22 - January

Sonibonani, My Darlings.

I am so sorry this brief update has been so long in coming. I keep waiting for a moment when my life will calm down a bit. I am beginning to discover that it may very well never calm down. Oh well.

So, I’ve been here in KwaZulu Natal for a week and two days. I live in a cottage on Botha’s Hill overlooking the Valley of 1000 Hills, specifically the town of Embo. I have so many things to report to you, it would take me pages and pages and that would only be the practical descriptions. Reflection on all of those things would be double that. So, I will tell you about a few particular moments instead.

Just so you have an idea of what my life looks like geographically...
I am currently perched on our patio overlooking Embo (pictures will come later, I promise). Embo is a valley where Zulu people live together in 1 or 2 room houses made with cement walls and tin roofs, often without doors. There is a river that runs through KZN but I do not know its name. The valley is surrounded by mountains with flat tops (like Table Mountain in Cape Town). Each of the houses has electricity but none have running water. There are outhouses and water pumps that the government has placed. Depending on the time of day we hear (gloriously well due to the acoustics a valley offers) roosters, dogs, drums, children playing, and families going about routine. Most Zulu people walk from place to place. A typical walk to school or work is 30 minutes. Some children walk as long as 4 hours to get to a school. If afforded, some people take Kombi taxis (this is the only form of public transit I have seen in KZN, and not once have I seen a white South African in a Kombi).

So....
That is what I see and hear when I step out my door. As for work, I work at 1000 Hills Community Helpers in Inchanga on Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays. It is an incredible place in the Valley started by a woman named Dawn. 1000 HCH has a clinic (where I spend most of my time), an education resource center, and a nursery with 8-12 infants and 70 3 to 5 year olds. On Tuesday, I took stats for almost 50 infants no more than a month old (one was only 4 days old). My first jarring moment at work was when Sister Dlimine and the EMT rushed into the room with a 4 year old infected with AIDS in respiratory distress. His mother had died a month earlier. We helped the EMT to rehydrate him with both an IV and a bottle of glucose water. He seemed in better spirits but it was definitely a tough start to the day.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach oral English at St. Leo’s Primary School in Molweni (also in the Valley). Sinead teaches full time at St. Leo’s and Mary Kate and I help her out on alternating days. It is challenging, because all of the students are at very different levels. But, let me tell you about the most beautiful moment I have experienced in my adult life...
Everyday at 7:30am, the students of St. Leo’s line up and greet the day with 3 Zulu songs and 2 prayers. My heart explodes everytime I get blessed with the chance to hear it. I hope that someday you get to experience God’s beauty the way that I do every day that I am here.

While I have some challenges at work, I do not look the AIDS crisis directly in the face everyday the way some of my roommates do. I have felt the magnitude of suffering here much more clearly than ever before in my life. The 3^rd service site is a place I have told some of you about. It is an AIDS hospice in Hillcrest. I don’t work there, but two of my roommates do. Today, one of them watched a man take a turn for the worst and then be taken home by his family so that he might die at home, surrounded by family. He was most likely only in his forties.

I am so proud to be so close with so many people who are standing hopefully in the face of AIDS. Make no mistake, dear readers, that the fight against AIDS needs to be loud and strong in order to be successful. I have found that the strongest fight is sometimes in the quiet company of a young woman who sits by the bed of a dying man so that he might not be alone in his last moments.

Hamba Kahle.

Bec