the village of hope seeks to help children infected or affected by hiv, aids and tb in two different ways: we have a 9 bed children's unit to support those infected by hiv and aids and we also run a community-based sports and lifeskills outreach in the informal settlements and squatter camps each afternoon.

this blog has been set up to allow the key members of the team at the village of hope to share their thoughts, photos and experiences as we work in the community of grabouw in south africa

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

some days that bite back!

this is a personal reflection and although it picks up some thoughts around the thembalitsha foundation please read it as a tim to all post rather than a village of hope to all....ok?

life here at the thembalitsha projects in grabouw can sometimes become so focused on the doing, reports need to be written, banking needs to be done, proposals submitted, talks to various funders planned, sports outreach prepared, children's hospital visits made, staff issues sorted, vehicles and buildings maintained, the list goes on and like many companies and individuals our lives are spend on the more mundane things rather than lifting our eyes above the paperwork and seeing the bigger picture.

life can also become comfortable, and yes we have left home, family and even continents to be able to serve our community here in grabouw but we do have access to many of the luxuries that we become so attached to...like running water, an inside toilet or two, electricity to power an oven or heated blanket, gas to warm our home or petrol to run our cars, let lone a bank account which isn't quite as healthy as it once was when we were living the corporate dream in europe but at least the credit card enables us to purchase food for the table and wine for our enjoyment.

i think you get that picture but i had a bit of a wake up call on monday as i saw and experienced things that caused me to question the humanity, or lack of humanity that we are part of here in grabouw....one can become so blase to the plight of the thousands of people who share our community with us, so if you will give me the time in would like to bring up a few of the things that knocked my vision back into focus.

stark reminder 1

i had a meeting scheduled with the ARV doctor to discuss our rainbow smiles club, for those not aware of this its a wonderful little support group that we run with thembacare and abba counseling each and every friday for children aged around 9 - 15 living with HIV, anyway as we were making our way to the meeting i picked up one of the key team members, a young lady who is HIV+ herself, this lady is an inspiration to all of us and is so passionate about the children that we work with......it was the first time that i had been to her home and i was somewhat shocked by what i saw....

a 6 x 3 meter garden shed (wendy house) right next door to a toilet block which serves her community, the issue with her home is that the tin roof, on a home that has been moved a couple of times, had some holes in it, in fact the sheets of tin weren't very well secured so she had a bucket next to her bed to catch the drips....

....it must be mentioned that this small 'shed' is probably about as good as it gets to something she calls home for most of the staff that we employ at the village of hope and thembacare but it was a stark reminder that although she was so well turned out for our meeting she had managed all of this without a toilet, sink, even running water (other than through the roof) or electricity.

stark reminder 2

was we turned up for the meeting at the ARV clinic which is linked to the local day hospital there were people waiting to be seen, not on the regular plastic chairs but on the linked seating that were usually used in the waiting area inside the hospital...the reason being that the chairs had been stolen, people had just picked them up and walked off with them...that in a way is shocking but the thing that struck me was that we are now nearing winter and other than a simple converted container there is no shelter from the winter winds and rain........these HIV+ people are sitting outside waiting to be seen covered in simple blankets, many with no shoes!

stark reminder 3

i had to pop into thembacare before sports outreach and as is my norm i went to say hello to all the patients that are currently receiving medical care from our wonderful in patient staff, but my eye was drawn to the sight of an ever frail woman, the mother of two boys who we work with, one attends our rainbow smiles club, the other is part of our site view soccer outreach, however the boys mother has now been taken off of her ARV and TB medication due to her body shutting down.....it won't be long before she becomes another piece of data used to highlight the fact that thousands of south africans have succumbed to the AIDS virus over the last 20 years.

stark reminder 4

on my way to sports outreach i saw the mother's son, he was somewhat obvious of the plight of his mother lying in thembacare, not that he didn't care but i don't think he realised who seriously ill she is.....after a quick chat with him to encourage him to spend as much time with his mom as possible, without telling him the enormity of the situation, i made my way to pick up one of our sports mentors. he lives in a tin shack, again with little basic services, and normally has a huge smile on his face as he greets me, but today was different, today he had a serious look about him and as he joined me in the front of my bakkie he told me of a class mate who had been stabbed to death on saturday evening.

stark reminder 5

the children at my sports outreach were so badly behaved, a few newcomers tried to steal our balls, others were so disrespectful, i was trying not to let this get to me, especially after the day that i had had, but then i looked at their homes, their neighbourhood, their friends, peers and family and thought about the lives that they were leading, struggling to survive...what a difference from the stable home and environment that i had grown up in.

stark reminder 6

i had to attend a meeting at the local community hall in the evening, now it gets dark at 6 here in the winter, i had even put on some long pants and shoes and socks which is highly unusual, waiting outside the hall were a group of people sitting on cardboard boxes, huddled around under blankets...then as i passed by so busy with my thoughts of the day and the meeting ahead a small voice called 'tim', as i looked i saw the smiling face of one of the mom's of a child we had living at the village of hope. he had been discharged back to his family only a few weeks before....as i inquired to what she was doing sitting out in the cold and dark she told me that she was queuing to be amongst those lucky ones who would be first to receive their application forms, that were being handed out at 8.30 the next morning, this application wasn't even for her but she was supporting her two friends who were trying to register their children for a small grant which might be made available to them in 3 months time....it was freezing out there.

what to do?......

as you can imagine my thoughts were fried as i tried to process the sights that i had witnessed during this somewhat harrowing but all together normal day......thoughts around how i could help secure a home against the winter rains, provide shelter to those sitting in the cold waiting for the medication that suppresses the HIV virus, seek God's plan for the future of a mother and perhaps help her sons realise that she wouldn't be coming back home to look after then after all, thinking why i hadn't heard anything in the news about the death of a 15 year old school boy living not more than 1 mile from my comfortable western home, or the fact that the children at my sports club were so poorly behaved because of the lack of support for them and their parents, what could i do for the mom sitting outside in a queue.....

what did i do...?..what could i do..?.. i went to the local KFC and bought the guys in the line a whole lot of hot chicken and then went home and ate mine with a nice glass of wine and got into my comfy bed!

the thembalitsha foundation works to bring people to a place of self reliance, we don't hand stuff out, other than the love, care and sometimes medication that we have, we work in health, education and training seeking to provide new hope (thembalitsha in xhosa)......but some day's God breaks your heart again, monday was that day for me and as i type away on my electrically powered laptop with my hot cup of coffee and chocolate biscuits, my eyes are full of tears at the thought of those whom i encountered on monday and i wonder if i did enough....but what more could i have done?....

...as i finish typing this another email from groupon arrives in my inbox offering an exciting seafood platter and a wellness programme....shall i succumb to this enticing offer........! arrgh.

.............



4 comments:

  1. Yes Tim, your calling is not an easy one. I too reach out to the needy and over the past 10 years I have seen the ugly side of the Elgin valley. The problem is enormous, and it does not solve all the problems by giving a man a fish, or a rod.... he also needs a fish hook an perhaps some bait.... and it is almost impossible to do all that for everyone, that is why the 'fish' solves the problem for the moment. We cannot change the problem - but so long we help where we can, at least we are restoring faith and trust and offer a bit of hope. Be strong! There are the good moments too, a homeless orphan of 14 crossed my path 8 years ago... shortly after he tried to commit suicide, I accompanied him to the authorities, but they had no hope for this 'problem' child. I took him back to school, took care of him, offered him tough love - Then I did not see him for 2 years. Out of the blue, just before Xmas 2011, Thobani Mayosi arrived at my gate, now 22 years old. He came to thank me. Calls me mother. He has turned into a gorgeous young adults and I am so proud of him. Working, and positive, remembering his roots. Drug free - no use of alcohol... Just imagine I did not stop to give him a "Good Morning", the day I found him... He would have slipped right through the fingers and would have been lost forever.! I will post a pic of Thobani - to affirm all I have said here. All the best.!

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  2. Thanks Tim - you don't know me, I'm a mate of Emily & Rob's, but I enjoy reading your missives - and this was very touching and reminds me why I think you guys are all doing an incredibly hard, yet necessary, job.

    Keep up the good work.

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  3. Very honest Tim! And I struggle with these feelings on a regular basis! I moan because I do t have enough and actually what I have is more than enough!!!!!
    I desperately want to help everybody And as sandi quite rightly said one can only do so much! We do what we can and we do what God has told us to do but that is all. We won't save the world, there will always be inequality but God is sovereign. That is the only thing keeps me going!
    Blessings
    Jane (friend of izzy prentice)

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  4. hey Tim, if God didn't break your heart on a regular basis, you would have come home a long time ago! keep your eyes open, tears flowing and keep trusting in the God who loves these people so much he sent his sons and daughters to help in whatever way they can...

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