March 2006

Still crying on Wednesdays 3/1/06

The ward doctor discharged “B” today despite that he is unable to walk, keep food down, etc.  Even though he is HIV+, they wouldn’t start treatment today. Said they couldn’t start without a CD4 count.  It’s not true.  He meets the clinical criteria of full blown AIDS.  I think they just sent him home to die.

Spelele 3/11/06

We went to see Spelele today.  We met this little clip of a girl in September while she was in the hospital being treated for severe burns to the abdomen, arms, hands, and under her jaw.  Her right hand had been completely burned off and she had lost a couple fingers and partial use of her left hand .  This diminutive child, just two, with both parents dead and only her old gogo to look after her, had fallen into the fire where gogo cooks.

We had not seen her since her discharge and 2 of the girls from the orphanage and I went to find them to advise them that Spelele had been sponsored by a family in the states through the Young Heroes program. Young Heroes was developed as a joint effort between a [then] PCV, Steve Kallaugher, and NERCHA, the governing Swazi agency overseeing all the HIV efforts in the country.  The idea is that young people (and their families through them) can offer help to a Swazi orphan. A few dollars a month brings much needed food and clothes to the children here who have lost both parents and are being cared for by a family member, usually the gogo, whose resources are already stretched beyond their ability to cope successfully.  Steve has since left the PC to work on this full time at NERCHA. The website (www.youngheroes.org.sz) was launched a few weeks ago and Steve informed me recently that a sponsor had been found for Spelele.

We had only a vague idea where Spelele and gogo lived and kept asking around.  After 2 long bus rides, one in a rickety old bus on a bumpy road that shook my teeth loose, we arrived at their community. A long rocky path downhill and past several homesteads brought us to their decaying old house.  We saw Spelele there and called out to her. She’s still a tiny thing and was a little frightened.  She bounced in place, one step forward and one step back, as if she couldn’t decide whether to run to us or run away.  She did this strange little dance for a few minutes, holding a dirty old plastic bowl.  As we approached, she hid her badly burned hand behind the bowl.  Spelele hides her burns.

We handed her a small, pink teddy bear we brought for her and she had to drop the bowl to take the bear.  Where her hand had burned to a stub, a swollen mass of infection had overtaken the stump. The scar tissue under her chin and around her jaw line is also pulling her once beautiful little face down into a perpetual frown.  It will only become worse as she continues to grow.

Gogo came outside and sat on the steps.  I had Buyile read her the notice of acceptance and the instructions for getting payment for food and clothes.  Gogo & Buyile reviewing the Young Heroes forms.

Gogo then asked if the money could be used to take Spelele to Mbabane, the capital, because she needs to have the arm amputated above the infection.  Of course. If we had just known. I sit there with this tiny girl on my lap, feeling her breathe, her little back alive against my chest. I ache to take her with me.  This life is hard enough under the best of circumstances and a girl with one hand gone, and only partial us of the other, what hope has she?  She holds fast to the little pink bear throughout our visit and I sense it has already become important.Spelele & gogo.  You can see where the stump was from the missing hand is now a mass of infection.  In her good hand she clasps the pink teddy bear.  Teddy bears are difficult to find in Swaziland.  Most children have never seen one.  Most children in rural communities do not own storebought toys.

I tell gogo to let me know as soon as they go to Mbabane and I will come see them.  Leaving this old, tired woman and this tiny damaged girl is painful. I am grateful they will get some help, sad that it will not be enough.

A day of abuse 3/17/06

We spent the day at an HIV & abuse drama competition in which students from 13 different schools in the area participated.  The skits were intense and most of them focused on the rape and sexual abuse of young girls by teachers, headmasters, fathers, relatives, etc. The skits were powerful and disturbing; sexual abuse is so unfortunately common here.  What impressed me most significantly was the change in the willingness to openly address these issues relative to a year and a half ago when we first arrived in country.  I am not sure how much has changed with actual behavior, but the issues of HIV, AIDS, sexual and physical abuse, rape, and treatment of women and children are certainly front and center.  Ironically, at an event for children highlighting these issues, I saw male teachers pushing, shoving, and occasionally hitting the children to get them to move or relocate.  It was as though the event were really for the entertainment of the adults attending and the children were a necessary inconvenience.

Later that night, around 8 p.m., I was lying in my bed reading a bit before I dozed off.  I heard a light and periodic bleating from outside.  I assumed one of the small goats from next door had gotten loose and was at our gate.  The noise, although soft, was so persistent that I couldn’t focus on my reading and decided to get up to see if the little animal was hurt.  It was dark outside and my headlamp reflected off the dense fog that had gathered on our hillside.  I couldn’t see our gate until I was almost upon it.  Ah, God, not a goat at all.  Little Ayanda from the woods.  Half dressed.  Crying quietly.  I took her to the main house and we were able to sort out the details.  Ayanda’s mother had beaten her and sent her off, in the woods, in the dark of night.  She had nowhere to go and managed to get to our place.  If I had not heard her, I imagine I would have woken up to her barely clad body curled up and shivering outside the gate.  She stayed with the girls that night.

Saturday 3/18/06

Ayanda

Ayanda's brother

The housemother, 2 of the girls, and I walked Ayanda home to her place in the woods.  The mother denied beating or sending her off; however I have heard from several sources that she beats the girl regularly and she certainly had not been out looking for her.  In fact she was asleep when we got there and registered no surprise at all to see us.  All of the children look bad, they are showing classic signs, again, of protein deficiency, Ayanda the oldest and the worst.  I told the mother I would buy food for the children if she comes to help the housemother at the orphanage for a couple days but I would not give her money because I knew it would be spent on booze and cigarettes.  It is a miserable life, and I guess she derives what little pleasure she can, but I can’t support that at the expense of the children.  I don’t know what the status of the shelter is now but am still absolutely convinced that a safe place to stay, a little income and job training, and regular food would make a real difference in their lives.