The girls are on break from school so 10 of them and I set off to the neighboring community to see Manthoba, Tigi, and their gogo (the one with the broken leg).  Manthoba has just started 1^st grade this year and the girls had not seen him the week before the break, so we were a little worried about him.  It was past time to take them some cornmeal and beans anyway, so off we went.

Manthoba was away fetching whatever water his tiny 7 year old arms could carry when we arrived but Tigi was sitting outside with gogo, who crawls on her forearms to get out of the bed and sit in the sun. 

An older, thin, weathered man was there with a young boy.  I hadn’t seen them before.  He was helping repair some leaks and the broken window of the stone and mud hut where gogo and the two boys live. We have had some awful storms this year and th floor of their single room has been flooded several times.

I asked the man about the boy.  It was his son.  He has one more at home.  I asked about their mother.  Ah, she has been gone several years, no one knows where. I ask if he is working.  He looks at the ground and says no but he is trying- he is looking.  I ask gogo if she is paying him, a silly question because I know she has no money.  So I ask him why he is helping her then. “Because she needs help” he replies.  I am taken by surprise.  If it is not for pay, or not for immediate family (and even then rare) help is not willingly given (although rare exceptions exist).

Manthoba shows up and we ask why he has not been in school  He says he was coughing but is fine now, so he will be back on Tuesday when the break is over.  He and the girls go off to collect firewood for gogo.

Manthoba

I sit and chat with gogo for a while, nodding as she chastises me for not having stopped by sooner.  The days just get away from me but I promise t return sooner with anew wash bucket to replace her cracked and broken one.

I take my leave to go see Babe (bahbay) M, who lives about a mile away and who I hear is home these days.  I want to be sure he and the family are faring all right after the death of his infant son.  I get to the homestead gate and call out, “ekhaya.  Ekhaya M.”  There is no immediate response but his dogs have never been particularly mean so I enter and start to walk down the path to the small dwellings.  I walk past the few finished layers of the new house he is building, single handed, brick by brick.  I notice a recently dug square pit, obviously intended for a latrine, and for some odd reason am struck by the squareness of the pit. On of his remaining sons, this one about 4, comes out on the path to greet me.  I ask him if babe is home.  “Ukhona”.  He’s here.  I approach the small grouping of 3 huts and see a figure lying outside on a at.  Oh, god, it can’t be.  The only was this could be babe M, lying down on a mat in the middle of the day, would be if he is very sick.  I have never seen this man sit, except at the hospital early on as he held his young sick child on his lap.  Otherwise he is always working, building, planting, weeding, cultivating, or coming to and from church with the children. 

I sit down next to him and it is only then that he is aware of anyone’s presence.  His eyes flicker open, the whites yellow tinged- almost brown, and he recognizes me.  Always the immediate smile that makes me feel the sun rises and sets where I stand.  He rolls over on his side to shake my hand and greet me, still capable of the social generosity.  

His belly is so distended I wonder that it doesn’t burst.  I look at his lower legs and ankles- grossly swollen.  I am reminded of my friend Michael the last time I saw him, so ravaged by the cancer that his vital organs had begun to shut down, his swollen belly and lower extremities belying his thinness.  He died within a week.

I ask babe why he is not at the hospital.  There is no one to stay there with hi (for those who don’t remember, the hospital is so poorly staffed that admissions usually require that a patient be accompanied b someone who sleeps under or next to the cot, on the floor and attends to their needs).  The oldest of the 3 remaining children, a 12 year old girl, is too young.  I look at this man, his hand in mine, and know he will die without medical care.  He may even die with.  I tell him I will try to find someone who can stay with him and that he must be in the hospital. 

When I get back t town I head for the canteen where the bomakes cook for whatever customers they can get.  There is a make cooking here who lives near babe .  I find her and tell her I will even pay if she can find a make willing to stay at the hospital with babe M. She agrees to ask around.  It’s the best I can do.

I go home and cry.