TheStar.com - Africa's AIDS pandemic: Steven Lewis writes: "I've been doing that job for something more 3 1/2 years, and I was at the International AIDS conference in Bangkok (in July, 2004) , listening carefully and absorbing a number of unmistakable truths about the weight and force of the pandemic.
Number 1, that the spread is irreversible. The assumption that a great many people, among them notable epidemiologists, made that somehow we would contain this pandemic in a relatively brief period of time has not come to pass. The most dramatic rise in the prevalence rates are today in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine,where a combination of drug use on the one hand and heterosexual activity on the other, is emerging as a kind of Hecate's brew of horror. It is implanted deeply in Haiti and Jamaica and the Dominic Republic and other parts of the Caribbean and Central America. There are profound pockets of grief in Brazil and Argentina and Chili and Peru. No western country is exempt."
Parish Council meeting at Usuthu Mission following the Sunday service. We're talking about the need to communicate what is happening in Swaziland.
Orphan children at Ascension during the weekend Children's revival service. Rev. Nancy is on the left.
Fresh Graves in the Mbabane region. Each white card marks a new grave. Mostly likely these will never be marked with anything than what you see here.
Chief Peter, his cousin and Dr. Ned Wallace in front of the Neighborhood Care point under construction at the Chief's compound.
Number 1, that the spread is irreversible. The assumption that a great many people, among them notable epidemiologists, made that somehow we would contain this pandemic in a relatively brief period of time has not come to pass. The most dramatic rise in the prevalence rates are today in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine,where a combination of drug use on the one hand and heterosexual activity on the other, is emerging as a kind of Hecate's brew of horror. It is implanted deeply in Haiti and Jamaica and the Dominic Republic and other parts of the Caribbean and Central America. There are profound pockets of grief in Brazil and Argentina and Chili and Peru. No western country is exempt."
Thursday, January 13, 2005
All my bags are packed…
I hate that song. But it’s running through my head at the moment. I’ve just finished the whirlwind of last minute preparations. I think I’ve got everything. I’ve done the modern pre-flight ritual of checking my carry-on bag for waylaid pocket knives or nail clippers. I’ve got some music and a book to take with me.
The only monkey wrench in the whole process was this morning when I weighed my bags. I like to travel light. But both the large bags I’m taking with me were over the weight limit. They’re mostly filled with things to give away when I arrive. I’m carrying the material to construct four comfort packs to distribute to AIDS Hospice patients. That and the pens and pencils for the students and teachers is what has pushed me over the weight limit.
We sent an entire container of these comfort packs to Swaziland a few years ago. I forgot how much they weigh. The chief culprits in the conspiracy to push my bags over the limit are the plastic tarps. I’m carrying 4 heavy plastic tarps. They’re for putting under the patient who is laying on a dirt floor in most cases. It keeps the floor area relatively sterile. It makes it easy to hose off the environs when “accidents’ happen - treating a patient with AIDS requires extra care, people have to think through how to manage bodily waste and fluids.
Somehow these tarps seem particularly grim. I used the same sort when I used to camp. We would put them under our tents to keep us dry. I never imagined that they might be needed to put under a person to keep the ground clean. The reality of this disease and the struggle to manage and treat its symptoms in Swaziland are coming clearer to me. Such a simple thing. Such awful implications.
I said a prayer for the people who would use these tarps. May God be with them through their final journey.
I hate that song. But it’s running through my head at the moment. I’ve just finished the whirlwind of last minute preparations. I think I’ve got everything. I’ve done the modern pre-flight ritual of checking my carry-on bag for waylaid pocket knives or nail clippers. I’ve got some music and a book to take with me.
The only monkey wrench in the whole process was this morning when I weighed my bags. I like to travel light. But both the large bags I’m taking with me were over the weight limit. They’re mostly filled with things to give away when I arrive. I’m carrying the material to construct four comfort packs to distribute to AIDS Hospice patients. That and the pens and pencils for the students and teachers is what has pushed me over the weight limit.
We sent an entire container of these comfort packs to Swaziland a few years ago. I forgot how much they weigh. The chief culprits in the conspiracy to push my bags over the limit are the plastic tarps. I’m carrying 4 heavy plastic tarps. They’re for putting under the patient who is laying on a dirt floor in most cases. It keeps the floor area relatively sterile. It makes it easy to hose off the environs when “accidents’ happen - treating a patient with AIDS requires extra care, people have to think through how to manage bodily waste and fluids.
Somehow these tarps seem particularly grim. I used the same sort when I used to camp. We would put them under our tents to keep us dry. I never imagined that they might be needed to put under a person to keep the ground clean. The reality of this disease and the struggle to manage and treat its symptoms in Swaziland are coming clearer to me. Such a simple thing. Such awful implications.
I said a prayer for the people who would use these tarps. May God be with them through their final journey.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Well - I'm most of the way there (here?).
I'm writing this from an Internet cafe in the airport in J-Burg. The flight was long, but uneventful. I slept a bit. I think that each time I get on an airplane lately they manage to move the seats exactly 1 cm closer to each other. This was an all time record. But there are certainly worse things to endure.
While I was checking in at JFK the counter clerk asked me why I was traveling. I explained what our mission was. She didn't look that surprised. Apparently that's one of the only reasons that she could think of to travel to Swaziland. Sad. There's so much beauty in that place and such extraordinary people.
I'm writing this from an Internet cafe in the airport in J-Burg. The flight was long, but uneventful. I slept a bit. I think that each time I get on an airplane lately they manage to move the seats exactly 1 cm closer to each other. This was an all time record. But there are certainly worse things to endure.
While I was checking in at JFK the counter clerk asked me why I was traveling. I explained what our mission was. She didn't look that surprised. Apparently that's one of the only reasons that she could think of to travel to Swaziland. Sad. There's so much beauty in that place and such extraordinary people.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
I'm in Swaziland. Made it in last night.
As we left the airport about 9:30 PM last night I looked up and saw the stars. The southern horizon was cloudy - I couldn't see the Southern Cross, but I could find Orion to the north.
Orion was standing on his head. It took me a moment to realize that. I knew intellectually it would happen, but it was still a shock to see it, something so familiar looking so different. I'm in the Southern Hemisphere. Taurus is now following Orion instead of vice versa. And the constellations are all upside down.
Maybe working Swaziland will be like that for us. We think we know what to expect, but when we actually arrive, the reality is still a bit of a shock. Not good or bad, just a different than we expected. I suppose it means we'll have to keep all our options open. What might have seemed simple when we planned it will turn out to be harder than expected. What we thought might be hard will turn out to be almost trivial.
This is a beautiful place. The Inn where I am staying looks out over the "Beautiful Valley". I watched the sun burn off the mist this morning as it rose above to the rocks to the side of the valley. The roosters are crowing. It smells of wet plants with just a hint of farm. The smell is reassuring. It is a smell I know well from my childhood. Somehow smelling that I know that while I am in a different place, I'm still surrounded by the familiar, no matter that it looks turned upside down sometimes.
More later... I'm running out of time on the computer that I'm using.
As we left the airport about 9:30 PM last night I looked up and saw the stars. The southern horizon was cloudy - I couldn't see the Southern Cross, but I could find Orion to the north.
Orion was standing on his head. It took me a moment to realize that. I knew intellectually it would happen, but it was still a shock to see it, something so familiar looking so different. I'm in the Southern Hemisphere. Taurus is now following Orion instead of vice versa. And the constellations are all upside down.
Maybe working Swaziland will be like that for us. We think we know what to expect, but when we actually arrive, the reality is still a bit of a shock. Not good or bad, just a different than we expected. I suppose it means we'll have to keep all our options open. What might have seemed simple when we planned it will turn out to be harder than expected. What we thought might be hard will turn out to be almost trivial.
This is a beautiful place. The Inn where I am staying looks out over the "Beautiful Valley". I watched the sun burn off the mist this morning as it rose above to the rocks to the side of the valley. The roosters are crowing. It smells of wet plants with just a hint of farm. The smell is reassuring. It is a smell I know well from my childhood. Somehow smelling that I know that while I am in a different place, I'm still surrounded by the familiar, no matter that it looks turned upside down sometimes.
More later... I'm running out of time on the computer that I'm using.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Meeting people:
I had my first of what I hope will be a series of fruitful meetings yesterday. Dr. Wallace set up a meeting between myself and a long time resident of Swaziland who has worked in the field of teaching and agriculture. We met in the downtown shopping mall at Mbabane in a small resturant in the middle of the mall. I had a calzone. (Swaziland has a sense of what is modern as well as what is traditional.)
We talked for a bit about the history of the country, about the reign of the former king and about how the goverment works at the present. It was a wonderfully helpful talk. I hope to be able to amplify some of the points once I'm back in the States and have had a chance to collect my thoughts a bit more. Our hour and a half meeting stretched to almost 3 hours. We hope to meet again so that we can talk further about how communication works within the Kingdom.
I find myself telling the story of how the Diocese of Bethlehem first heard of the plight of the people of the Diocese of Kajo Keji. We had an email from them telling of the need they had to feed the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming from the north to the refugee camp. The people of the camp had decided to buy salt with a little money they had been given. They thought it would make the grass and weeds the people were forced to eat more palatable.
When we heard of the story in Bethlehem, the Bishop and World Mission Commission responded with an appeal to the whole diocese. In a few weeks we raised 10's of thousands of dollars - something like 80,000 in the end - to purchase food for the refugees.
They told us their story and we as a group of christians responded. But the key was that they had a way to get their story out to the rest of the world.
I told that story to my new friend from Swaziland. He understood the point immediately. "Tell that story more" he asked. "People here need to hear it so that they can know that people want to help if they know of the need."
I had my first of what I hope will be a series of fruitful meetings yesterday. Dr. Wallace set up a meeting between myself and a long time resident of Swaziland who has worked in the field of teaching and agriculture. We met in the downtown shopping mall at Mbabane in a small resturant in the middle of the mall. I had a calzone. (Swaziland has a sense of what is modern as well as what is traditional.)
We talked for a bit about the history of the country, about the reign of the former king and about how the goverment works at the present. It was a wonderfully helpful talk. I hope to be able to amplify some of the points once I'm back in the States and have had a chance to collect my thoughts a bit more. Our hour and a half meeting stretched to almost 3 hours. We hope to meet again so that we can talk further about how communication works within the Kingdom.
I find myself telling the story of how the Diocese of Bethlehem first heard of the plight of the people of the Diocese of Kajo Keji. We had an email from them telling of the need they had to feed the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming from the north to the refugee camp. The people of the camp had decided to buy salt with a little money they had been given. They thought it would make the grass and weeds the people were forced to eat more palatable.
When we heard of the story in Bethlehem, the Bishop and World Mission Commission responded with an appeal to the whole diocese. In a few weeks we raised 10's of thousands of dollars - something like 80,000 in the end - to purchase food for the refugees.
They told us their story and we as a group of christians responded. But the key was that they had a way to get their story out to the rest of the world.
I told that story to my new friend from Swaziland. He understood the point immediately. "Tell that story more" he asked. "People here need to hear it so that they can know that people want to help if they know of the need."
Usuthu Parish:
I had a visit to the Usuthu Mission Parish today. It's a parish that I've heard so much about back at home and I finally had my own chance to see the faith and work of the people of that place.
We arrived early enough to meet the clergy and plan what would happen in the service. It was all familiar in many ways, and yet different.
I started to cry when I heard the sound of the singing with the first hymn. In fact for most of the service tears were always near at hand. I can't describe the power of the human voice when it is raised in praise. I'd heard of this wonder - this was my first chance to experience it. For an old choir member to have a chance to hear a whole church sing with such power and beauty was reason enough to have made this trip.
I managed to pick up the tunes of the hymns after hearing them. And finding my way though the words (phonetically) came after a bit too. I wish I could have a picture of the looks on the faces of the acolytes sitting next to me when I started to sing along in the hymns. (I hope it was a look of bemusement at my trying to sing, and not a look of horror at my pronunciation of the words... Grin.)
Father Josiah gave me the honor of preaching the sermon. I told the story of the boy and the starfish - a story that has become the symbol for what I think we are trying to do here.
Father Josiah asked me to bless the children after the communion service 2 by 2 as they came forward to the altar rail. Again - this simple act is one that I shall never forget. I hope that Dr. Wallace has a picture of it. I may ask that we do something similar back home.
After the service I met with the Parish Council. I handed out pens which had Operation Starfish emblazoned on them. I asked people to use these pens to write down the story of how their lives were being effected by the scourge of HIV and AIDS. They told me they would. I reminded them of the story of the Diocese of Sudan and Bethlehem... If they tell us what is happening, we will try our best to respond somehow. But they must tell us.
More later.
I had a visit to the Usuthu Mission Parish today. It's a parish that I've heard so much about back at home and I finally had my own chance to see the faith and work of the people of that place.
We arrived early enough to meet the clergy and plan what would happen in the service. It was all familiar in many ways, and yet different.
I started to cry when I heard the sound of the singing with the first hymn. In fact for most of the service tears were always near at hand. I can't describe the power of the human voice when it is raised in praise. I'd heard of this wonder - this was my first chance to experience it. For an old choir member to have a chance to hear a whole church sing with such power and beauty was reason enough to have made this trip.
I managed to pick up the tunes of the hymns after hearing them. And finding my way though the words (phonetically) came after a bit too. I wish I could have a picture of the looks on the faces of the acolytes sitting next to me when I started to sing along in the hymns. (I hope it was a look of bemusement at my trying to sing, and not a look of horror at my pronunciation of the words... Grin.)
Father Josiah gave me the honor of preaching the sermon. I told the story of the boy and the starfish - a story that has become the symbol for what I think we are trying to do here.
Father Josiah asked me to bless the children after the communion service 2 by 2 as they came forward to the altar rail. Again - this simple act is one that I shall never forget. I hope that Dr. Wallace has a picture of it. I may ask that we do something similar back home.
After the service I met with the Parish Council. I handed out pens which had Operation Starfish emblazoned on them. I asked people to use these pens to write down the story of how their lives were being effected by the scourge of HIV and AIDS. They told me they would. I reminded them of the story of the Diocese of Sudan and Bethlehem... If they tell us what is happening, we will try our best to respond somehow. But they must tell us.
More later.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Monday afternoon -5:30 PM
Long day so far today.
(By way of explanation let me mention that computer I'm using to write the entries only gives me 30 minutes of time and has an old keyboard that has - shall we say - issues. I apologize for the paucity of detail - and the spelling and grammar. I don't have time to write and check. Hopefully these can be considered a do it yourself editing project. Grin.)
I met with Bishop Meshack today. It was wonderful to see him again. I brought him a laptop computer for his use and a whole pile of pens. I need to give away almost 75 pens a day. (I brought along close to 750 in total.) I'd fallen behind over the weekend, but I'm back on quota again.
We had a long conversation and then went to lunch at the diocesan convention center. Bishop invited me to stay there for the rest of my visit, but the thought of trying to move all the supplies that I brought for distribution again made me decline his generous offer. I did have a chance to meet with Fr. Shelby who is the Conf. Center manager. We spoke with him and the bishop about the possibility of building a computer and internet training center at the site for use by the clergy and people of the diocese and as a site for local youth to continue their computer training as well. It looks like a real possibility and is frankly quite exciting.
I keep telling people that they must share their story with the rest of the world. This new center, if we can make it come true, will give the people of the Diocese that chance. We have a lot of work to do find out the total costs of the project etc... but once it's up and running Bishop Meshack has already found a plan to make it sustainable.
Sustainable is the word of the day. It's easy to start a program and to do something once. It's much harder to make a program continue from year to year. Many grants are for start up funds only... when the funds run out, often the program ends. We are looking at ways to make whatever program we put in place work and work over a long period of time. Sustainability.
Bishop told us of his dream to work with the Mother's Union here to provide a place for children orphaned through AIDS to have a chance to spend the weekend nights together. These children are ostracized by their school peers because their parents died of AIDS. They have no one to play with and no one to talk to. The Mother's Union in the Diocese brings these children together on the weekend and feeds them, teaches them basic life skills like cooking and mending, and gives them a chance to play with each other. It's the only opportunity these children have to be children during their week. The Bishop is dreaming of finding the funds to construct a residence for the children so that they don't have to go home on Saturday night and will be able to spend more time with each other instead - and have as a result a greater taste of normal relationships than otherwise are possible.
Ned and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the two extraordinary woman who are coordinating the Diocesan AIDS ministry. They have just received the exciting news of a significant grant from our own ER-D. They are just starting the planning process to find out what the best ways to use the funds made available might be.
These are two very capable people. They took Ned and I in hand, walked us through the present program of the Diocese and what they hoped for the future. They have so many needs. They are struggling to find ways to transport the visiting nurses to the home hospice patients. They are trying to find sources of medicine for the sick. They are trying to teach the people of the parishes how to care for those dying of AIDS in the community.
We planned our visits for the next 3 days. We will have a chance to visit with technical people to consult on the real communication needs of the area. We will meet with clergy who are running important AIDS outreach ministries. We have a meeting with the US Ambassador on Thursday. We plan to meet back with the Bishop on Friday to debrief and plan together what the next steps might be.
I'm off to write up my diary of the day... There's so much more to report than I have time to write now. I'm keeping a daily report so that I can keep all the details and the nuances straight. There's so much happening.
Long day so far today.
(By way of explanation let me mention that computer I'm using to write the entries only gives me 30 minutes of time and has an old keyboard that has - shall we say - issues. I apologize for the paucity of detail - and the spelling and grammar. I don't have time to write and check. Hopefully these can be considered a do it yourself editing project. Grin.)
I met with Bishop Meshack today. It was wonderful to see him again. I brought him a laptop computer for his use and a whole pile of pens. I need to give away almost 75 pens a day. (I brought along close to 750 in total.) I'd fallen behind over the weekend, but I'm back on quota again.
We had a long conversation and then went to lunch at the diocesan convention center. Bishop invited me to stay there for the rest of my visit, but the thought of trying to move all the supplies that I brought for distribution again made me decline his generous offer. I did have a chance to meet with Fr. Shelby who is the Conf. Center manager. We spoke with him and the bishop about the possibility of building a computer and internet training center at the site for use by the clergy and people of the diocese and as a site for local youth to continue their computer training as well. It looks like a real possibility and is frankly quite exciting.
I keep telling people that they must share their story with the rest of the world. This new center, if we can make it come true, will give the people of the Diocese that chance. We have a lot of work to do find out the total costs of the project etc... but once it's up and running Bishop Meshack has already found a plan to make it sustainable.
Sustainable is the word of the day. It's easy to start a program and to do something once. It's much harder to make a program continue from year to year. Many grants are for start up funds only... when the funds run out, often the program ends. We are looking at ways to make whatever program we put in place work and work over a long period of time. Sustainability.
Bishop told us of his dream to work with the Mother's Union here to provide a place for children orphaned through AIDS to have a chance to spend the weekend nights together. These children are ostracized by their school peers because their parents died of AIDS. They have no one to play with and no one to talk to. The Mother's Union in the Diocese brings these children together on the weekend and feeds them, teaches them basic life skills like cooking and mending, and gives them a chance to play with each other. It's the only opportunity these children have to be children during their week. The Bishop is dreaming of finding the funds to construct a residence for the children so that they don't have to go home on Saturday night and will be able to spend more time with each other instead - and have as a result a greater taste of normal relationships than otherwise are possible.
Ned and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the two extraordinary woman who are coordinating the Diocesan AIDS ministry. They have just received the exciting news of a significant grant from our own ER-D. They are just starting the planning process to find out what the best ways to use the funds made available might be.
These are two very capable people. They took Ned and I in hand, walked us through the present program of the Diocese and what they hoped for the future. They have so many needs. They are struggling to find ways to transport the visiting nurses to the home hospice patients. They are trying to find sources of medicine for the sick. They are trying to teach the people of the parishes how to care for those dying of AIDS in the community.
We planned our visits for the next 3 days. We will have a chance to visit with technical people to consult on the real communication needs of the area. We will meet with clergy who are running important AIDS outreach ministries. We have a meeting with the US Ambassador on Thursday. We plan to meet back with the Bishop on Friday to debrief and plan together what the next steps might be.
I'm off to write up my diary of the day... There's so much more to report than I have time to write now. I'm keeping a daily report so that I can keep all the details and the nuances straight. There's so much happening.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Swaziland Day 4
Let me apologize for any errors in people’s names in this note. I’m spelling the phonetically and I’m meeting so many people that I’m not able to keep up with writing them down as I hear them. I promise to go back over this with Ned and try to fix my mistakes.
It was sunny this morning. Apparently this is going to be the last time that I have a chance to see the sun. It is supposed to be rainy and cold for the rest of the week. (I had a chance to see Orion again last night, but did not see the Southern Cross. It was still cloudy to the south.) I’m hoping that I will eventually have a chance to see it this trip.
We started this morning having breakfast with Kbeile here at the Inn. She was originally trained as a nurse and has worked for years in community health here in the country. She was one of the original people behind Swazi Hospice at Home – the group that we supported with the last container project. She left Swazi Hospice at Home and began working for the UN as part of the AIDS and Woman’s health programs. She is presently the Southern Africa Regional Director of a support network for woman living with HIV. (She is HIV positive but is still symptom free.)
She was able to meet with us only for an hour since she has other meetings this morning. She is the first person I have met here who knows both the King and the Queen Mother. She spoke of her conversations with them about the problems of AIDS in the Kingdom.
Ned asked her to tell me of the work that she has done in this region and of her own personal journey as a woman living with HIV in Southern Africa. It’s a pretty amazing story. If I want to get the specifics and further details I know that I can get them from Ned so I just listened rather than trying to take notes.
We spoke with Kbeile about what she sees as the priorities of the work that must happen in Swaziland. She was clear that caring for women who are HIV positive must be of the primary responses to the disease in this region. She did make a persuasive argument that responding to women’s health issues in the reason was in fact a three-fold attack on the disease. If we care for the woman and make sure that she receives adequate nutrition and is taught good hygiene and personal health management skills then she will most likely remain symptom free for a long time and not need to be a consumer of the limited medical care available in the country. If you care for her and teach her how to avoid passing on the infection to her baby and children than you stop and entire disease vector and stop the spread of the infection within a family. The longer she is able to remain asymptomatic the less need she will have of other members of the community and her family to care for her, which will keep them all in the workforce providing for their families and for the GDP of the nation. Finally if you can keep her alive longer then she will be able to care for her children – which will keep them from becoming orphans and being a burden for the larger community to have to support. It is a pretty convincing argument.
Kbeile ended our meeting with a request that I find a way to furnish her with 1000 copies of “Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman’s Soul.” She said that she awoke one morning to find that God had laid the vision on her heart. She hoped that she would be able to distribute these books to women in Swaziland so that they might be able to have the same experience she did when reading it. She said that this book helped her to remember that she was much more than a person with a disease. The book and its’ stories reminded her that no matter what, she is a child of God and that as such she has great intrinsic value no matter what might be the accidents of her situation. She envisions using these books to create women’s reading groups around the nation to provide the hope that is sometimes so lacking in their lives. I wrote down the ISBN number of the book in hope that I will be able to find someone in back in the states, or a group of people who will be able to help us honor this request.
After having breakfast, we left the Inn and drove across town to the Diocesan Office. While we were there we dropped off checks for the Usuthu Mission Orphan Feeding program. Ned has a couple of checks from the Cathedral in Bethlehem as well as from other parishes. I had a check for $1,500 from our Outreach Committee. We gave them to Fr. Charles the Diocesan Council Secretary. It was lovely to see him again. We chatted about his visit to Trinity a few years ago. It was a delight to get caught up.
We left the Diocesan Office and drove back across town to the HIV/AIDS program office. There we met up again with Glenda and Gcebile (I think I have this name right – Ned gave up trying to pronounce it and is calling her “G”.) Glenda is a dynamo of energy. Her late husband was the Minister of Health for the Kingdom of Swaziland. Gcebile is the director of the program having just recently come from working with the training of Peace Corp volunteers in the Kingdom. They had a arranged for us to have a visit at St. Margaret’s Parish in Lombomba – near the King’s residence. We drove out the main road and then proceeded to get very lost. Well, not so much lost as confused. Glenda remembered that St. Margaret’s was at the end of a long and thin dirt road. The trouble was that there were many long and thin dirt roads coming off of the main road. We followed one all the way to a dead end and had to back up quite a distance before we were able to turn around in the parking lot of a local postal station. We never did find the actual road but ended up parking in the front of a row of government flats built for the local government workers. We walked around the back of the flats and found an opening in the fence that surrounded St. Margaret’s and were able to make our way into the church yard.
Inside the yard there were three woman who were cooking food for the orphan children of the neighborhood and for elderly who could not care for themselves. This is parish that Mo. Orma – the first woman ordained priest in the Diocese of Swaziland presently serves. Sadly Mo. Orma was not present for our visit as she was working at another place to the south of us. I hope to eventually meet her. I took a number of pictures of the soup kitchen that the parish runs and plan to show them to Deacon Liz back at Trinity. It’s quite a different set up. The kitchen consists of two iron pots over an open fire. The food is cooked outside and then because of the rain today it is served inside within the old structure of the previous church. There are benches and tables inside for the children to sit on while they are eating, and it appears that the older building is used as a Sunday School as well. There were two dogs sleeping in the vestibule of the building.
I asked the little boys who were playing soccer in the front yard if I could take their picture. They immediately ran over and lined up just like a soccer team would. They were very proud of their orange soccer ball. They had managed to turn the church yard into a soccer field and were having a rousing game. I didn’t understand the boys as they spoke and argued with each other during the game as they were speaking Siswati. I asked Glecbile what they were talking about. She said that some of the boys were accusing the other boys of cheating and that the goal they claimed to have scored shouldn’t count. Children are children no matter where you find them.
I had a chance to go inside the newly built church of St. Margaret’s. It still had the Christmas decorations hanging near the altar. The pews were long enough that I was told the parish could regularly seat 100 people on a Sunday morning. I looked around in the vestry and in the sacristy as well and took lots of pictures. I’m hoping that I can find a way to post some of these later on today. Perhaps I can figure out a way to use the computers at the Inn to post them to my blog site.
After our brief visit to church we made our way home as the clouds had opened up and it was beginning to rain quite hard. I was glad to know that the children and the elderly of the parish we had just visited would be able to seek shelter inside the old church building.
On the way home we discussed the role of men and women in society today. I told them of my learning to cook last year when my wife Karen had broken her ankle and required to stay off her feet for a few months. We talked about our children and of what their school lessons were like and how they were growing up and becoming more and more independent. It was a lovely chance to hear about the every day life of the people of the beautiful country.
I’m writing this now here back at the Inn. Ned is coming to collect me in an hour or so to go back into town and have a meeting with his son-in-law Julian and a coworker of his. Julian owns and founded Computronics the original computer firm in Mbabane. We will be talking about what sort of requirements will need to be met if we hope to put up a computer training center at the Diocesan Conference Center.
I made arrangements this morning to purchase a pay-as-you go dialup internet account for my use during this stay. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to swing by the ISP’s office later on today and pick up the account information.
Tonight I have a meeting with the local Rotary Club in Malkerns that was so instrumental in helping us make the previous Container project a success. Our Rotary Club in Bethlehem has been given money again by the good people of Just Born in Bethlehem for the shipping of another container. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make some plans tonight about this upcoming project. I also want to say thank you to the men of this club who worked so hard to make sure the previous container was delivered.
Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this account later tonight.
Let me apologize for any errors in people’s names in this note. I’m spelling the phonetically and I’m meeting so many people that I’m not able to keep up with writing them down as I hear them. I promise to go back over this with Ned and try to fix my mistakes.
It was sunny this morning. Apparently this is going to be the last time that I have a chance to see the sun. It is supposed to be rainy and cold for the rest of the week. (I had a chance to see Orion again last night, but did not see the Southern Cross. It was still cloudy to the south.) I’m hoping that I will eventually have a chance to see it this trip.
We started this morning having breakfast with Kbeile here at the Inn. She was originally trained as a nurse and has worked for years in community health here in the country. She was one of the original people behind Swazi Hospice at Home – the group that we supported with the last container project. She left Swazi Hospice at Home and began working for the UN as part of the AIDS and Woman’s health programs. She is presently the Southern Africa Regional Director of a support network for woman living with HIV. (She is HIV positive but is still symptom free.)
She was able to meet with us only for an hour since she has other meetings this morning. She is the first person I have met here who knows both the King and the Queen Mother. She spoke of her conversations with them about the problems of AIDS in the Kingdom.
Ned asked her to tell me of the work that she has done in this region and of her own personal journey as a woman living with HIV in Southern Africa. It’s a pretty amazing story. If I want to get the specifics and further details I know that I can get them from Ned so I just listened rather than trying to take notes.
We spoke with Kbeile about what she sees as the priorities of the work that must happen in Swaziland. She was clear that caring for women who are HIV positive must be of the primary responses to the disease in this region. She did make a persuasive argument that responding to women’s health issues in the reason was in fact a three-fold attack on the disease. If we care for the woman and make sure that she receives adequate nutrition and is taught good hygiene and personal health management skills then she will most likely remain symptom free for a long time and not need to be a consumer of the limited medical care available in the country. If you care for her and teach her how to avoid passing on the infection to her baby and children than you stop and entire disease vector and stop the spread of the infection within a family. The longer she is able to remain asymptomatic the less need she will have of other members of the community and her family to care for her, which will keep them all in the workforce providing for their families and for the GDP of the nation. Finally if you can keep her alive longer then she will be able to care for her children – which will keep them from becoming orphans and being a burden for the larger community to have to support. It is a pretty convincing argument.
Kbeile ended our meeting with a request that I find a way to furnish her with 1000 copies of “Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman’s Soul.” She said that she awoke one morning to find that God had laid the vision on her heart. She hoped that she would be able to distribute these books to women in Swaziland so that they might be able to have the same experience she did when reading it. She said that this book helped her to remember that she was much more than a person with a disease. The book and its’ stories reminded her that no matter what, she is a child of God and that as such she has great intrinsic value no matter what might be the accidents of her situation. She envisions using these books to create women’s reading groups around the nation to provide the hope that is sometimes so lacking in their lives. I wrote down the ISBN number of the book in hope that I will be able to find someone in back in the states, or a group of people who will be able to help us honor this request.
After having breakfast, we left the Inn and drove across town to the Diocesan Office. While we were there we dropped off checks for the Usuthu Mission Orphan Feeding program. Ned has a couple of checks from the Cathedral in Bethlehem as well as from other parishes. I had a check for $1,500 from our Outreach Committee. We gave them to Fr. Charles the Diocesan Council Secretary. It was lovely to see him again. We chatted about his visit to Trinity a few years ago. It was a delight to get caught up.
We left the Diocesan Office and drove back across town to the HIV/AIDS program office. There we met up again with Glenda and Gcebile (I think I have this name right – Ned gave up trying to pronounce it and is calling her “G”.) Glenda is a dynamo of energy. Her late husband was the Minister of Health for the Kingdom of Swaziland. Gcebile is the director of the program having just recently come from working with the training of Peace Corp volunteers in the Kingdom. They had a arranged for us to have a visit at St. Margaret’s Parish in Lombomba – near the King’s residence. We drove out the main road and then proceeded to get very lost. Well, not so much lost as confused. Glenda remembered that St. Margaret’s was at the end of a long and thin dirt road. The trouble was that there were many long and thin dirt roads coming off of the main road. We followed one all the way to a dead end and had to back up quite a distance before we were able to turn around in the parking lot of a local postal station. We never did find the actual road but ended up parking in the front of a row of government flats built for the local government workers. We walked around the back of the flats and found an opening in the fence that surrounded St. Margaret’s and were able to make our way into the church yard.
Inside the yard there were three woman who were cooking food for the orphan children of the neighborhood and for elderly who could not care for themselves. This is parish that Mo. Orma – the first woman ordained priest in the Diocese of Swaziland presently serves. Sadly Mo. Orma was not present for our visit as she was working at another place to the south of us. I hope to eventually meet her. I took a number of pictures of the soup kitchen that the parish runs and plan to show them to Deacon Liz back at Trinity. It’s quite a different set up. The kitchen consists of two iron pots over an open fire. The food is cooked outside and then because of the rain today it is served inside within the old structure of the previous church. There are benches and tables inside for the children to sit on while they are eating, and it appears that the older building is used as a Sunday School as well. There were two dogs sleeping in the vestibule of the building.
I asked the little boys who were playing soccer in the front yard if I could take their picture. They immediately ran over and lined up just like a soccer team would. They were very proud of their orange soccer ball. They had managed to turn the church yard into a soccer field and were having a rousing game. I didn’t understand the boys as they spoke and argued with each other during the game as they were speaking Siswati. I asked Glecbile what they were talking about. She said that some of the boys were accusing the other boys of cheating and that the goal they claimed to have scored shouldn’t count. Children are children no matter where you find them.
I had a chance to go inside the newly built church of St. Margaret’s. It still had the Christmas decorations hanging near the altar. The pews were long enough that I was told the parish could regularly seat 100 people on a Sunday morning. I looked around in the vestry and in the sacristy as well and took lots of pictures. I’m hoping that I can find a way to post some of these later on today. Perhaps I can figure out a way to use the computers at the Inn to post them to my blog site.
After our brief visit to church we made our way home as the clouds had opened up and it was beginning to rain quite hard. I was glad to know that the children and the elderly of the parish we had just visited would be able to seek shelter inside the old church building.
On the way home we discussed the role of men and women in society today. I told them of my learning to cook last year when my wife Karen had broken her ankle and required to stay off her feet for a few months. We talked about our children and of what their school lessons were like and how they were growing up and becoming more and more independent. It was a lovely chance to hear about the every day life of the people of the beautiful country.
I’m writing this now here back at the Inn. Ned is coming to collect me in an hour or so to go back into town and have a meeting with his son-in-law Julian and a coworker of his. Julian owns and founded Computronics the original computer firm in Mbabane. We will be talking about what sort of requirements will need to be met if we hope to put up a computer training center at the Diocesan Conference Center.
I made arrangements this morning to purchase a pay-as-you go dialup internet account for my use during this stay. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to swing by the ISP’s office later on today and pick up the account information.
Tonight I have a meeting with the local Rotary Club in Malkerns that was so instrumental in helping us make the previous Container project a success. Our Rotary Club in Bethlehem has been given money again by the good people of Just Born in Bethlehem for the shipping of another container. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make some plans tonight about this upcoming project. I also want to say thank you to the men of this club who worked so hard to make sure the previous container was delivered.
Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this account later tonight.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Swaziland Day 5
Well.
I apologize for missing an entire day’s update, but I’ve been running flat out since early yesterday morning and this is the first chance that I’ve had to get myself caught up.
Ned and I left the hotel early yesterday morning (about 7:30 AM) and drove the Leyango Clinic in Malkerns. (This is the region of the Usuthu parish and the where the Rotary Club meeting that I attended on Wednesday night was as well. … Just a brief note about Rotary – it was amazing to me how similar their meeting was to the various Rotary meetings that I’ve attended around Pennsylvania. They had the same kidding with each other, the same basic meeting outline and the same quiet commitment to make their community a better place for all. This particular club – the Malkerns Club – has been instrumental in working with the club I belong to in Bethlehem to assist us with moving the containers of medical and hospice supplies that we’ve been sending to Swaziland. I had a chance to thank Glyn for all the work that he personally has done in helping us out moving the containers from Durban into the Kingdom itself.)
The Leyango Clinic is the place that Ned (Dr. Wallace when he’s there) is most excited. It’s an extraordinary example of community based health care. The region of Leyango is one of the most organized in Swaziland in responding to the HIV/AIDS situation as well as the other more traditional public health issues. The people of the region formed a clinic committee some years ago to construct a larger, more modern clinic building than the one that presently exists. The present building was designed to house a single nurse and family and it is seeing almost 200 people a day and 300 on a heavy day. The patients had been lining up early in the morning to make sure that they would have a chance to be seen and when we arrived at 8:00 AM they were just finishing up the opening ritual of the clinic. (They sang and had a moment of teaching about health issues of concern to the local community.) By the time I had a chance to meet with the Chair and the Vice-Chair of the clinic committee and take a tour the treatment areas, they were already in full use.
The patients treated at the clinic are all out-patients. They arrive by foot or by bus all through the day. They are dropped off on the side of the road that runs along the side of the clinic. (There’s no parking area for people to use when picking up or leaving patients – though one is planned after the new clinic building is completed.) While I was there a number of mothers brought their children for check-ups, immunizations, scheduled assessment visits and more acute needs. Space is at a premium. The dental area is a sheet that is pulled along beside a dentists chair in the same small room that is being used to dress wounds and counsel patients. The patients have to wait outside in an area with no shelter after their wounds are dressed before they can be given their final instructions and be discharged. In spite of the crowding, this clinic is one of, if not the most, active clinics in the Kingdom due to the fine care that is provided by the staff. Unfortunately the fine care brings patients in from a larger catchment area and makes the space issue even worse.
We walked across the narrow muddy yard to the new, more modern clinic that is being constructed. Some of you know of this clinic already. This is place that was built by the community to respond to their own community’s needs. It is built out of cement blocks, manufactured onsite by the people of the community themselves using block making machines purchased by a donation given to Dr. Wallace. The clinic is almost finished with a new rough given to the community by a grant from the previous US Ambassador. At this point the wiring was being finished, the concrete floors were being poured and the final interior work was beginning.
After a tour of the facility the clinic committee meeting was called to order in one of the soon to be finished rooms of the new clinic. We sat around the walls of the room on benches. We used an old medical exam table covered by a blanket as a board room table. The circumstances might have been a bit improvised but the level of discussion around the room and spirit of the meeting was basically the same as any Hospital Board meeting that I have attended back in the States. We had opening remarks by the chair, an introduction of Ned and me (though Ned is well known and respected by the people of the clinic) and the normal sort of business. The Committee discussed the possibility of setting an target date for the opening of the clinic. (To tell the truth though, the space in the new building is already being used, even before it is able to be painted because space is at such a premium in the old building. While we met, mothers with infants had the regular baby exams in the soon to be finished waiting area of the new clinic.)
Ned was able to announce the happy news that he had brought funds with him from the US that would enable to the clinic committee to purchase doors for the rooms of the clinic – an important need to ensure patient privacy. We talked about commitments people in the government had made to provide for the cost of paint for the walls and to pay for the final hook up of electrical service. We talked at some length about the need to find funding to purchase furniture for the new building. (The old building will be immediately put to use supporting other public health work in the area and the furniture in there will continue to be used.) There is need of couches, benches, desks, tables, examination tables, cabinets etc. The committee discussed various options for raising the funds, but was not able to take action on any of them at the meeting.
Following the meeting Ned took a few moments to consult with the head nurse and other members of the staff of the clinic. I had a chance to wander around, take pictures and just observe.
From the Clinic we traveled a bit further down the road. I was given an opportunity to meet the local Chief of the Leyango region. His English name is Peter – I’m afraid I have no hope of trying to spell out his Siswati name. He and Ned are old friends. Ned pointed out the roof on the corn mill building as we drove up the road to the Chief’s compound and mentioned that he had paid for that roof last year as part of his Christian tithe in the community. We arrived at a great spreading tree in the center of the present compound. (The Chief is building a new house and will soon move from where he is living at the moment.) While we waited under the tree to greet the chief, one of his relatives (who served as the secretary of the Clinic Committee meeting) explained the new feeding program that the Chief was putting in place in his compound for the Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) of the neighborhood. He is having a traditional big house built in a style similar to the old ways where the children of the region can gather daily to be fed and receive instruction in the Swazi culture and regular life skills (such as gardening, cooking, mending etc…) This is one of the examples of the way that the traditional Swazi government (the King and the Chiefs of the Kingdom) are working with other agencies to respond to the rising numbers of OVC’s in the area.
Ned was delighted to see that the Chief came out to great us in special dress. “He did this just for us” Ned whispered as the Chief came out of his house wearing western garb. As the Chief came closer Ned started to laugh because the Chief was wearing a necktie that Ned and Emily had given to him the previous year. The Chief greeted us, and welcomed Ned back to the region. We walked over the new construction and feeding center and the Chief showed us the plans and explained how the facility would work. We made him a gift of pens that I had brought with me and apologized for the short visit. Ned promised to return for a longer more proper visit the following week after I’ve returned to the States.
On the way back down to the main road from the Chief’s compound his cousin explained to us how she had put on a Christmas party for the OVC’s of the area. She talked about going to local merchants for donations, visiting local families to ask for gifts and working to make a small parcel for each of the children so that they would have a gift at Christmastime. It is exactly the same thing Deacon Elizabeth does back in my parish for the children who are guests of our parish Soup Kitchen.
We left the Leyango region and returned to Mbabane to pick up the staff of the Anglican HIV/AIDS program. From Mbabane we drove to Manzini to meet with some of the National leadership of the Mother’s Union. We met in one of their facilities just outside of town near where the new Swazi stadium complex is being built. The Bishop’s wife Lucy was present at the meeting and it was joy to greet her again. (We had met each other on the occasion of the Bishop’s Palm Sunday visit to us in Bethlehem a few years ago.)
We heard more details about the OVC program that Mother’s Union was starting in the Diocese. This is the same program that Bishop Meshack talked to us about at lunch on Monday afternoon at the Diocesan Conference Center. We heard about how the children, ages 8 to 12 at present, are brought to the center, fed, played with and educated by volunteers from the Mother’s Union. The director of the program talked about the need to provide psycho-social support and structure for children who had lost both parents to AIDS and about the special issues that their guests were experiencing. We talked about plans for the future and about the sort of funds that might be needed to expand the program and complete its effectiveness.
It is very impressive work that is being done, but in way similar to the experience of the Leyango Clinic, the success of the project is bringing additional challenges that need to be overcome. Children are arriving earlier and earlier on the weekend. Some children are not able to attend regularly because they don’t have the money to pay the bus fare to travel from their relatives homes to the place where the program is housed. The needs are so great across the Dioceses that it thought that this ultimately be a pilot project to be duplicated in other areas around the Kingdom.
From Manzini we returned to Mbabane and dropped of Glenda and G. from the Diocesan HIV/AIDS program. We drove back out to Usuthu parish and had a chance to meet again with Fr. Josiah, the parish Wardens and members of the parish Council as well as members of the Parish AIDS response Committee. A dear friend of Ned’s, a priest who had served his internship at Usuthu and was now assigned as Rector of Pigg’s Peak Parish, had traveled back to be with us for the meeting.
We talked about the specifics of the parish program, how it had developed over the years and where it might be headed. We heard about the challenges of the providing school fees for OVC’s – how schools were occasionally claiming that fees which had been paid were not paid, how some schools were collecting fees from two or three sources for one child and how some children were not taking the opportunity of their education seriously. We heard how important it has been for the parish committee to keep close contact with the school and the teacher, filling the role that would normally be expected of the child’s parents. We heard how often the parish committee becomes the child’s only advocate in the system. We talked about the many successes they had experienced and the failures as well.
We discussed the experience of the parish Care teams who work with people in the local region suffering at home with AIDS. The parish sets up teams of four people and assignes them to each client. The team rotates to provide regular (daily!) visits to the patient. They shared with us the difficulty in recruiting people to form new teams as the work load expected of each member of the team is very significant. We talked frankly about the real difficulties experienced by the teams. We talked about the need that each team has for more access to transportation – which is the same need experienced by the clergy of the parish. Many times it becomes impossible to provide basic Christian pastoral care to parishioners as they are dying because the clergy and volunteers can not find a transport to the client.
We ended our two hour meeting with a prayer. Ned and I drove back into Mbabane. I think I got back to my room at the Inn around 10:00 or so. It was a long but very good day. I think I see more clearly some of the hard challenges facing the Swazi people and their Church as they respond to the AIDS situation. And sadly the news is going to get worse. While the rate of infection has leveled off, the death rate, which lags about six to ten years behind, will continue to grow geometrically for roughly the same period of time into the future.
Well.
I apologize for missing an entire day’s update, but I’ve been running flat out since early yesterday morning and this is the first chance that I’ve had to get myself caught up.
Ned and I left the hotel early yesterday morning (about 7:30 AM) and drove the Leyango Clinic in Malkerns. (This is the region of the Usuthu parish and the where the Rotary Club meeting that I attended on Wednesday night was as well. … Just a brief note about Rotary – it was amazing to me how similar their meeting was to the various Rotary meetings that I’ve attended around Pennsylvania. They had the same kidding with each other, the same basic meeting outline and the same quiet commitment to make their community a better place for all. This particular club – the Malkerns Club – has been instrumental in working with the club I belong to in Bethlehem to assist us with moving the containers of medical and hospice supplies that we’ve been sending to Swaziland. I had a chance to thank Glyn for all the work that he personally has done in helping us out moving the containers from Durban into the Kingdom itself.)
The Leyango Clinic is the place that Ned (Dr. Wallace when he’s there) is most excited. It’s an extraordinary example of community based health care. The region of Leyango is one of the most organized in Swaziland in responding to the HIV/AIDS situation as well as the other more traditional public health issues. The people of the region formed a clinic committee some years ago to construct a larger, more modern clinic building than the one that presently exists. The present building was designed to house a single nurse and family and it is seeing almost 200 people a day and 300 on a heavy day. The patients had been lining up early in the morning to make sure that they would have a chance to be seen and when we arrived at 8:00 AM they were just finishing up the opening ritual of the clinic. (They sang and had a moment of teaching about health issues of concern to the local community.) By the time I had a chance to meet with the Chair and the Vice-Chair of the clinic committee and take a tour the treatment areas, they were already in full use.
The patients treated at the clinic are all out-patients. They arrive by foot or by bus all through the day. They are dropped off on the side of the road that runs along the side of the clinic. (There’s no parking area for people to use when picking up or leaving patients – though one is planned after the new clinic building is completed.) While I was there a number of mothers brought their children for check-ups, immunizations, scheduled assessment visits and more acute needs. Space is at a premium. The dental area is a sheet that is pulled along beside a dentists chair in the same small room that is being used to dress wounds and counsel patients. The patients have to wait outside in an area with no shelter after their wounds are dressed before they can be given their final instructions and be discharged. In spite of the crowding, this clinic is one of, if not the most, active clinics in the Kingdom due to the fine care that is provided by the staff. Unfortunately the fine care brings patients in from a larger catchment area and makes the space issue even worse.
We walked across the narrow muddy yard to the new, more modern clinic that is being constructed. Some of you know of this clinic already. This is place that was built by the community to respond to their own community’s needs. It is built out of cement blocks, manufactured onsite by the people of the community themselves using block making machines purchased by a donation given to Dr. Wallace. The clinic is almost finished with a new rough given to the community by a grant from the previous US Ambassador. At this point the wiring was being finished, the concrete floors were being poured and the final interior work was beginning.
After a tour of the facility the clinic committee meeting was called to order in one of the soon to be finished rooms of the new clinic. We sat around the walls of the room on benches. We used an old medical exam table covered by a blanket as a board room table. The circumstances might have been a bit improvised but the level of discussion around the room and spirit of the meeting was basically the same as any Hospital Board meeting that I have attended back in the States. We had opening remarks by the chair, an introduction of Ned and me (though Ned is well known and respected by the people of the clinic) and the normal sort of business. The Committee discussed the possibility of setting an target date for the opening of the clinic. (To tell the truth though, the space in the new building is already being used, even before it is able to be painted because space is at such a premium in the old building. While we met, mothers with infants had the regular baby exams in the soon to be finished waiting area of the new clinic.)
Ned was able to announce the happy news that he had brought funds with him from the US that would enable to the clinic committee to purchase doors for the rooms of the clinic – an important need to ensure patient privacy. We talked about commitments people in the government had made to provide for the cost of paint for the walls and to pay for the final hook up of electrical service. We talked at some length about the need to find funding to purchase furniture for the new building. (The old building will be immediately put to use supporting other public health work in the area and the furniture in there will continue to be used.) There is need of couches, benches, desks, tables, examination tables, cabinets etc. The committee discussed various options for raising the funds, but was not able to take action on any of them at the meeting.
Following the meeting Ned took a few moments to consult with the head nurse and other members of the staff of the clinic. I had a chance to wander around, take pictures and just observe.
From the Clinic we traveled a bit further down the road. I was given an opportunity to meet the local Chief of the Leyango region. His English name is Peter – I’m afraid I have no hope of trying to spell out his Siswati name. He and Ned are old friends. Ned pointed out the roof on the corn mill building as we drove up the road to the Chief’s compound and mentioned that he had paid for that roof last year as part of his Christian tithe in the community. We arrived at a great spreading tree in the center of the present compound. (The Chief is building a new house and will soon move from where he is living at the moment.) While we waited under the tree to greet the chief, one of his relatives (who served as the secretary of the Clinic Committee meeting) explained the new feeding program that the Chief was putting in place in his compound for the Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) of the neighborhood. He is having a traditional big house built in a style similar to the old ways where the children of the region can gather daily to be fed and receive instruction in the Swazi culture and regular life skills (such as gardening, cooking, mending etc…) This is one of the examples of the way that the traditional Swazi government (the King and the Chiefs of the Kingdom) are working with other agencies to respond to the rising numbers of OVC’s in the area.
Ned was delighted to see that the Chief came out to great us in special dress. “He did this just for us” Ned whispered as the Chief came out of his house wearing western garb. As the Chief came closer Ned started to laugh because the Chief was wearing a necktie that Ned and Emily had given to him the previous year. The Chief greeted us, and welcomed Ned back to the region. We walked over the new construction and feeding center and the Chief showed us the plans and explained how the facility would work. We made him a gift of pens that I had brought with me and apologized for the short visit. Ned promised to return for a longer more proper visit the following week after I’ve returned to the States.
On the way back down to the main road from the Chief’s compound his cousin explained to us how she had put on a Christmas party for the OVC’s of the area. She talked about going to local merchants for donations, visiting local families to ask for gifts and working to make a small parcel for each of the children so that they would have a gift at Christmastime. It is exactly the same thing Deacon Elizabeth does back in my parish for the children who are guests of our parish Soup Kitchen.
We left the Leyango region and returned to Mbabane to pick up the staff of the Anglican HIV/AIDS program. From Mbabane we drove to Manzini to meet with some of the National leadership of the Mother’s Union. We met in one of their facilities just outside of town near where the new Swazi stadium complex is being built. The Bishop’s wife Lucy was present at the meeting and it was joy to greet her again. (We had met each other on the occasion of the Bishop’s Palm Sunday visit to us in Bethlehem a few years ago.)
We heard more details about the OVC program that Mother’s Union was starting in the Diocese. This is the same program that Bishop Meshack talked to us about at lunch on Monday afternoon at the Diocesan Conference Center. We heard about how the children, ages 8 to 12 at present, are brought to the center, fed, played with and educated by volunteers from the Mother’s Union. The director of the program talked about the need to provide psycho-social support and structure for children who had lost both parents to AIDS and about the special issues that their guests were experiencing. We talked about plans for the future and about the sort of funds that might be needed to expand the program and complete its effectiveness.
It is very impressive work that is being done, but in way similar to the experience of the Leyango Clinic, the success of the project is bringing additional challenges that need to be overcome. Children are arriving earlier and earlier on the weekend. Some children are not able to attend regularly because they don’t have the money to pay the bus fare to travel from their relatives homes to the place where the program is housed. The needs are so great across the Dioceses that it thought that this ultimately be a pilot project to be duplicated in other areas around the Kingdom.
From Manzini we returned to Mbabane and dropped of Glenda and G. from the Diocesan HIV/AIDS program. We drove back out to Usuthu parish and had a chance to meet again with Fr. Josiah, the parish Wardens and members of the parish Council as well as members of the Parish AIDS response Committee. A dear friend of Ned’s, a priest who had served his internship at Usuthu and was now assigned as Rector of Pigg’s Peak Parish, had traveled back to be with us for the meeting.
We talked about the specifics of the parish program, how it had developed over the years and where it might be headed. We heard about the challenges of the providing school fees for OVC’s – how schools were occasionally claiming that fees which had been paid were not paid, how some schools were collecting fees from two or three sources for one child and how some children were not taking the opportunity of their education seriously. We heard how important it has been for the parish committee to keep close contact with the school and the teacher, filling the role that would normally be expected of the child’s parents. We heard how often the parish committee becomes the child’s only advocate in the system. We talked about the many successes they had experienced and the failures as well.
We discussed the experience of the parish Care teams who work with people in the local region suffering at home with AIDS. The parish sets up teams of four people and assignes them to each client. The team rotates to provide regular (daily!) visits to the patient. They shared with us the difficulty in recruiting people to form new teams as the work load expected of each member of the team is very significant. We talked frankly about the real difficulties experienced by the teams. We talked about the need that each team has for more access to transportation – which is the same need experienced by the clergy of the parish. Many times it becomes impossible to provide basic Christian pastoral care to parishioners as they are dying because the clergy and volunteers can not find a transport to the client.
We ended our two hour meeting with a prayer. Ned and I drove back into Mbabane. I think I got back to my room at the Inn around 10:00 or so. It was a long but very good day. I think I see more clearly some of the hard challenges facing the Swazi people and their Church as they respond to the AIDS situation. And sadly the news is going to get worse. While the rate of infection has leveled off, the death rate, which lags about six to ten years behind, will continue to grow geometrically for roughly the same period of time into the future.
Swaziland Day 6
I slept in a bit this morning, trying to catch my breath after the long day we had yesterday. I bought a paper and read it this morning over breakfast. Yesterday as we drove home from Manzini we had seen a totally demolished mini bus being taken up the roadway toward Mbabane. The news papers reported that it had been wrecked yesterday afternoon in the rains that we had been driving in all day. The bus had been filled with over 35 people. The driver had attempted to drive a across a flooded bridge against the pleas of the passengers locked inside. While attempting to cross the bridge, the engine had stalled. A flash flood occurred at just that moment and carried the entire bus downstream rolling it on the rocks as it went. At this point 12 people are thought to be dead, though not all the bodies have been recovered.
The newspaper was full of pictures of bystanders who had rushed into the river to try to save people caught on the bus. The fact that only a third of the people on the bus had died is a testimony to the heroism of the Swazi people. I am convinced that these are some of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I hear story after story of how they will risk everything to help someone who is in need. It’s so frustrating to hear though how their attempts to respond to the present AIDS crisis are being thwarted because of a lack of material support.
Ned and I had a meeting with the new US Ambassador this morning in Mbabane. Lewis Lucke has been in station now for about 4 months. He is a career government official and this is his tenth overseas posting. His background is in USAID and working in the developing world. He’s very impressive. It’s one of those instances of our government doing the right thing at the right moment.
Ned and I introduced ourselves and explained the purpose of our visit to Swaziland. We talked about our impressions so far, and the Ambassador shared his. He was able to show us the present level of the response that is coming from US Government agencies such as the CDC, the Dept. of Labor, the DOD, Global Fund contributions, etc. It’s an impressive and gratifying list – but it is not enough to fully respond to the present AIDS situation, much less the intensification that is expected as the death rate continues to rise as well as the numbers of orphans.
The Ambassador was very helpful in pointing us in the direction of various agencies that the Swazi and US NGO’s working in the area can apply to for funds. We talked at length about the practical matters that are ahead for the Kingdom.
I left the Ambassador’s office and I was reminded of a visit I made as part of our Diocesan World Mission Committee to Washington DC a few years ago. We visited with senators and representatives to speak out for the persecuted Christians of the Sudan. I recall that when we met with Senator Spector and Brownbeck as well representatives of the Foreign Service we found that they were well aware of situation and spoke to us of what they thought they might be able to do, and what they were pretty sure they would not be able to do. I came away from that visit feeling hopeful about the way our Government manages to work despite the daily friction that it experiences. I feel the same way today leaving the Ambassador’s office.
After meeting with the Ambassador we had a lunch meeting with the new director of a Swazi NGO that has strong Anglican roots. The NGO was founded by Deacon Pat Wright a few years ago while she was living in the Kingdom and is now headed by an Anglican priest, though its work is presently ecumenical in nature. This organization works to train and empower community groups around the Kingdom to develop local solutions to the needs of the dying and the responsibility of caring for OVC’s. They train local care givers to look after Hospice patients in their own community – eliminating the need for transportation that we are hearing repeated again and again. They also teach local groups to create community gardens using traditional methods of Swazi farming. They teach the old way of creating compost trenches and using the compost to keep the soil from being exhausted by over cultivation. It’s a much more effective and long term solution than using manure for fertilization as is presently employed here.
The program is quite successful and has plans to expand if they are able to find the funding. At present they are hampered by the need for additional vehicles before they can form new teams to go out into the countryside. They have recently received a grant of around $2000 from the Diocese of Iowa and will use that to purchase needed supplies. We were told of the need for Adult diapers for those in the terminal stages of AIDS. I’m hoping that we might a source for such things and will be able to include them in the next container of medical supplies being sent over later this year by Rotary, Church and Community organizations in Bethlehem.
I need to bring this to a close now. I’m hoping to get this posted before dinner. I’m having a chance to visit with Bishop Meshack and Lucy tonight and get caught up on what has been happening in our lives since last we met.
I slept in a bit this morning, trying to catch my breath after the long day we had yesterday. I bought a paper and read it this morning over breakfast. Yesterday as we drove home from Manzini we had seen a totally demolished mini bus being taken up the roadway toward Mbabane. The news papers reported that it had been wrecked yesterday afternoon in the rains that we had been driving in all day. The bus had been filled with over 35 people. The driver had attempted to drive a across a flooded bridge against the pleas of the passengers locked inside. While attempting to cross the bridge, the engine had stalled. A flash flood occurred at just that moment and carried the entire bus downstream rolling it on the rocks as it went. At this point 12 people are thought to be dead, though not all the bodies have been recovered.
The newspaper was full of pictures of bystanders who had rushed into the river to try to save people caught on the bus. The fact that only a third of the people on the bus had died is a testimony to the heroism of the Swazi people. I am convinced that these are some of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I hear story after story of how they will risk everything to help someone who is in need. It’s so frustrating to hear though how their attempts to respond to the present AIDS crisis are being thwarted because of a lack of material support.
Ned and I had a meeting with the new US Ambassador this morning in Mbabane. Lewis Lucke has been in station now for about 4 months. He is a career government official and this is his tenth overseas posting. His background is in USAID and working in the developing world. He’s very impressive. It’s one of those instances of our government doing the right thing at the right moment.
Ned and I introduced ourselves and explained the purpose of our visit to Swaziland. We talked about our impressions so far, and the Ambassador shared his. He was able to show us the present level of the response that is coming from US Government agencies such as the CDC, the Dept. of Labor, the DOD, Global Fund contributions, etc. It’s an impressive and gratifying list – but it is not enough to fully respond to the present AIDS situation, much less the intensification that is expected as the death rate continues to rise as well as the numbers of orphans.
The Ambassador was very helpful in pointing us in the direction of various agencies that the Swazi and US NGO’s working in the area can apply to for funds. We talked at length about the practical matters that are ahead for the Kingdom.
I left the Ambassador’s office and I was reminded of a visit I made as part of our Diocesan World Mission Committee to Washington DC a few years ago. We visited with senators and representatives to speak out for the persecuted Christians of the Sudan. I recall that when we met with Senator Spector and Brownbeck as well representatives of the Foreign Service we found that they were well aware of situation and spoke to us of what they thought they might be able to do, and what they were pretty sure they would not be able to do. I came away from that visit feeling hopeful about the way our Government manages to work despite the daily friction that it experiences. I feel the same way today leaving the Ambassador’s office.
After meeting with the Ambassador we had a lunch meeting with the new director of a Swazi NGO that has strong Anglican roots. The NGO was founded by Deacon Pat Wright a few years ago while she was living in the Kingdom and is now headed by an Anglican priest, though its work is presently ecumenical in nature. This organization works to train and empower community groups around the Kingdom to develop local solutions to the needs of the dying and the responsibility of caring for OVC’s. They train local care givers to look after Hospice patients in their own community – eliminating the need for transportation that we are hearing repeated again and again. They also teach local groups to create community gardens using traditional methods of Swazi farming. They teach the old way of creating compost trenches and using the compost to keep the soil from being exhausted by over cultivation. It’s a much more effective and long term solution than using manure for fertilization as is presently employed here.
The program is quite successful and has plans to expand if they are able to find the funding. At present they are hampered by the need for additional vehicles before they can form new teams to go out into the countryside. They have recently received a grant of around $2000 from the Diocese of Iowa and will use that to purchase needed supplies. We were told of the need for Adult diapers for those in the terminal stages of AIDS. I’m hoping that we might a source for such things and will be able to include them in the next container of medical supplies being sent over later this year by Rotary, Church and Community organizations in Bethlehem.
I need to bring this to a close now. I’m hoping to get this posted before dinner. I’m having a chance to visit with Bishop Meshack and Lucy tonight and get caught up on what has been happening in our lives since last we met.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Swaziland Day 7
Another busy day. I wish I could say that it was day filled with good news and hope. It was a day when we heard of challenge after challenge that are confronting the Anglican Church in Swaziland and the people of Swaziland as they respond to the rising death toll and attendant problems of HIV/AIDS.
We traveled north this morning in the direction of Piggs Peak to the parish of St. Alban’s. We were accompanied by Glenda and “G” who have been serving as our guides and our interpreters as we travel around the Kingdom. St. Alban’s is parish that is on the same grounds as the Enkabah primary and high schools. It is the only church in for some distance in this rural region. It functions as the community parish for the area – in a way that sounds similar to the function of English parish churches in the countryside of England.
Along the way I finally saw some native African wildlife. So far all I have seen is a couple of lizards, herds of cattle and cats and dogs. Oh yes, there were two huge spiders (size of my fist) in my hotel room last night… Grin. But on the way north we saw a couple of Impalas by the road side and a number of antelopes. I still haven’t seen the Southern Cross because of the rain, but at least I can say that I’ve seen some of the biodiversity that is Africa.
We were met at St. Alban’s by Sandra, who is the program coordinator for the parish based health care teams. We talked for a couple of hours about how the program is working in the parish, and about the ways that the parish is not working. Sandra is one of many care workers that have been trained by the local Faith based organizations. She and her fellow parishioners have counterparts in the other denominations in Swaziland. There is another, governmental group of community based care givers called the RHM’s (Rural Health Motivators.) These two groups work in the Kingdom to provide training about HIV/AIDS transmission, care of patients and available services for those who need help.
The work that Sandra and her fellow care giver in the parish is heroic in the truest sense of the word. She is caring for the sick and the dying in the community. She looks after the orphans in the region and children who are now living in child-headed households. (We learned of the distinction between children who are considered double orphans (both parents dead) single orphans (one parent deceased) and “vulnerable” (who have one or the other parent sick and in the end stages of the AIDS disease).) She told us of how she asks the parishioners of St. Alban’s to donate a little cornmeal, a pumpkin or maybe a can of fish. She uses that to supplement the meager foods that the orphan children can find from other sources.
The problems come about when she tries to get others in the parish to help her. While she is committed, there were originally 17 parishioners given the training by Glenda and the Diocesan HIV/AIDS committee. There are only two still working in the parish. The others are not able to do the work because they can not afford to take time off work or can not afford to pay the transport expenses or to buy food and medicine for the sick of the parish. The RHM workers in the region are paid a small stipend to cover their expenses, but they are not working nearly as efficiently as the faith based care workers. This has caused some resentment among the faith based workers and they are as a result less willing to go out and about in the community. In a later conversation with Bishop Mabuzza he reminded all of us that this work is a ministry not a job. It is part of our response to the Jesus call on every follower to “Love you neighbor as yourself.” Hopefully in further conversation with the government agencies that support the work of the RHM’s and the various faith based groups around the Kingdom a program of proper coordination between the two networks can be developed.
We talked about ways to recognize the extraordinary ministry of the people who are providing the parish care. They are doing so much with so little that it seems only fitting to find some way to hold them up as examples to the rest of us who have not as yet managed to make the same commitment of our own time and treasure.
From St. Alban’s we traveled south again to Mbabane where we met with Bishop Meshack at the Diocesan Convention Center. We had a traditional Swazi lunch of meali-meal and gravy, beets, cabbage, and juice. Over lunch Ned, Glenda, “G.”, Lucy, Bishop Meshack and myself had a chance to debrief and discuss what had happened during the week. We worked our way backwards through the week reporting on our visit to St. Albans, the Mother’s Union facility, the Clinic and parish in Leyango, St. Margaret’s and the Usuthu Mission parish. I was able to report to the Bishop on conversations that I had earlier in the week with the owners of one of the largest computer companies in Mbabane and some research that I had managed to do on the present communications and internet infrastructure in Swaziland. We worked up with a list of next steps for all of us as I travel back to the US on Sunday morning. We finished the meeting receiving the Bishop’s thanks for us, for our families who have allowed us to travel, the parish and diocese and all who have contributed to our travel costs – and most especially to those who are already committing themselves to working with us on our return to try to implement some responses to what we have seen here.
Ned and I took an hour following the meeting to have a conversation about next steps for ourselves. We tried to prioritize what should happen and who should be responsible for what is next. It’s good to start making the transition from data gathering to reflection. It’s even more exciting to begin contemplating the more meaningful transition from reflection to action that is soon coming.
We ended the day with a long meeting at the offices of NERCHA (the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS). NERCHA is the governmental agency (under the Ministry of Health in Swaziland) that is charged with the coordination of the Kingdom’s response to the disease, and with the gathering and distribution of the aid and financial support that NGO’s and Governments around the world are contributing to this work. It is headed by Swazi’s and according to Ned it is one of the most effective organizations that he has ever witnessed in the years that he’s been working in public health in the developing world.
We had the honor of meeting with Derek Von Wissell, the National Director of the agency and with Sibusiso Dlamini the National Coordinator for Care and Support. (I believe Ned knows Sibusiso from his work at Swazi Hospice at Home. Sibusiso and I met earlier in the week at the Rotary meeting in Malkerns.)
Mr. Von Wissell gave us a briefing on the present status of the disease in Swaziland. We started from the commonly known number of an infection rate of about 40% among pregnant women in the Kingdom. He gave us further information that the disease had infected almost 50% of adults in the Kingdom who are presently in their mid to late twenties. We talked about the fact that the infection rate still has not shown evidence of leveling off among this cohort of the population, though there is some promise of hope being seen with younger people. He walked us through the implications of the disease as far as what can be expected in terms of the rapidly rising number of deaths from HIV – and the later rise in the numbers of orphaned children that will have to be cared for in the Kingdom.
He was very clear about the need that faith based organizations have to work to create a social vaccine to the disease. He pointed out that government groups and church groups have been teaching for years about the causes and transmission mechanisms for HIV/AIDS – but as of this moment it has not made any measurable difference in Swaziland. He contrasted that with the experience of Uganda. In Uganda there came a point where the entire society rose up to change its expectations of what is normal and what is acceptable behavior. He said the ABC method taught in Uganda was critically important, but more important was the role of faith based groups in creating a climate of morality for the entire nation. When I asked him what the church in the states could do to help, he was clear that our role was to support the work of the people of the churches and community organizations in Swaziland as they work together on the so called “social vaccine” for the disease.
Mr. Von Wissell excused himself from the meeting and we continued our conversation with Sibusiso. The conversation took a more practical turn. We talked about the specific challenges facing the community based care givers that we had heard about earlier that morning. None of this was news to Sibusiso. He told us that it is one of the most urgent priorities of the Ministry of Health. They are working on trying to find a way to motivate all the community workers – and to provide them with needed transportation and supplies for the work they are trying to do. He told of us of the way that the system was designed to work. We were accompanied in this meeting by G. and Glenda – and they had a long and very frank conversation with Sibusiso about what the situation really was like out there in the field. They told him of what we had been told of empty supply rooms and lack of food for children. It sounds to me like there are adequate supplies for the moment, but there are issues surrounding the adequate distribution of these supplies to depots and store rooms around the Kingdom. It’s a difficult problem, but a solvable one as we say in Physics.
More troubling was the report that Sibusiso shared that the Kingdom was running out of food. The southern region (where we are traveling early tomorrow morning) is a place that has not received adequate rain in the past years. As a result the harvest has been much less than is needed, and this year’s crop has already failed. The Kingdom needs to import more food to feed its people, but at the same time the rising level of unemployment and the disappearance manufacturing jobs. I asked Sibusiso if the situation might rise to the level of a famine. He said it already has.
This was totally unexpected news for me. Imagine the consequences of a nation that has 2000 hospital beds in total and 20,000 people in the end stages of AIDS also suffering the lack of proper nutrition and hunger. This is not a place that is going to be able to feed itself in the immediate future. It is going to require significant assistance from around the world so that this does not become a region of even greater devastation.
I was so hoping to be able to end the week on a note of hope. I guess I do have hope – it is a fundamental quality of the Christian life – but this is going to be a profoundly difficult situation for a very long time it appears.
Another busy day. I wish I could say that it was day filled with good news and hope. It was a day when we heard of challenge after challenge that are confronting the Anglican Church in Swaziland and the people of Swaziland as they respond to the rising death toll and attendant problems of HIV/AIDS.
We traveled north this morning in the direction of Piggs Peak to the parish of St. Alban’s. We were accompanied by Glenda and “G” who have been serving as our guides and our interpreters as we travel around the Kingdom. St. Alban’s is parish that is on the same grounds as the Enkabah primary and high schools. It is the only church in for some distance in this rural region. It functions as the community parish for the area – in a way that sounds similar to the function of English parish churches in the countryside of England.
Along the way I finally saw some native African wildlife. So far all I have seen is a couple of lizards, herds of cattle and cats and dogs. Oh yes, there were two huge spiders (size of my fist) in my hotel room last night… Grin. But on the way north we saw a couple of Impalas by the road side and a number of antelopes. I still haven’t seen the Southern Cross because of the rain, but at least I can say that I’ve seen some of the biodiversity that is Africa.
We were met at St. Alban’s by Sandra, who is the program coordinator for the parish based health care teams. We talked for a couple of hours about how the program is working in the parish, and about the ways that the parish is not working. Sandra is one of many care workers that have been trained by the local Faith based organizations. She and her fellow parishioners have counterparts in the other denominations in Swaziland. There is another, governmental group of community based care givers called the RHM’s (Rural Health Motivators.) These two groups work in the Kingdom to provide training about HIV/AIDS transmission, care of patients and available services for those who need help.
The work that Sandra and her fellow care giver in the parish is heroic in the truest sense of the word. She is caring for the sick and the dying in the community. She looks after the orphans in the region and children who are now living in child-headed households. (We learned of the distinction between children who are considered double orphans (both parents dead) single orphans (one parent deceased) and “vulnerable” (who have one or the other parent sick and in the end stages of the AIDS disease).) She told us of how she asks the parishioners of St. Alban’s to donate a little cornmeal, a pumpkin or maybe a can of fish. She uses that to supplement the meager foods that the orphan children can find from other sources.
The problems come about when she tries to get others in the parish to help her. While she is committed, there were originally 17 parishioners given the training by Glenda and the Diocesan HIV/AIDS committee. There are only two still working in the parish. The others are not able to do the work because they can not afford to take time off work or can not afford to pay the transport expenses or to buy food and medicine for the sick of the parish. The RHM workers in the region are paid a small stipend to cover their expenses, but they are not working nearly as efficiently as the faith based care workers. This has caused some resentment among the faith based workers and they are as a result less willing to go out and about in the community. In a later conversation with Bishop Mabuzza he reminded all of us that this work is a ministry not a job. It is part of our response to the Jesus call on every follower to “Love you neighbor as yourself.” Hopefully in further conversation with the government agencies that support the work of the RHM’s and the various faith based groups around the Kingdom a program of proper coordination between the two networks can be developed.
We talked about ways to recognize the extraordinary ministry of the people who are providing the parish care. They are doing so much with so little that it seems only fitting to find some way to hold them up as examples to the rest of us who have not as yet managed to make the same commitment of our own time and treasure.
From St. Alban’s we traveled south again to Mbabane where we met with Bishop Meshack at the Diocesan Convention Center. We had a traditional Swazi lunch of meali-meal and gravy, beets, cabbage, and juice. Over lunch Ned, Glenda, “G.”, Lucy, Bishop Meshack and myself had a chance to debrief and discuss what had happened during the week. We worked our way backwards through the week reporting on our visit to St. Albans, the Mother’s Union facility, the Clinic and parish in Leyango, St. Margaret’s and the Usuthu Mission parish. I was able to report to the Bishop on conversations that I had earlier in the week with the owners of one of the largest computer companies in Mbabane and some research that I had managed to do on the present communications and internet infrastructure in Swaziland. We worked up with a list of next steps for all of us as I travel back to the US on Sunday morning. We finished the meeting receiving the Bishop’s thanks for us, for our families who have allowed us to travel, the parish and diocese and all who have contributed to our travel costs – and most especially to those who are already committing themselves to working with us on our return to try to implement some responses to what we have seen here.
Ned and I took an hour following the meeting to have a conversation about next steps for ourselves. We tried to prioritize what should happen and who should be responsible for what is next. It’s good to start making the transition from data gathering to reflection. It’s even more exciting to begin contemplating the more meaningful transition from reflection to action that is soon coming.
We ended the day with a long meeting at the offices of NERCHA (the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS). NERCHA is the governmental agency (under the Ministry of Health in Swaziland) that is charged with the coordination of the Kingdom’s response to the disease, and with the gathering and distribution of the aid and financial support that NGO’s and Governments around the world are contributing to this work. It is headed by Swazi’s and according to Ned it is one of the most effective organizations that he has ever witnessed in the years that he’s been working in public health in the developing world.
We had the honor of meeting with Derek Von Wissell, the National Director of the agency and with Sibusiso Dlamini the National Coordinator for Care and Support. (I believe Ned knows Sibusiso from his work at Swazi Hospice at Home. Sibusiso and I met earlier in the week at the Rotary meeting in Malkerns.)
Mr. Von Wissell gave us a briefing on the present status of the disease in Swaziland. We started from the commonly known number of an infection rate of about 40% among pregnant women in the Kingdom. He gave us further information that the disease had infected almost 50% of adults in the Kingdom who are presently in their mid to late twenties. We talked about the fact that the infection rate still has not shown evidence of leveling off among this cohort of the population, though there is some promise of hope being seen with younger people. He walked us through the implications of the disease as far as what can be expected in terms of the rapidly rising number of deaths from HIV – and the later rise in the numbers of orphaned children that will have to be cared for in the Kingdom.
He was very clear about the need that faith based organizations have to work to create a social vaccine to the disease. He pointed out that government groups and church groups have been teaching for years about the causes and transmission mechanisms for HIV/AIDS – but as of this moment it has not made any measurable difference in Swaziland. He contrasted that with the experience of Uganda. In Uganda there came a point where the entire society rose up to change its expectations of what is normal and what is acceptable behavior. He said the ABC method taught in Uganda was critically important, but more important was the role of faith based groups in creating a climate of morality for the entire nation. When I asked him what the church in the states could do to help, he was clear that our role was to support the work of the people of the churches and community organizations in Swaziland as they work together on the so called “social vaccine” for the disease.
Mr. Von Wissell excused himself from the meeting and we continued our conversation with Sibusiso. The conversation took a more practical turn. We talked about the specific challenges facing the community based care givers that we had heard about earlier that morning. None of this was news to Sibusiso. He told us that it is one of the most urgent priorities of the Ministry of Health. They are working on trying to find a way to motivate all the community workers – and to provide them with needed transportation and supplies for the work they are trying to do. He told of us of the way that the system was designed to work. We were accompanied in this meeting by G. and Glenda – and they had a long and very frank conversation with Sibusiso about what the situation really was like out there in the field. They told him of what we had been told of empty supply rooms and lack of food for children. It sounds to me like there are adequate supplies for the moment, but there are issues surrounding the adequate distribution of these supplies to depots and store rooms around the Kingdom. It’s a difficult problem, but a solvable one as we say in Physics.
More troubling was the report that Sibusiso shared that the Kingdom was running out of food. The southern region (where we are traveling early tomorrow morning) is a place that has not received adequate rain in the past years. As a result the harvest has been much less than is needed, and this year’s crop has already failed. The Kingdom needs to import more food to feed its people, but at the same time the rising level of unemployment and the disappearance manufacturing jobs. I asked Sibusiso if the situation might rise to the level of a famine. He said it already has.
This was totally unexpected news for me. Imagine the consequences of a nation that has 2000 hospital beds in total and 20,000 people in the end stages of AIDS also suffering the lack of proper nutrition and hunger. This is not a place that is going to be able to feed itself in the immediate future. It is going to require significant assistance from around the world so that this does not become a region of even greater devastation.
I was so hoping to be able to end the week on a note of hope. I guess I do have hope – it is a fundamental quality of the Christian life – but this is going to be a profoundly difficult situation for a very long time it appears.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Parish Council meeting at Usuthu Mission following the Sunday service. We're talking about the need to communicate what is happening in Swaziland.
Orphan children at Ascension during the weekend Children's revival service. Rev. Nancy is on the left.
Fresh Graves in the Mbabane region. Each white card marks a new grave. Mostly likely these will never be marked with anything than what you see here.
Chief Peter, his cousin and Dr. Ned Wallace in front of the Neighborhood Care point under construction at the Chief's compound.
Home again, Home again.
I'm back in the states. We landed this morning at JFK after the airport was reopened following the weekend's blizzard. The pilot didn't mention to us until after we had landed that two planes landing this morning had not been able to stop on the icy runway and ended up overshooting the end of the runway.
I've got much more to say about our visit. I'm still processing the events of the last full day I had in Swaziland and our visit to the parish of Church of the Ascension in the southernmost portion of the Diocese. I'll write that up in a bit - or as soon as I can given that I haven't really slept for the last couple of days.
I'm going to try to post some of the many pictures that we have from the visit. Hopefully I can figure out how to do this easily with the blogger software.
More importantly I have two videos - one of the service at Usuthu last Sunday and one of the Children's revival from the day before yesterday. I can't wait to view them myself. Ned was the camera operator. I was busy taking notes and photos and doing interviews with people.
Ned is still in Swaziland and will remain there until the 7th of Feb. I had to return earlier because classes have restarted at Lehigh and my presence is now required there. Grin.
I'm back in the states. We landed this morning at JFK after the airport was reopened following the weekend's blizzard. The pilot didn't mention to us until after we had landed that two planes landing this morning had not been able to stop on the icy runway and ended up overshooting the end of the runway.
I've got much more to say about our visit. I'm still processing the events of the last full day I had in Swaziland and our visit to the parish of Church of the Ascension in the southernmost portion of the Diocese. I'll write that up in a bit - or as soon as I can given that I haven't really slept for the last couple of days.
I'm going to try to post some of the many pictures that we have from the visit. Hopefully I can figure out how to do this easily with the blogger software.
More importantly I have two videos - one of the service at Usuthu last Sunday and one of the Children's revival from the day before yesterday. I can't wait to view them myself. Ned was the camera operator. I was busy taking notes and photos and doing interviews with people.
Ned is still in Swaziland and will remain there until the 7th of Feb. I had to return earlier because classes have restarted at Lehigh and my presence is now required there. Grin.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Times of Swaziland - Main Stories: "Govt has no money to help homeless
BY ARTHUR MORDAUNT
MBABANE � Government will not be providing financial assistance to the victims of the storm that wreaked havoc in Manzini and surrounding areas on Sunday but will provide security by deploying the country�s security forces in the affected areas.
Making the pledge was Prime Minister Absalom Themba Dlamini who said this is to ensure the protection of the civil rights and liberties of all people in the affected areas. He urged all citizens of the country to be vigilant and assist the security forces while doing their job.
The prime minister sent out an SOS to the nation at large and business people to lend a helping hand.
�We appeal to the nation, the business community, our good partners and friends of Swaziland to assist us in whatever possible form to enable us to bring relief to those who have been affected by the disaster."
BY ARTHUR MORDAUNT
MBABANE � Government will not be providing financial assistance to the victims of the storm that wreaked havoc in Manzini and surrounding areas on Sunday but will provide security by deploying the country�s security forces in the affected areas.
Making the pledge was Prime Minister Absalom Themba Dlamini who said this is to ensure the protection of the civil rights and liberties of all people in the affected areas. He urged all citizens of the country to be vigilant and assist the security forces while doing their job.
The prime minister sent out an SOS to the nation at large and business people to lend a helping hand.
�We appeal to the nation, the business community, our good partners and friends of Swaziland to assist us in whatever possible form to enable us to bring relief to those who have been affected by the disaster."
BBC NEWS Africa Swazi unions in anti-king strike: "Swaziland's main trade union has begun a two-day general strike to press for democratic reforms.
Union leader Jan Sithole told the BBC that roadblocks mounted by the security forces had stopped people from joining the protests in the capital, Mbabane. The unions say a draft constitution being debated by parliament entrenches the power of the monarchy.
Swaziland is Africa's last remaining absolute monarchy and political parties are banned. "
This was being threatened just as I was leaving over the weekend. Many of the teachers I spoke with were debating whether or not to join in the strike. Their concern is over the fact that the goverment has promised to pay the school fees for orphans and is apparently not honoring that promise in any meaningful way.
Union leader Jan Sithole told the BBC that roadblocks mounted by the security forces had stopped people from joining the protests in the capital, Mbabane. The unions say a draft constitution being debated by parliament entrenches the power of the monarchy.
Swaziland is Africa's last remaining absolute monarchy and political parties are banned. "
This was being threatened just as I was leaving over the weekend. Many of the teachers I spoke with were debating whether or not to join in the strike. Their concern is over the fact that the goverment has promised to pay the school fees for orphans and is apparently not honoring that promise in any meaningful way.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Swaziland Day 8
I’m writing this note some days after my experience. There are two reasons for this. First my schedule the last two days of my visit was too filled to allow me time to sit down and put these sorts of words on paper. Second was that the experiences that I had this day affected me so deeply that I needed to let them sit quietly inside my heart for a while before I tried to write about them.
We started our day by meeting at the Diocesan Conference Center at 6:00 AM. We planned to drive south to Hlatikula and the parish of St. Mary’s to visit with Fr. Michael who serves as the Rector of St. Mary’s and also the Archdeacon of the Southern region. Fr. Michael had seen us earlier in the weekend at the diocesan office and had made a point to invite us to visit him in the south. Bishop Meshack urged us to take the chance because he wanted us to see some of the truly distressed parts of the diocese, and because he pointed out that Fr. Michael claimed no one ever came to visit his region because of the travel time involved.
It was because of the long travel time that we had gotten such an early start. We managed to get ourselves underway by 6:07 and traveled south along the main roads of the Kingdom. Hlatikula is a largish city in Swaziland and I believe is the city with the highest elevation. We arrived about 9:00 AM and found the church, but Fr. Michael was not there to greet us. He was off doing a funeral for one of his parishioners. He finished and joined us not too long after we had arrived. We took a tour of the church building and then heard his request that we travel to see Rev. Nancy who is the priest in charge of Ascension Church in Mpandesane (a city in the southern most region of Swaziland – Lavumisa.)
Mpandesane is about two hours further down the road from Hlatikula. Bishop Meshack had been talking about the wonderful work that Rev. Nancy was doing in her parish all week, and after a few moments of conversation we decided to change our schedule so that we could go and have a visit with her. Given that the day’s ride was going to be much longer than anticipated we decided to go to the old colonial Inn just down the street for breakfast. It was the first time I had eaten in a restaurant outside of the capital city and which did not cater to western tastes. It turns out that a fine Swazi breakfast is two fried eggs, a side of bacon, toast and a pot of tea. Grin. Interestingly while we waited we were shown around the Inn and saw the modern conference room and the guest rooms. Fr. Michael suggested that we might use this Inn as a base of operations when we returned to the country in the future.
After breakfast Fr. Michael took us to the hospital in Hlatikula. We asked and were given permission to take a tour of the building. I took pictures of the exterior but none of the interior because I wanted to respect the confidentiality of the patients – especially those in the end stages of AIDS. There is still a great deal of stigma in Swazi society towards those who have AIDS and their families and children are often shunned when the nature of their illness is revealed.
We started by touring the pediatric wards. To be honest I was quite impressed by the facility and by the level of care that was given to the children. I was also a bit surprised to see how many empty beds there were. Most of the children were in the hospital with either broken bones or being treated for TB. They were attended to by the staff and their parents – and the whole setting looked very much like any pediatric ward that I visited in the states with the exception that there were no private or semi-private rooms.
However the feeling of familiarity soon changed as we made our way to the section of the hospital where the HIV/AIDS patients were treated. Along our way we passed many more open beds and realized that hospital had decided to keep some of the beds open so that they would be able to deal with emergencies and medical cases that did not involve HIV and AIDS. (When we had visited with people at NERCHA the day before we had been informed that there are approximately 20,000 people at present in the end stages of AIDS who in a western country would typically be hospitalized. But there are only about 2000 hospital beds in the entire kingdom – and that includes beds of all types: pediatric, psychiatric, private care, ICU etc. This is why the Swazi’s must rely so heavily on home hospice care for those dying of AIDS. If they didn’t do so, the case load from that one disease would totally swamp the health care resources of the entire kingdom.)
The HIV wards were very different than the other parts of the hospital. They were crowded. They were filled with people laying on beds and mats anywhere there was space. It looked to me like each bed space in the hospital was being used by three people: one on the bed, one on the floor under the bed and one on the floor beside the bed. Ned had been speaking with patients to this point and generally being a doctor. But as we came to this part of the hospital he pushed me forward. “They need you more than they need me now Father” he said. Fr. Michael asked me to say a blessing in each of the wards we visited. I was at a loss in the face of so much suffering and pain to come up with any special words. I fell back to the words in our Prayer Book that are used when we anoint the sick – “May Christ sustain you with his presence, drive far from you any sickness of body or spirit and give you victory and peace that will enable you to serve him both now and forever more.” There was a hush as I said the prayer and blessed the people. They bowed their heads and all closed their eyes. It was not an experience that I’ve ever had in a hospital before – blessing an entire ward at once. It didn’t seem to matter to them that I was an American Episcopalian and that they were a mixture of different faiths and religions. They needed to hear a consoling word more then they needed to worry about where it came from.
We were very quiet as we made our way from the hospital and back to the car.
I’m writing this note some days after my experience. There are two reasons for this. First my schedule the last two days of my visit was too filled to allow me time to sit down and put these sorts of words on paper. Second was that the experiences that I had this day affected me so deeply that I needed to let them sit quietly inside my heart for a while before I tried to write about them.
We started our day by meeting at the Diocesan Conference Center at 6:00 AM. We planned to drive south to Hlatikula and the parish of St. Mary’s to visit with Fr. Michael who serves as the Rector of St. Mary’s and also the Archdeacon of the Southern region. Fr. Michael had seen us earlier in the weekend at the diocesan office and had made a point to invite us to visit him in the south. Bishop Meshack urged us to take the chance because he wanted us to see some of the truly distressed parts of the diocese, and because he pointed out that Fr. Michael claimed no one ever came to visit his region because of the travel time involved.
It was because of the long travel time that we had gotten such an early start. We managed to get ourselves underway by 6:07 and traveled south along the main roads of the Kingdom. Hlatikula is a largish city in Swaziland and I believe is the city with the highest elevation. We arrived about 9:00 AM and found the church, but Fr. Michael was not there to greet us. He was off doing a funeral for one of his parishioners. He finished and joined us not too long after we had arrived. We took a tour of the church building and then heard his request that we travel to see Rev. Nancy who is the priest in charge of Ascension Church in Mpandesane (a city in the southern most region of Swaziland – Lavumisa.)
Mpandesane is about two hours further down the road from Hlatikula. Bishop Meshack had been talking about the wonderful work that Rev. Nancy was doing in her parish all week, and after a few moments of conversation we decided to change our schedule so that we could go and have a visit with her. Given that the day’s ride was going to be much longer than anticipated we decided to go to the old colonial Inn just down the street for breakfast. It was the first time I had eaten in a restaurant outside of the capital city and which did not cater to western tastes. It turns out that a fine Swazi breakfast is two fried eggs, a side of bacon, toast and a pot of tea. Grin. Interestingly while we waited we were shown around the Inn and saw the modern conference room and the guest rooms. Fr. Michael suggested that we might use this Inn as a base of operations when we returned to the country in the future.
After breakfast Fr. Michael took us to the hospital in Hlatikula. We asked and were given permission to take a tour of the building. I took pictures of the exterior but none of the interior because I wanted to respect the confidentiality of the patients – especially those in the end stages of AIDS. There is still a great deal of stigma in Swazi society towards those who have AIDS and their families and children are often shunned when the nature of their illness is revealed.
We started by touring the pediatric wards. To be honest I was quite impressed by the facility and by the level of care that was given to the children. I was also a bit surprised to see how many empty beds there were. Most of the children were in the hospital with either broken bones or being treated for TB. They were attended to by the staff and their parents – and the whole setting looked very much like any pediatric ward that I visited in the states with the exception that there were no private or semi-private rooms.
However the feeling of familiarity soon changed as we made our way to the section of the hospital where the HIV/AIDS patients were treated. Along our way we passed many more open beds and realized that hospital had decided to keep some of the beds open so that they would be able to deal with emergencies and medical cases that did not involve HIV and AIDS. (When we had visited with people at NERCHA the day before we had been informed that there are approximately 20,000 people at present in the end stages of AIDS who in a western country would typically be hospitalized. But there are only about 2000 hospital beds in the entire kingdom – and that includes beds of all types: pediatric, psychiatric, private care, ICU etc. This is why the Swazi’s must rely so heavily on home hospice care for those dying of AIDS. If they didn’t do so, the case load from that one disease would totally swamp the health care resources of the entire kingdom.)
The HIV wards were very different than the other parts of the hospital. They were crowded. They were filled with people laying on beds and mats anywhere there was space. It looked to me like each bed space in the hospital was being used by three people: one on the bed, one on the floor under the bed and one on the floor beside the bed. Ned had been speaking with patients to this point and generally being a doctor. But as we came to this part of the hospital he pushed me forward. “They need you more than they need me now Father” he said. Fr. Michael asked me to say a blessing in each of the wards we visited. I was at a loss in the face of so much suffering and pain to come up with any special words. I fell back to the words in our Prayer Book that are used when we anoint the sick – “May Christ sustain you with his presence, drive far from you any sickness of body or spirit and give you victory and peace that will enable you to serve him both now and forever more.” There was a hush as I said the prayer and blessed the people. They bowed their heads and all closed their eyes. It was not an experience that I’ve ever had in a hospital before – blessing an entire ward at once. It didn’t seem to matter to them that I was an American Episcopalian and that they were a mixture of different faiths and religions. They needed to hear a consoling word more then they needed to worry about where it came from.
We were very quiet as we made our way from the hospital and back to the car.
Friday, January 28, 2005
The Times of Swaziland - Main Stories: "MBABANE-In what can best be described as the year of doom in the employment sector, it has been confirmed that at least 15 000 people will have lost their jobs by the end of June this year.
This shocking figure emanates from the textile industry as the introduction of China into the World Trade market and the strengthening of the Rand wreck economic havoc in many countries who are beneficiaries of the African Growth And Opportunity Act (AGOA)."
This is not something that is surprising to me - especially given the complaints about lack of jobs that I heard from so many of the Swazis I spoke to during my visit last week.
This shocking figure emanates from the textile industry as the introduction of China into the World Trade market and the strengthening of the Rand wreck economic havoc in many countries who are beneficiaries of the African Growth And Opportunity Act (AGOA)."
This is not something that is surprising to me - especially given the complaints about lack of jobs that I heard from so many of the Swazis I spoke to during my visit last week.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Some reflections on my trip to
Many people have asked me over the past week “How was your trip? Was it a good one?” I’m not sure how to answer that question.
I can’t call it a “good” experience. Much of what I saw and experienced was cut from the fabric of human suffering in its most basic form. There are people slowly dying from disease who do not have access to the basic treatments we take for granted in
And yet… In the same breath that I begin to respond by saying how “un-good” my trip was, I’m reminded of how much else I saw that left me speechless with admiration.
I saw example after example of heroic faith. I saw a woman who in addition to raising her own family, is trying to provide food, clothing and shelter to all of the orphan children in a small town – and is doing this because she understands that this is what the Gospel requires. I met a woman who is single handedly caring for twenty people in the end stages of AIDS in her community. I met two people who have dropped everything, including their careers and possibly their futures because they recognize that God is calling them to respond in radically committed way to the increasing HIV infection in their homeland. I heard the voices of fellow Anglicans lifted in songs of praise. I heard a faith flowing like a deep and mighty river in the hymns of the Church sung not just on Sunday, but anytime that people gathered for worship. I saw a school that in the face of overwhelming destitution has managed to have 100 percent of its students pass the national exams. I spoke with clergy who have given up any expectation of a normal life as they spend themselves ministering to their people and their community in this time of national crisis.
I think that the word I have settled on to describe my experience in
This does not mean that we can be released from the important and necessary ministry that happens locally. That must continue and perhaps even increase since the needs are growing here as well, though thankfully more slowly. But this local ministry must happen against the backdrop of a recognition that what we see here is a mere shadow of what is happening right now in other places around the world.
I do not know what God is going to call us to do. I do know that we are going to be called, or are already being called, to take action. There are many pitfalls that we will face in whatever we try to do. There are many things that break our hearts when we hear of them – and yet some of them might be made even worse if we act incorrectly or rashly in response. I am grateful for the commitment that our Vestry has made to begin a reorganization of our Outreach Commission. I think that the conversations we have as a parish around this topic are both important and timely. Whatever we decide, as long as it grows from our life of common prayer and worship, it will be what God wants us to do.
And doing what God wants us to do is the greatest good that any of us can imagine.
-Nick+
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
The problems with caring for Orphan and Vulnerable Children contiunue to grow in Swaziland.
The Times of Swaziland - Main Stories: "Whatever problems the Ministry of Education has with effectively fulfilling its promise to provide funded education for the orphaned and vulnerable children, it should solve them without subjecting the children to the rape and ridicule we are witnessing today.
They are being tossed around like yoyos as the ministry sends them to school today while head teachers are kicking them out like social misfits the next.
Some teachers have gone beyond this circus to as far as abusing them. "
The Times of Swaziland - Main Stories: "Whatever problems the Ministry of Education has with effectively fulfilling its promise to provide funded education for the orphaned and vulnerable children, it should solve them without subjecting the children to the rape and ridicule we are witnessing today.
They are being tossed around like yoyos as the ministry sends them to school today while head teachers are kicking them out like social misfits the next.
Some teachers have gone beyond this circus to as far as abusing them. "
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
BBC NEWS | Africa | Africans 'worst-hit by warming': "Millions of Africans could be among the worst hit by global warming, a conference on climate change has heard.
Nigerian scientist Anthony Nyong said that temperatures could rise by two degrees and rainfall drop 10% by 2050, if current trends continue.
This could mean more droughts and smaller harvests, leaving up to 100 million more Africans hungry. "
Nigerian scientist Anthony Nyong said that temperatures could rise by two degrees and rainfall drop 10% by 2050, if current trends continue.
This could mean more droughts and smaller harvests, leaving up to 100 million more Africans hungry. "