And Life Just Keeps on Running

We create the pain and the suffering

And the beauty in this world

Heaven’s here on Earth –

In our faith in humankind

And our respect for what is Earthly

And our unfaltering belief in peace, and love, and understanding.

Seeing the angels wearing their disguise:

Ordinary people living ordinary lives

Filled with love, compassion, forgiveness, and sacrifice

Heaven’s in our hearts

I’ve seen spirits, I’ve met angels

Touched creations beautiful and wondrous

I’ve been places where I question all I think I know

And I believe, oh I believe, that this could be heaven

Heaven’s here on Earth

~Tracy Chapman

Things are heating up in full force and the mosquitoes are determined to give me Malaria Round II. Everyday I sweep the corpses that line the floor around my bed. I’ll take a picture one day; you’ll be shocked. Thank God for netting! The kids are off school so many of them are visiting family elsewhere, ploughing in the fields (as the rainy season of course brings forth the fruits of their labour lol), or being lazy at their own houses instead of mine. I miss some of them, walking germs that they are, though generally speaking a break is quite nice.

I took a fairly large food basket to the family of one of my kids. The other day I was walking with some of his friends and we passed him sitting next to a tree, sunken. I asked what the problem was; he rubbed his stomach and said ndo gwala (I’m sick), so I figured nothing more than diahrrea. But as we walked past his friends told me, “Uno nyepa… u na zhala. (He’s lying… he’s hungry). They told me the story: His mother is a Zimbabwean and is very sick, and his father is a Basarwa (a minority and fairly oppressed ethnic group in Botswana – if you’ve ever seen The Gods Must Be Crazy, then you know the Basarwa), thus he is the product of two unwelcomed groups. The father was arrested for stealing a cow (the punishment for which is worse than for raping a woman) and has left behind the jobless mother and their 3 small children. The boy who frequents my house is 14, though he looks 8 or 9 (I wonder why!). I was shocked to find out he is the oldest one of my regular attendees, as he is the smallest of those above 7. Anyway, I heard through the grapevine that they were having a rough time so I bought them enough food to not have to worry for a while, stuffed it in opaque bags, and set off to find the house (which by the way was quite a trek when carrying several kilos of food). Peace Corps discourages such acts, as would many in development, as the act isn’t sustainable and could set me up for a predicament when every needy family starts knocking on my door. However, my Kalanga is good enough where I was able to clearly state why I was helping the family and to request they not tell anyone that I had done so. And while installments of such generosity are certainly unsustainable, sustainability is no guide for morality. Some things we should just do, not because they make sense or even because they make a huge difference, but because we can and we should. Anyway, they were more than grateful and my relationship with the boy has grown as well; he comes over all the time. And it’s in moments like these that we make an unseen difference – he loses one strong male figure, but gains another. Things like this can make have a great effect in a young heart.

God love the children of this continent. They constantly keep me active, laughing, and humbled. I love having them over because what surprises them and what doesn’t surprise them always surprises me. I think we forget the simple luxuries we have, like knowing your birthday or what you look like in the mirror, or being able to find your country on a world map. Kids remind us that most of our problems are just constructions – products of our own making – and don’t really exist.

Wednesday was not a particularly easy day at the clinic. A lady brought her baby in a state that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in person. The child was clearly suffering from several ailments - severe dehydration being the most obvious - and resembled one of those emaciated, lifeless living things you see on those World Vision commercials. She was nearly white, eyes big but empty, and somehow was making loud crying noises despite her lips remaining tightly closed. Every bone and vein was visible in the body; she didn’t even look human (it’s moments like these that we lose our hope, our comfort, our tongues, and, occasionally, our minds). I am really unsure why the mother delayed in bringing the child to the clinic. She claimed that while it has always been small for some time, it just became severally ill the night before. It took all I had not to rip into her (it’s moments like these that we end up gaining our strength, our patience, our reserve, and our understanding – though the presence of the latter may not materialize until much later, as within the moment and shortly thereafter all we feel is conviction); conditions such as this do not present themselves overnight. We did all we could, but ultimately she passed away by the day’s end. I’m always intrigued by the post-death energy in environments where death isn’t exactly a rarity. I can’t say that people are sensitized, or that they’re used to it – to me, one can never become used to such a thing, but there certainly is an amazing ability to separate – to turn it off like a faucet, something you of course know I pride myself in practicing quite well. It a powerful quality; indeed, a necessity for survival in many places; however, I see it too often in circumstances where it’s so frustrating – i.e. when I am trying to advocate for a child who is actually HEALTHY but at risk – its like the emotions can be turned off before they’re ever even turned on, though behind the eyes you can see the compassion there. You know it’s not that people don’t care, but if you don’t look hard enough, you don’t know that they do either.

On the better side of things – there was a good moment today (I am determined to pull at least one from every day I breath!). I saw another side of the co-worker with whom I butt heads. While she is often so apathetic about everything, and she could use a refresher in confidentiality, work ethic, manners and life in general, I did manage to see another side of her today. She had told me previously that she had one child, a 14 year old son and she had mentioned him several times. I met the kid today and he seemed like a good enough chap. Anyway I was telling one of the other ladies that I met this lady’s son, and she said “You know that’s not really her son, right?” Well, I did not. Apparently it is actually the son of her dead sister, who she has been taking care of for close to 10 years. She has tried having kids of her own and has failed, and so only has her nephew to call her own… but she still calls him her own, and doesn’t think twice about it. Knowing this humbled me a bit and allowed me to understand where she was coming from a little bit better. That being said... :)

More good news? The Kalanga is growing. It’s such a bear of a task though. Bantu languages are not easy, especially when you do not have any books or a tutor! Our new counselor (who I so much admire) is teaching me how to do a full condom demonstration in Kalanga (don’t worry, we have a prop… ha!). She does a great job on her own, but my skin color, nationality, and gender (and the reality of me speaking Kalanga) will certainly be an attention-getter. And I will have much more respect and listener ship when we do our talks at the local bars, which are of course most frequented by stubborn old men who don’t want a young lady telling them what they should do with their most private and proud parts.

Currently my ‘formal’ tasks are such:

1 – Home visits with our positive mothers

2 – Outreach & education at bars, workshops, the border, the police station, and community events.

3 – Designing the schedule and curriculum for the daily health talks in the clinic that we have recently begun (and convincing each staff member that she is more than capable to deliver the information well… a massive task in itself. I think the fear of public speaking may be the only absolutely universal fear)

4 – Assisting Maitengwe Home Based Care with all their fund-raising and awareness needs. Eish.

Currently my ‘informal’ tasks are:

1 – Not dying

2 – Not comparing Botswana to the other places I’ve been

3 – Remembering to check my shoes every day for scorpions

4 – Counting how many times a day I hear donkeys squeal (it makes me laugh EVERY time)

5 – Counting mosquito corpses in the morning

6 – Youth development

7 – A book every two weeks (a major feat for me)

Speaking of donkeys: I was in Francistown the other day and some homely man came up to me and said (in perfect English) “I have a question…” Naturally, my first thought was ‘how much money does he want?’. To my complete surprise, and shame from my assumption, he said “What do you call a baby donkey in English?” I hadn’t a clue! There must be a name. Baby horse = colt. Baby cow = calf. Baby goat = kid. Baby chicken = chick. Baby pig = piglet

Not wanting to leave the man hanging, and always a sucker for a good pun when one arises, I responded, “I guess you call it a half ass”. He didn’t get it, but of course I laughed irrepressibly (as only I do at my jokes). In fact, I am still laughing at that one.

I'm now writing this from Francistown on Saturday. Turns out we had another child die yesterday. Like the first one, the mother was a PMTCT client of ours. We visited the latter child two weeks ago and everything seemed fine... we went back Monday of this week and the mother was away with the baby, but the father said the baby was doing ok, only to find out she passed away on Friday. Our poor new counselor is blaming herself, as she hasn't been here long and has already seen two presumably preventable deaths in our client base. I told her that while two in 3 days is a bit excessive, we have babies dying every other week or so and she can't blame herself. Anyway, she is so determined so she asked me to help her go through our whole system and look for any gaps. I must confess I have been waiting for such an invitiation, hoping to improve what we do without stepping on toes. So the next few weeks I am going to dig deep into our processes and figure out what we can do to make things better. It's such a complicated phenomena, HIV.

On brighter news, a few of us have started a Teen Club in Francistown. So we are currently recruiting HIV positive teens (13-19) for fun, games, and psychosocial support. We have 38 on roster! Exciting. So we meet once a month, with today being our December day. So we am waiting for them to arrive. I wish I would have the time to write this after our meeting but I'll have to buy some food and head back. But I'll take some photos when I can and post.

If you're interested in writing them letters, sending pictures, etc. that can be arranged - they're city kids so for most of them their English is so-so.

That's all for now - hope you are well!