Oppressive Heat

Oppressive heat. I have often read the phrase in books about the tropics without being able to really understand what it meant. Until now. Living in a Tugela Ferry summer has changed that. Now I understand – I’ve never sweat so much for consecutive weeks until moving here. Summer in ‘the Ferry’ makes it a norm… So much so that I can’t manage to wrap my head around Christmas approaching – how can such heat and Christmas possibly mix?!? Eugene was joking with my family the other day that we would also be enjoying a white Christmas, but soaking up sun on a white-sand beach! We’ll go to Cape Town for Christmas to spend time with his family there. We’ll have to see about the white sand beaches, though!

Besides struggling with the change from the milder Drakensberg to the heat bowl of Tugela Ferry, life is good. Yesterday I was back in Loskop with our Thembalethu Home-Based Caregivers celebrating Christmas with them. It was lovely to be with them again, I’ve missed being with them since taking on a more administrative role from Tugela Ferry, assisting Xoli as she takes on the day-to-day patient and orphan care. Yesterday it was lovely to be with the HBC and check in with them about how they’ve been doing lately. They each received a food parcel as a thanks for their selfless volunteer work. (See picture: 10kg maize meal, 10kg flour, beans, sugar, soya mince, salt and Vaseline.)

As I talked with them, getting updates on how their work is going, they expressed their gratitude for the money we’ve made available for them to assist their patients to access medical assistance. We’ve been giving out an average of R200, or $30 per month which is used to assist the poorest of their patients with money for the ‘taxi’ to reach the clinic or hospital. They told me yesterday what a big difference it makes for them to be able not only to recommend to their patients that they get tested for HIV or TB or do the follow-up to access treatment; but to be able to give them the mini-bus taxi fare to go immediately and not wait until their scarce money becomes next available. With HIV, waiting for treatment often proves to be deadly. We’ve been blessed to be able to have the funds so far to help people in need in this way.

We also talked a lot about the poverty that threatens the health and treatment adherence of our HBC patients. Many of them get disability grants from the government for a few months while they are at their sickest. But then when the grants end, the patients struggle to find enough money for food for themselves and their children. Poverty and HIV are deadly partners. Dependence on the government to solve all their problems is another big obstacle we face. I keep thinking and praying about how to integrate economic development initiatives in with the HBC work we are doing, and am thinking about looking into community-run savings/lending initiatives as a way of assisting not only our caregivers, but also the broader community. The idea behind this is to encourage poor people to save money a tiny bit at a time, and help each other to grow that money for micro-enterprises as well as for emergencies. My years of working in microfinance are coming back full-circle, and I can’t seem to get the idea out of my head as the vast poverty of the people continues to confront me. Please join me in praying about this.

Twenty seven of our thirty-five HBC just completed a three-part course they started back in May called Christian Listeners: 1) Learning to Listen 2) HIV: Listening to Pain and Hope, and 3) Listening to Children in Difficult Circumstances. I got a very good report back from them about the impact of this training in their lives – how it helped them with essential job skills as a caregiver in their communities, as well as in their relationships at home. The patients they encounter have often experienced so much that what they often need is a loving, listening ear to help them accept their illness, the loss of a spouse or a child’s loss of their parents, the loss of the use of their legs (sadly common with spinal Tuberculosis). The Home-Based Caregivers often are called on to fill this role in the community, and now have some counseling/listening training to help them with this. While the losses in this community are vast and seemingly unabated as the community suffers the weight of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, they are sharing God’s love and hope to their neighbors in need.

Yesterday we were all very sad to learn of the lost our first HBC volunteer. Thulile Malinga, although only in her early 40s, suffered a stroke and passed away two days ago. We will be visiting her family to offer our condolences and deliver the food parcel that was hers. Our prayers go out to her children and family. She will be greatly missed.

Back In the Contracting Business

A little over a week ago, we got a phone call from Qedi [the Q in isiZulu is a resonant click from the roof of your mouth], a 19 year old orphan-head of household that we’ve been assisting the last year or so. She was crying so hard when she called we could barely understand her as she told us that the roof on her house had been ripped off in gale-force winds that had struck the area that afternoon. Qedi and her 11 year old niece Lindo (pictured in the blue with her friend), live there alone after the death of Qedi’s parents, and then of her older sister, Lindo’s mom. Qedi has two younger sisters (17 and 18 years) who have responded more destructively to the losses of their parents by living with various boys and stopping by only occasionally, most recently to break into their house in an attempt to steal food from them. Qedi has so far chosen to and stick to the more responsible route which includes church attendance and taking on the responsibility of raising her niece.

In support of these two girls, knowing well that they don’t have any means of fixing their house themselves, we’ve hired a builder to fix the roof and the wider damages done to the house. After a history of inexpensive and even voluntary builders contributing to the building of their house in the first place, we feel that our assistance to this little family needs to see their house through. If you’d like to contribute to the repair costs of this house, please let me know. We could really use the funds to help meet the housing needs of these girls and get their house sorted once and for all.

Thank you all so much for all your support and generosity over the past year. May your Christmas focus on God’s good gifts and may He bless you greatly in 2009.

With Love,

Betsy