A Day of Hope
Arm in Arm in Africa: Monday, February 23rd, 2003
Today we witnessed some of the glimmers of hope coming out of South Africa. Our day began at the Brown’s Farm Clinic, a free clinic run by Rev. Spiwo’s wife, Zethu Xapile. The clinic provides the only medical care for most of the people of Guguletu. Consequently, lines are always very long, with people beginning to line up as early as 4:30 am. There is one doctor that works full time, and the rest of the care is managed by the nurses. These people work incredibly hard, long days trying to see as many patients as possible, and still they turn away people at the end of the day.
Three in our group, Kate, Becky and Jeff, helped out in the clinic for the early morning shift, helping sort through equipment and supplies that we had brought from home as well as assisting in the care of the patients. Kate Cumming, a Registered Nurse, was an invaluable asset to the clinic today because three of the nurses were out sick. When the rest of our group arrived, we toured the clinic, then took a walk around Guguletu, stopping in at two crèches (day care facilities). At the first crèche, the children sang "Telephoning Jesus", utterly captivating those of us in the audience. The women running the crèche were so good with the children, especially considering the number. There are 5 women caring for 65 children in just a few rooms, the largest of which couldn’t have been much bigger than 20’x 20’. Once again, stickers and candy proved to be the ultimate icebreaker.
From there we visited Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity in Kayalitsha, an AIDS hospice, where amazing work is being done. And then it was back to the J.L. Zwane Center for a marimba concert by the children. These kids are excellent musicians, and were very proud to show us how good they were. A better concert you wouldn’t find in any high school in Minnesota. We were treated to enthusiastic drumming and dancing, with the girls dancing "the hustle". What goes around comes around! This group of middle-aged Minnesotans even got into the act, showing the kids how to bunny hop - a big hit.
Then it was into a meeting with a group of women who will be traveling to the USA in a few weeks time to share their wisdom and experience in dealing with HIV/AIDS and to learn how the same issues are being handled in our country. There are several nurses, a doctor, a dentist and a mother whose daughter is HIV positive among the group. The meeting was a wonderful opportunity for us to meet the "front lines" of care in this country. Their professionalism and dedication is outstanding, and the compassion and energy they bring with them is extremely humbling.
Although this is place fighting a seemingly impossible battle, we found many bright lights of hope today. The clinic, the crèches, the schools and the women working day in and day out with the many demands of HIV/AIDS are an inspiration and a challenge to us to do better, to do more, and to do it now.
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