Newsletter May - June 2007
Aidshospice South Africa
Always something new I hear you say, do I ever actually complete something?
Yes always something new, as the context is changing daily and the insights I gain happen rapidly!
No I never do, other than when someone dies and there is no more to do for them, other than that there is nothing to complete but to keep helping in some small way
Still no news on the land bureaucracy rules!
Fantastic things happening in other areas, we have approached the local white churches who own a piece of land in Winterton the local town, which is easily accessible for all the local communities white and black.
A group of us who are working in different communities around this area have come together to try and pool our resources and skills to create a more holistic approach to the needs here, part of which would be to build a community centre that not only offers immediate response to the sick and dying in the form of a hospice/respite unit, orphan drop in centre, but also training, counselling, testing, career advice, employment opportunities, crafts and income generation.
The intention is to create a safe nurturing environment for diverse cultures to come together and start to build relationships that are not threatening, there is long way to go to breakdown the fears and habitual behaviours from apartheid.
There are new people arriving all the time with new skills and insights to make this happen.
John and Noreen from Australia have been here for about 4 weeks and have been training home base carers in massage and pain relief with much hilarity as the Zulus are not big on touch and particularly naked touch! Although they seem to have a natural flair for it.
They have both coped incredibly well with the work. They have gone through some very sad and painful walks with people dying and neglected but have stayed strong through it all.
We are getting closer to setting up a soup kitchen for the children in Amaswazi with the home base carers feeding the children initially in the mornings with a high protein and vitamin based porridge, a piece of fruit and milk. We are working on sourcing the food from the local community, we have a source for the fruit and porridge at this stage.
We are hoping that this will start to address the needless illness and malnutrition that is happening unnoticed, it will also allow us to identify children not at school, sick and with problems at home.
There is also a new family moved into the area that have set up a crèche and foster care for vulnerable children which is a huge need as there are no government facilities to assist these children and they are left in intolerable situations.
Whilst John was here from Australia he bought a new Mahindra 8 seater people carrier, we now can transport people in comfort and on mass which has made a huge impact, I thank you.
We are guided when we are open………………………….
After visiting an old man who has had a stroke in the local township in Winterton, we were about to jump in the car and leave.
An old well worn granny came to us from the maze of paths and houses and begged us to come and see her husband who was sick.
Off we went thinking we may have to take him to hospital or to see a Dr, on a tiny room with two beds a couple of blankets and not much else here was a curled up man 54 years old.
He was struggling to swallow and hadn’t been able to eat in a week. His knees were bent up under his chin and spasming from time to time. The room reeked of urine and other. He lay curled up calm and with a slight smile. He directed us to look at his knee which was bleeding from under his pants.
We managed to get his trousers off to give him a wash and try to clean him up a little. At this point we found an enormous open oozing wound on his knee, covered in maggots. It appeared he had hit it and not had it looked at. We finished washing the bottom half and his wound.
There were no clean cloths or blankets so we went to the local church and managed to find clean cloths and bedding.
Back we went thinking we would be able to change his bed and top and give him some comfort. AS we undressed the rest of him we turned him over to find that the whole bed was a sea of maggots, he had enormous bedsores all over his back.
We couldn’t clean him properly on the bed and as we looked around for a way to put him somewhere this amazing Lesotho man walked in with a smile and gentleness you could feel. He helped us with such tenderness to move him around and to change his bed and set it up for him.
We dressed his back wounds and lay him on a clean soft bed with clean blankets to keep him warm, the Lesotho man was there in the town for three days and he would wash and care for the old man.
We sat and prayed and held his hand until he fell asleep.
One man on one day for a few hours felt love, three strangers felt humility, love and understanding and God.
We visited two days later, he had died the next day RIP
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