a well-built, warm, and dry new home to shelter them for years to come. Again, it is amazing how just a little money goes so far in helping such a needy and deserving family.

MOM & DAD VISIT

I'll end this post on a happy personal note: my parents are visiting us right now. They arrived in early July and will be here until the end of the month. This is their first return to Africa since they served as lay missionaries in Kenya from 1969 to 1972. They have immediately taken to our life in Swaziland and are as moved and impressed by the struggles of the ordinary Swazi people as we are. They have visited the various families we are engaged in trying to help, have spent a day making Home-Based Care visits with Scott, and, as noted above, are helping build a new house for a particularly deserving family. We just got back from a few days in Kruger National Park, where we had an extraordinary number of great encounters with the big game there. All in all, it is being a very meaningful experience to witness them reconnect to this continent which played such a big role in their lives many years ago.