After I left the Peace Corps, Swaziland, in November 2006, I traveled through Mali, Morocco, Egypt, and India before returning to Africa to continue with humanitarian efforts in Malawi.  I am currently placed in a small town north of the capital where I am helping a small, local NGO to bring help to a rural area that serves about 45,000 people.  For those interested in following this journey of mine, you can find me at alysonpeel.blogspot.com. 

 

If you get this image,stay with me.
As I start on my new journey, I am leaving this site which highlights my volunteer experience with HIV outreach work in Africa.  I will travel on through west Africa, Egypt, and India and will find a new blog site to describe my journey. I wanted to leave this as is.  I will be posting my new home when I find it.  These journal entries will be included in a book currently being edited by a couple RPCVs and will include the experiences of a number of PCVs in Swaziland.  I will post more about that as time goes by. 
Best,
Alyson

It seems I’ve always appreciated the inevitability of death.  Joel’s death made me acutely aware of its randomness though.  So, when I walk down the street, I am keenly cognizant that something could come falling out of the sky from nowhere to land squarely on my head, or that some poor sucker driving down the road toward me could suffer an unexpected stroke causing his car to jump the curb and smash directly into me.  Life is that capricious, death that unexpected.  And I think when one really understands that, everything changes.  Everything either loses its meaning or its substance- not in an awful, heavy, “godicantgoonbecausenothingmeansanythinganymore” kind of way but in a way that keeps you separate from the world while still being in it, still being a part of it. The everyday world takes on a kind of transparency and the telos, the endpoint as it were, is to pull back the thin veil and get a peek at what lies behind it.  After Joel died, for many days, I floated in an ocean of my own breathing , each breath an audible wave breaking across my mind.  All I really remember, until the moment I took Matt’s arm to walk into the Phoenix, into the memorial service his strong, amazing friends had prepared for him (and thus for me), was the roaring of my own breath in my ears and a state of paradoxical grace the belied the awful event that precipitated it.  And wherever it was that I went during those days, I came back different, something at the core of me changed forever.

It’s been a week now since I’ve left Swaziland, and I have had some time to myself to reflect.  Quite honestly, I am still not sure if anything really means anything, if anything really is important.  I left my home and my relatively comfortable career two years ago to find Joel.  No, of course I know.  Joel is dead.  I get that.  But I came to Africa, planting myself in the middle of a raging AIDS pandemic, to try to understand that simple yet incredibly complex fact.  And after so many deaths and so much sickness these past two years, I am still no closer to the answer.  In 4 days, Joel will have been dead 3 years.  In 4 days, thousands more will die on the African continent because they had the poor taste to have been born into lives of poverty and suffering that don’t remain in anyone’s consciousness longer than Madonna’s next act (although the hell with the critics who would rather see a child deserted and raised in an orphanage, somehow equating that with a rich cultural heritage- the hell with you all. What are YOU doing?). 

I learned a lot more than I wanted to about the absence of ethic and moral will.  HIV has become a big business in Africa, supporting tens of thousands of organizations and salaries that serve no purpose beyond their own financial survival.  Millions of dollars have been spent supporting the hotel and restaurant business in the name of AIDS, as workshop after workshop is held to “discuss issues and strategies” over buffet lunches (as scores of overweight women attending the workshops are stuffing their purses with food while thousands in the rural areas can’t take their antiretrovirals for lack of a decent meal).  And as a young boy is dumped at my local hospital to die of AIDS-related opportunistic diseases, the headlines of the national paper read, “Swazis must beat their children.”

So, what have I learned?  I saw young 23 and 24 year olds leave their safe homes and families in places like Iowa and Minnesota to live in the middle of Africa, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of an AIDS pandemic, in the middle of hell.  I listened to them as they told stories of the children on their homesteads who were so sick that the only way they found comfort was to be carried on the backs of these young, idealistic volunteers when the child’s own family members had no time or interest or perhaps just not enough energy left to hold children at all.  I saw these young volunteers from America bring 7 year old girls to the clinic for treatment of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases as a result of rape by grandfathers, fathers, and uncles.  And I listened to the confusion and despair as they saw the rapists, abusers, tyrants excused by the family, victims robbed not only of legal recourse but of any recourse at all.  I saw these volunteers fight with nurses and doctors for the lives of young children that no one wanted to test or treat for HIV and that no one wanted to care for anymore.  I saw volunteers cry with despair after learning of the sexual relationships between adult teachers they called friends and the very young girls attending the volunteers’ anti-HIV and health clubs.  I saw the final volunteer who had yet to be touched by this disease here fight for his young sisi’s life at the hospital, trying to work things out with the doctor while still keeping from the family the fact that she was HIV positive.  And I remember his sms, shortly after midnight a week later, telling me he was “at her funeral now”.  No one was left untouched, no innocence was spared.

And beyond the HIV issue, I saw young children whipped with a cane as they each got off the bus, their only crime being that the bus was late, and I clearly recognized the delight in the eyes of the “discipliner” (who refers to his beating stick as his “motivator.”)  I saw incompetence and greed rewarded as organizations continued to flourish in the absence of accountability and at the expense of orphans and vulnerable children.  I saw patients die in hospital for want of routine care, as IV fluids run dry days earlier and medicines are out of stock in the pharmacy.  I saw children abandoned by their mothers.  Many children.  Abandoned by their mothers, their fathers unknown faces at the other end of abandoned seed. And in the face of all this horridness, I saw young Peace Corps volunteers do battle the best they could, some in a very quiet way, others more outspoken or with more sophistication, living on homesteads without even clean water, or any water at all, while their Australian, Swedish, and Canadian counterparts lived in relative comfort in the major cities as they partnered with the NGOs who continue to get fat.

I saw lives saved, literally one by one, by young people who believed they could make a difference.  And they did make a difference even though many more lives were lost along the way.  They made a difference to people who were dying, when no one else either cared or noticed. The US may have made many mistakes in its foreign polity, but this is not one of them. I learned how important it is to be “seen” at the end of your life, however short or long it is, how important it is that someone knows you lived and breathed and shared the air with the rest of us.  The lives that Peace Corps volunteers couldn’t save they at least acknowledged. 

I’m still no closer to finding Joel, no closer to understanding any of this.  So my journey continues.  It doesn’t matter much what contribution I make or don’t make, not to me anyway.  I just move on, do what comes next.

It was excruciating leaving the girls.  Words don’t do it justice.  I have just finished my exit interview with the PC Country Director and have officially closed my Peace Corps service.  We had a party at the orphanage Sunday afternoon attended by all the girls, Manthoba and Tigi, the neighbors’ children, and Simphiwe’s 2 little ones.  We had chicken, rice, cake, cookies made by the girls and I saturday, etc. The girls made little movies on my digital camera and we all had a great time.  Then I fell apart.  It was too much.

The following morning the girls all came to my little rondeval to say goodbye before they left for school.  I did not want them all there when the PC came to collect me, I could not have borne the looks on their faces and to see them all standing there as I drove off, so I made arrangements to be picked up while they were in school.  I hugged each and kept a smile on my face so they could remember me as happy to be with them.  The pretense was exhausting and by the time the drive came, I had nothing left.  I wanted to enjoy my last drive from Hlatikhulu to Mbabane, through those beautiful green hills and overlooking South African mountains in the distance, but my mind kept shutting down and I have little recollection of the journey.

More to come…

I was on the bus, headed to town to check email this morning.  The bus was crowded, having come in from Manzini, and I ended up having to stand near the rear of the bus.  Oddly enough, Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” came on the bus radio, for some reason tucked inbetween horrible music that passes itself off as gospel here.  I start singing along, quietly, and noticed someone singing at a bare whisper with me.  A man in a seat near the window, holding his young daughter on his lap, joins me a verse into the song:

 “Beginning to think that I'm wastin' time

I don't understand the things I do

The world outside looks so unkind

I'm countin' on you to carry me through

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away”

 

And the man’s eyes are closed and there’s a half smile on his face…

 

“And when my mind is free

You know a melody can move me

And when I'm feelin' blue

The guitar's comin' through to soothe me

Thanks for the joy that you've given me

I want you to know I believe in your song

Rhythm and rhyme and harmony

You help me along makin' me strong

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away”

 

We get to the end of the song and we know we shared a moment out of place, out of time, across cultures.  I guess we're all looking for a little release sometimes.

 

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

Swaziland has recently achieved a new distinction- the lowest life expectancy in the world, now 32.62 years of age.

sigh.

I have been in Mbabane for a few days for “close of service” medical examinations.  While in town, I was able to stop in the children’s ward and see Spelele.  She has been there for over a week and they only took her to surgery today because there were not enough medicines and surgical supplies to do more than the absolutely essential surgeries.  I arrived while she was in surgery and did not see her; however I was able to visit with the other mothers and children for a little bit.  I brought a fuzzy teddy bear to a little girl I met there the other day who is dying of cancer.  They showed me her belly- an inverted U of gleaming staples stretching from one side to the other- and told me the doctors opened her up and found cancer everywhere.  All they could do was close her back up again.  The little girl is beautiful and she is loved and she is dying.  Her mother does not seem to understand that the child is dying and I was not going to take that away from her.  She will be sad soon enough. 

I also gave the kids a coloring book and crayons to play with and some candy. 

As much as I do not want to be the "umlungu", the white person, in the role of benevolent benefactor, it takes so little to make a difference in their day.  A day at the hospital, with nothing to do, nothing to watch, no books, no toys, a day here stretches.  And these children are here for a long time.  I looked over the child with spinal cord injury I met the other day.  His mother speaks perfect English and has her infant child with her as well.  She helps me to communicate with the other mothers.  She and her other child both sleep on the floor near the injured child.  He is about 9 and was hit by a vehicle.  Except for his eyes, immense against his tiny face, he is immobile.  He probably weighs as much as his much younger sibling.  It will not be long for this one either. 

I sit and chat for a while.  An attendant comes in who knows me from Hlaitkhulu and he sits with us as well.  We talk about HIV and I encourage all the women and their children to check their status.  The attendant tells me that when culture was strong and girls remained virgins, HIV was not an issue.  It is the girls fault.  Of course I respond, I can’t not now.  I go on a bit about the men who have children with several girls and women, leaving at the first sight of pregnancy and taking no responsibility.  I don’t know of any young women with children (and I know many) where the father of the child is present. I then lapse into my diatribe about how there is nothing for girls and women here other than what men allow them, and to be with a man is often just a means to get by.  The man looks down, he doesn’t disagree, and the women are surprised and more than a bit pleased, to hear someone speaking for them.  It’s true, it’s not always that way, and the girls are responsible for their own behavior, but it’s mostly that way.  I check the little girl with cancer on my way out.  She lies on a small metal cot, staring silently and clutching the fuzzy bear.  It may provide some small comfort in these next few days, weeks at most.

I went out for a run tonight.  Two of the younger girls from the orphanage went with me, Fikile and Kayelihle,as did Dumsile, a tall, thin, athletic, and studious high schooler.  It has been a while since I ran with the girls.  I have been gone more than here in recent months and, when I do run, it is usually very early.  All my life I have wanted to be a morning runner.  I admired, tremendously, those who could jump out of bed, irrespective of weather, and take to the road or the gym.  I would drive by them on my way to the lab in Petaluma, seeing them through the glass front of the building on the treadmills and cardio equip, knowing more were upstairs in the weight room.  And I admired them, their sincerity.  I have run for many years now and, finally, I can run in the morning.  It started when Sindi and Maseko, two very overweight women at the bomake market, wanted to start exercising.  They asked me if I would walk with them, but the only time they could get away was half past five in the morning.  The rest of the day they are at the canteen at the bus rank, cooking or hoping to cook for whomever could pay a few bucks for a meal.  So half past five it was.  And after we did one lap, of about 2.5 miles, I would continue to run another couple laps.  They have since lost interest, the cold of winter giving them an excuse to rest again.  Me, however, when I am not away from the orphanage for one reason or another, well, I prefer the morning run.  My body still does not eagerly await the sun.  I am older and stiffer and the morning is a sharp reminder that at least my most agile days are behind me.  And I love the evening run as the sun is setting, especially with the girls at the orphanage, when I have had the whole day to warm up.  But now I prefer a day that starts with my hair flying and a cool wind in my face. 

Today, however, I am with the girls, the two small ones barely 10 years each.  They are running barefoot and in tattered skirts, skipping over sharp stones and gravel that would stop me flat.  Fikile flaps her arms like a bird as we fly down the dirt path toward the main road.  She is a stocky little thing, all muscle and grit.  Her freeness fills me.  There are problems at the orphanage where I have been places, problems for sure.  The place is poorly managed and the facility is horribly run down.  But the housemother here, who takes care of these 27 children, is a good woman.  The girls are so much better off than other children on homesteads in the community.  Here, the girls are not beaten, abused, or molested like so many young girls on homesteads.  They are outspoken and have a strong sense of self and of their immediate community.  They do everything for themselves, collecting and cutting firewood, growing vegetables, grinding corn all day long, cooking, etc.  And, because there are so many and the work is divided, there is much time for playing and singing, both of which happen spontaneously and randomly.  They are noisy.  God they are noisy.  I used to think I would never get used to the noise.  Now I notice it more by its absence- when they are at church or at bed time.  For an hour or two, the peace is sublime and I just sit, immersed in stillness.  After too long, I become edgy, I miss the way they fill the air with song and laughter.  And noise. 

 I have meant to write about the girls and I cannot bring myself to do so.  It is too close, too personal.  Each of them is unique and each deserves a book, not a line or two on a web journal.  Every time I think of leaving them, which is imminent, a tremendous sadness falls over me.  When I moved here, it was made clear that the orphanage was not my job.  My job was to do HIV outreach and education in the community.  The orphanage was my homestead, where I lived and, hopefully, became a role model or mentor for the girls.  So, I made sure it was not my job.  Consequently, it has become my family.

 

Oct 1

Yesterday Fezile, Buyile, and I set off to visit Spelele.  We left at 830 and, after a lot of waiting, and a long bus ride (on that dry, dusty, dirt road) we get to the stop at 11ish.  As we were preparing to walk the long distance down to Spelele’s house, we were stopped by a man who identified himself as the gogo’s brother.  He said that Spelele was not there, that she had been taken to the hospital in Mbabane.  What we gleaned from what he was saying was that they were intending to amputate the arm above the burned off hand.  We waited another hour for the bus to return to bring us back, resolved to go to Mbabane in the morning to see Spelele, certain that she was frightened and lonely.  We were met this morning at the bus station in Mbabane by Brendan, a former PCV who is now helping to run the Young Heroes program for NERCHA, the governing body for HIV outreach here.  Brendan is as close to a perfect young man as you could get- handsome, self-contained, intelligent, sincere- you kinda want to pinch him to see if he is real.  He is so much so that you wonder, if you are cynical, if there isn't some deeper pathology ready to erupt.  He was so welcomed by and integrated into his Swazi community that he was chosen by them to represent them at the annual Reed Dance, the most important ceremony in the country, just a couple months after he arrived in country last year.  All of that notwithstanding, Brendan and another PCV, Paul, were a half day late coming back from a weekend leave and, in the infinite wisdom of the PC, they were told they could either resign or be sent home.  Two of their best and brightest.  Go figure.  Because they were both so committed to the HIV effort here, they (along with Paul’s wife) opted to field terminate (quit and stay here) and were quickly snatched up by NERCHA.  Paul and Beth are in their 30’s, she a former editor, etc. and he a professional in some field.  NERCHA quickly put them to work- Beth is a PR person extraordinaire and Paul is helping a Faith based organization get these Neighborhood Care Points up and running for orphans and vulnerable children.  Brendan was put to work in the Young Heroes program.  NERCHA hit the jackpot with these three.

Anyway, Brendan went with us and we found Spelele on the children’s ward.  She hadn’t had surgery yet and we learned from her aunt (the gogo wasn’t there) that they weren’t amputating.  Instead, they are going to try to remove the significant scar tissue that is preventing her from extending her elbows.  We also learned that the doctors think that beneath the scar tissue covering the stub of her missing hand, they can detect finger movement.  It seems they think at least some of the fingers may be buried beneath the mound of scar and that they can sense movement.  Swazi hospitals are not equipped to deal with that type of surgery but they may be able to refer her to someone in South Africa who can help.  The auntie tells me there is simply no way the family can afford that.  I tell her all she needs to do is find out the details and get Spelele there, and I believe the rest can be taken care of.  How exciting and how timely.  If this had come a month later, I’d be gone and her hope with me.  If there’s anything we can do to make this happen, then it will happen.  We saw Spelele smile and heard her talk for the first time. Some days are altogether good to be here.

 

Sept 29, 2006

Simphiwe was in town for a few days for school break and we agreed to meet in town this morning to walk out to Mbotjeni and visit Manthoba, Tigi, and gogo.  It has been so very long since simphiwe and I set out on any given day to make the world a better place and I was pleased, as always, to be in his company.  We met at the store so we could pick up some cornmeal and beans to take to gogo and simphiwe tucked the goods in my pack and put it on his back and we set out.  The walk to Mbotjeni is beautiful.  The way is all down hill from town and you can look out over the expanse of green rolling hills, trees and forests, and Swazi homesteads.  I never tire of it even though the area is very reminiscent of Northern California (or, in some places, even the high desert in southeastern Arizona).  Swaziland is beautiful and it is difficult, sometimes, to grasp the sickness and suffering that is occurring just inside this homestead here, and that one over there, and on the homestead further up the road.  Like a beautiful woman whose cancer overtakes her just underneath her tender skin.  We arrive at Mbotjeni and Tigi sees us before we see him, running to greet us and take us to the homestead.  He grabs Simphiwe’s hand, happy to see him even though it has been some time.  Gogo is where I often see her when the days are nice, lying on a mat outside.  I am relieved I don’t have to see her dragging her cumbersome body across the ground by her elbows to be able to enjoy the sunshine.  Unfortunately, Manthoba is off fetching water for the homestead.  He is likely carrying a jug as large as he is, unless he has managed to scavenge a wheelbarrow somewhere. The river is a ways from the homestead and he is unlikely to be back before we leave.  I ask gogo how Manthoba did in school this year and she chuckles like a pleased little girl, “kahle kakhulu”, really great.  She is worried that there will be no one to help Tigi get into school once I leave.  He is due to start in January.  I assure her that Red Cross is coming to see her soon (they have been coming for a year now) and, if they don’t come, I will make sure schooling for Manthoba and Tigi for next year is taken care of before I go.  I don’t tell her that I, too, am worried what will happen to the three of them when I am no longer able to check on them.  I would like to think their neighbors will help, but it isn’t necessarily so.  And because the boys are just abandoned (to a gogo who can’t even walk) by both parents ( althought I think the father died this year- the mother is still unaccounted for), they don’t qualify for programs like Young Heroes that only cater to double orphans.  Even if they did qualify, gogo couldn’t get to the post office to pick up the money.  Sigh.  I remember the first time Simphiwe and I came here- gogo hadn’t left her bed for months, hadn’t eaten, and was significantly depressed, begging God to take her.  Today she is looking pretty good- the simple little stone and mud hut is the same, her burden no lighter, but she is in good spirits.  And Tigi looks good and well cared for.  Simphiwe and gogo chat in SiSwati for a bit and I am able to pick out more and more of what they are saying, still far short of where I should be.  We take our leave and make the walk back into town.  I am not sure what we talked about or if we talked at all.  It was simply good enough just to be with him again.  We parted in town and he said he would try to get up to see the girls this afternoon.  He is attending a funeral in the morning and heads back to South Africa directly after that.  He says there are too many funerals now, it makes him sad to come home.  He doesn’t even ask after people anymore for fear he will learn they are gone.

Simphiwe was good to his word and showed up at the orphanage in mid-afternoon. The girls adore simphiwe but are always shy to see him or be around him.  He sits in my rondeval for a while, just talking, and then we go outside so he can greet the housemother.  He chats a bit with her and then it is time to go.  He comes back to the rondeval to retrieve a couple books I am sending with him (Hesse’s Sidhartha for one) and I catch him on the step and wrap my arms around him to tell him he is one of my favorite people on the planet.  He gives me that smile that is so uniquely his and is grateful (although it is still awkward for him to be hugged).  The girls gather outside to say farewell and I walk him down the road, long past the point where it would be polite to let him travel on by himself.  At some point I let him go, otherwise I might just go with him back to South Africa.  With Julie gone, and Simphiwe leaving again, I am feeling very alone.  Not friendless but without friends near enough.

On Friday I spent the day with Julie, my closest PCV friend here, as her community celebrated the opening of an NCP (neighborhood care point for the care and feeding of orphans and vulnerable children) the building of which was, in no small part, due to Julie’s hard efforts.  The day was also an opportunity for the community to bid farewell to Julie, as she is leaving a little earlier than the rest of us because her grandfather, who has loved her and written her faithfully, every week of the 2 years, has fallen quite ill recently.  Julie has been the quintessential PCV, investing herself fully in the PC experience.  She lives in a very isolated area, one and one half hours by old and unreliable transport and by dirt and rock road, to the nearest town, thankfully mine.  She planted herself firmly in the community and learned to speak siSwati fluently.  In so doing, she has certainly touched lives more profoundly than many of the rest of us have done.

 I couldn’t begin to count the numbers of people, including more than a few children, that Julie has brought to the hospital in Hlatikhulu (my town is her nearest clinic) for HIV testing and treatment, as well as for a myriad of other problems.  And her efforts have had far reaching effects: One of the first women Julie successfully got on ARVs, and then saw through a horrendous allergic reaction to the drugs which causes the skin around the mouth and eyes to blister disfiguringly, has since become uncharacteristically open about her status and has encouraged many others to test and seek treatment.  And after months of seeking help for a small boy, barely 7, who was orphaned, HIV+, neglected, and sick, the boy is now doing well and will be situated at one of the few wonderful community based orphanages in a rural area, where he will get the attention he so needs.  That he has been schooling this past year is solely due to Julie’s contributions.  To see them together brings me near to tears.  And there are so many more stories and occasions where Julie has put her community and her neighbors before her own needs, sometime to the point of near self neglect. 

So, it was due and fitting that she be honored on one of her last few days at site.  Important dignitaries were there from the community, including the chief, and a film crew from Swazi TV.  Julie delivered a moving speech in siSwati, swallowing back the tears at points, and I noticed that more than a few people in the audience were wiping their eyes as well, including men for whom showing emotion is unheard of here.  The most poignant moment came when Julie acknowledged her “counterpart” and dear friend, Mpumi.  Mpumi was assigned as Julie’s “swazi counterpart” in her community.  The PC asks the community to identify someone who will work with the PCV in the community to act as a bridge for the volunteer and to help with the mitigation of the HIV crisis.  Julie and Mpumi have worked closely together for two years and have become like sisters.  Mpumi is now employed as a community HIV outreach worker by World Vision, a position she would not hold were it not for her work with Julie.  As Julie acknowledged her Swazi sister, Mpumi sat a couple rows back, head bowed, tears streaming.  Mpumi’s been crying for weeks.  This is a very difficult parting.

The older women in the community did a wonderful song and dance for Julie after which they gifted her and dressed her with traditional wear. 

We all ate; a cow had been sacrificed- again, a great honor.  I stayed the night with Julie and was glad to be with her on such an important day.  I was struck by how genuine and deep her experience had been, how she exemplifies what we all should strive to be. 

And, as is unfortunately the case, Swaziland allows for no happy endings… On Sunday, one of Julie’s friends from the community, who had been sick and in the hospital the past couple weeks, passed away.  She had been on ARVs for some time, had been doing well, and recently contracted cryptococcal meningitis.  She leaves behind 5 small children, now orphans.

For those of you interested in reading the Argus Courier article about my work here, the link is:  http://www1.arguscourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060906/COMMUNITY/60905028&SearchID=73256110706791

We just finished our Close of Service Conference where we discussed the logistics of ending our 2 year committment in Swaziland.  As it stands, I will be leaving the country in early to mid November.  I will be traveling through West Africa for a month on the way to India, where I expect to study yoga for a few months before resuming my work on humanitarian efforts.  I will continue to post during my travels and in India.

I will also be documenting my last 2 months with the girls at the orphanage and with the people in my community.  It will be difficult to leave and I expect some of the entries will be quite sad.  Please bear with me.

Went out to visit Babe M's children to sign them up for the Young Heroes program (www.youngheroes.org.sz ) in the hopes that we can get some support for them.  I found the two youngest children with their older brother, in his late teens, and the oldest sister, about 22, who is caring for all the children now as well as her infant child (whose father's whereabouts are unknown).  It was painful to see the children and remember their father and their tiny, sick little brother, both now gone.  As I was talking to Nokwanda, I was trying to tell her what a good man her father was and how I was lucky to have known him.  My throat closed completely- I was not even able to whisper out the words- and the tears just flowed, silently, endlessly.

Nokwanda (right) and her oldest sister, now her caretaker.

Nokwanda

Nokwanda's little brother, Kwanele.

Heartfelt thanks to the researchers and staff at the Buck Institute in Novato, CA, and to friends in Petaluma who helped make this day possible.  We had 5 or 6 runners from the Swazi National Team show up (from wherever it is pro runners show up) and yet one of our high school boys came in 3rd place overall.  Two of the girls from my orphanage finished in the top 3 of girls aged 13-19, one of them just barely 13.  I will dig deep in my own pockets to see if I can sponsor these local kids to go to Mbabane in September and run in the Swazi half marathon.  The 10K was challenging, the last half almost entirely uphill, and the times were fast in spite of that.  We had some dedicated people who came with no running experience but with tremendous heart- teachers, mothers, even the police comissioner.  Local talent came out to perform songs and entertainment, asking nothing for themselves.  Peace Corps volunteers showed up from even remote posts in country, because showing up and supporting is what we do best, and the 2 women PCVs placing 2 & 3 in the 20-40 age category donated their winnings back to the youth center.  We barely broke even after paying out prize money but it was a great day for the town and everyone is looking forward to having the event annually.  We feel like champions, all of us, today! 

For Joel on what would have been his 21^st birthday and for mothers everywhere:

Lord Protect My Child

Bob Dylan

For his age, he’s wise

He’s got his mother’s eyes

There’s gladness in his heart

He’s young and he’s wild

My only prayer is, if I can’t be there,

Lord, protect my child

As his youth now unfolds

He is centuries old

Just to see him at play makes me smile

No matter what happens to me

No matter what my destiny

Lord, protect my child

While the world is asleep

You can look at it and weep

Few things you find are worthwhile

And though I don’t ask for much

No material things to touch

Lord, protect my child

He’s young and on fire

Full of hope and desire

In a world that’s been raped, raped and defiled

If I fall along the way

And can’t see another day

Lord, protect my child

There’ll be a time I hear tell

When all will be well

When God and man will be reconciled

But until men lose their chains

And righteousness reigns

Lord, protect my child

“As each minute ticks by, another African child dies from AIDS.” From Global Aids Alliance

Felicity and I spent the weekend together at Vic Falls, Zambia.  It was a much needed break and wonderful beyond telling to see Fizzy.  We laughed and cried (well, I cried) and I achieved a much needed balance.  Saying goodbye was sad.

For my friends and colleagues at the Buck Institute, I am touched and grateful for the kind words and thoughts you sent me through Felicity.  The money you sent for my birthday will go toward a couple good causes.  Tomorrow we are taking a tiny girl and a 7 year old boy from my community to the eye clinic in Manzini.  Your gift will go a long way to restore and improve sight for both of these children. Thank you.  My needs (aside from jaunting around Africa to hook up with good friends) are pretty simple and even a small amount of money can achieve great things here.  I am careful how I use and do that but I will make sure to post and let you know what my birthday present ended up being.  The best gift was to know that I am missed and that you are keeping up with the stories here.  So many people live and die here after a life of often great suffering.  It is important to me that someone over there knows that Babe M, his baby, Lungile, Nokuthula, and many others lived and maybe loved and laughed and that they died horrible senseless deaths.  I think we can do something here.  I think we can save lives.  Keep us in your thoughts.  Best, Alyson

When I left Babe M at the hospital last night, he was in a great deal of pain.  He died before morning.  Cancer.  He was preceded in death by his wife 2 years ago and his 2 year old son only weeks ago.  He was in his late 30s and leaves behind 3 children.  He was a good and kind man and the world was a better place while he was in it.

Babe M has been in the hospital for a couple days now.  There is a teenage boy staying there with him.  I am uncertain of the relationship.  It is a son but it must either be a son of a previous marriage who doesn’t live at home, or it is the son of a brother.  A brother’s children are also called “sons” and “daughters”.  He looks horrible and isn’t eating.  His fever seems to come and go.  A doctor crisis exists at the hospital.  3 Cuban doctors recently brought in to help left the country after the woman doctor and her friend were assaulted in their home in the middle of the day in a robbery and failed rape attempt.  The home is just down the road from the orphanage where I live.  The one doctor on duty for all the wards has taken the weekend off.  But babe is still better off here, on a cot on a ward where the potential for help exists, rather than laying on a mat on the ground at home with only small children to attend to his needs. This afternoon babe whispered that he would like some cheese and I will bring him some in the morning. I took that as a good sign.

Earlier in the day, we visited Spelele, the little girl who was badly burned, to see if the arm had been amputated and, in general, how she and gogo are doing.  Traveling to Spelele’s home is no small feat, taking over half the day to get there and back, but I still feel badly that I am not able to get there more often.  Her home is quite some distance from my community.  Gogo says the arm may not need amputating above where the hand burned off.  The medicine seems to be taking care of the infection.  The money from the Young Heroes sponsorship (see www.youngheroes.org.sz) is helping keep Spelele in better health.  She handles herself pretty well with one hand gone and only partial use of the other.  I watched her as she held a lemon against her chest with the wrist of the “good” hand, bending her fingers at an angle I would think not possible to peel the fruit.  She goes with gogo everywhere as there is no one else to stay with her, and there is no time or inclination to pamper her, so she is learning to adapt.

Me & Spelele. we are both ok.

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.