We've returned - day one! Sethu's home!

Welcome to Swaziland, Myles!  We introduced Myles to Swaziland today and he loves it (who doesn’t)!! We asked him what his take away was from the day and he said “you guys do so much to change lives here…if only you had the resources from donors to do more”.  I agree Myles, but I am so very grateful for the difference we are able to make with our current resources!

Today we arrived in Swaziland around 12:30 and hit the ground running! We purchased 8 emergency meal packages of rice, beans, mealies (ground corn maize), peanut butter, soup mix, candles, matches, cooking oil, canned fish and canned baked beans.  We always purchase enough for the kids to last (supplemented with the fruit and vegetables they grow at their homesteads) until we return. We delivered two of the meal packages to the Msibi and Maziya families and we have 6 more to deliver. 

Our main goal of today, however, was to collect our Swazi builder Raymond and purchase ALL of the materials necessary to build Sethu his home and toilet.  Sethu is a 13 year old boy whose parents died and he has 4 siblings from different fathers being raised by those fathers….but Sethu is all alone.  He was living with his grandmother at an extended relatives homestead but the elder relatives had a falling out and Sethu felt the brunt of the family strife as he ended up homeless, alone, with nowhere to go.  Luckily our GHFP partner Maseko was able to take him in and begged the Chief for some land.  Today we visited the land with our builder preparing to build Sethu is very own home and I asked soft-spoken Sethu if he was excited… he replied, “I am just happy that I will be able to live a peaceful life with no more abuse”. On top of school and caring for his sick grandma, he dug the entire foundation of his home and toilet for us to start building!   His grandmother is very sick and has been seeking treatment for tuberculosis from a distant clinic.  How has she been getting there?  Young Sethu has been pushing his ailing grandmother the whole way in a wheel barrel.

Sethu will move into a peaceful, safe structure…but it will be empty.  Does anyone want to donate toward a bed, dresser, or window drapes to make his house a home?  Beds are $200, a dresser is $100 and blinds are $30.  www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html Thanks for joining our journey!!