Bheki is sick again, or still. Julie and I were waiting for the market to open before we headed up to the youth workshop and on eof Bheki’s relatives, a cousin I think, comes to tell me his is ill- very ill. He is at gogo’s. Julie looks at me and she knows I will not be going to the workshop afterall. It is morning and the day is already baking my skin as I head toward home to collect some Oral Rehydration Sablets and some Gator Aid and head to gogo’s homestead. I cannot remember where I am going and am fortunate that some women, seeing me, have stopped on the path ahead to find out what my business was way out there. I explain that I need to find the homestead of “gogo wa Bheki” because I have heard he is sick and he is there. The younger of the 2 women takes me with her to point the way. It is not too far.
I pause at the boundary of the homestead and call out “ekhaya”. I hear a weak voice respond but I wait, hoping someone will appear to take me past the dogs. No one comes. I call out again and again the same response. I realize it is Bheki himself calling out to me. I find him lying on an old straw mat on the porch, half covered by a worn dirty blanket, his long feet sticking out. He is unable to lift himself, unable to sit up. It I heartwrenching to see him simply try to prop himself up on one elbow. I place my bag on the porch. In addition to the Gator Aid and ORT, I have also brought beans and juice. Gogo shows up from somewhere and I give her the beans. After placing them in the cooking hut, she comes and sits in a chair on the porch. She sighs heavily, but she is grateful I am there. Bheki explains he has been very sick for days- vomiting and diarrhea. There is no money for the hospital, where he belongs. At the equivalent of 2USD/day, I wan well afford for him to be there and tell him he will go today. His mother is coming late in the day from her home in a community quite some distance and she can stay on the sponge pad by his bed.
He sees the juice and asks for some to take with the 2 ORTs I place in his hand. Within a minute of two of downing the tablets and juice, he jerks up and leans over a green plastic washtub by his feet as the juice an tablets are rejected. He attempts some water and that too comes right up. Small wonder he is unable to sit up. He says he has been trying to take his ARVs, but they too are vomited up within minutes. The ARVs have been the only barrier between Bheki and an AIDS-mediated miserable death and my concern is deepened. For the next few hours I just sit with him on the porch, without need for conversation, knowing it is enough to just be there. A few people come and go. A beautiful young woman in an old dress, with a young baby strapped to her back, has been scrubbing the floor of the cooking hut. I learn that she is Sdumo’s wife- “Sdumo who is sick”, Sdumo who is now dead.
At some point Bheki asks to move to the couch inside. He is tall and lanky but he only needs a little support from me. I sit in the chair at his feet. A neighbor comes in and sits. I know him. He is a good man and concerned about his friends and his community. And today he is drunk. He wants me to be his second wife. Bheki’s brother comes in and sits across from me with a young woman. I am not sure who she is. Eventually the mother shows up. She is small, thin, and hard looking and does not share the beauty of her children- Nokuthula, now dead, and Bheki, who’s almost there. I learn that of her 9 children, only 4 survive. How does she bear it? Because Bheki is too weak and the walk too long, we wend the brother to town to hire transport. When the driver shows up he charges an extra E5 because Bheki is sick.
We get to the hospital and eh is examined by a young doctor I have seen on a number of occasions. After much dialogue he agrees to admit Bheki. Watching the nurse make several failed attempts to find a useful vein for his IV, I feel faint, nauseous. Finally she succeeds and his is on his way to the ward. I leave them there feeling confident that fat has once more wrested Bheki from the arms of the death that awaits him.4/18/05
I go to visit Bheki and his mother. They are hungry and I am thrilled to be able to bring them some food. Bheki wolfs down some beef and thick corn meal and the food stays with him. Already he looks well- he is sitting and smiling. I wait for the doctor- a different one this time- who asks questions and leaves. It will be at least a day or 2 before Bheki is sent home- re-hydrated and re-nourished.
I head for Mbabane today to have dinner with Julie and Joe. We are celebrating my birthday (and the King’s).
Bheki was released this morning. He is “ncono”, better. Much better. I learn that his wife is still very ill and is in the hospital at Manzini.
Simphiwe, vakashile, and I went to the neighboring community to visit the gogo with the 2 little ones. It has been a while since I have seen them and I will be away for the long weekend. We arrive with a couple bags of corn meal and they are happy to see us. Both boys have recovered from the flu- dirty and ragged, but well. Still no mother.
We go to see Mazaza. It is cold and he is still under the covers, so we peek into the dark hut to greet him.
I am late posting these journal entries and so they are a bit out of time. I understand some of these entries will be published in a Peace Corps-affiliated journal called WorldView magazine, in a special edition devoted to HIV/AIDS. I encourage you to all get a copy of the edition, due to come out sometime in May or June. Their website is: http://www.worldviewmagazine.com/issues/about.cfm and I imagine they can tell you where to purchase or obtain this particular issue. There will be a number of articles about the HIV pandemic and I encourage everyone to get a copy, and one for a friend. The whole world should stop to look at what is going on in Africa and you can help make that happen.
So, anyway, I will be feeding you the next several entries bit by bit; however-, the events have already happened and I know how it all ends. I know how it all ends anyway. We all die. All of us, each and every one of us. We all die. Some of us sweetly, in our own beds, surrounded by people who love us. Some will die agonizing deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, gasping for our last breath through TB-riddled lungs. No matter- we all die in the end. So what you do today, how you play this all out, that's what counts. Go out today and make the world a better place. Change one life, you change the world. Really.
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