Day 5

This morning we hosted a free clinic at our Malindza New Hope Centre thanks to the financial donations from the Indianapolis Rotary Club and the in-kind medical supply donations from Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach.  Most of what we see at the clinic is ringworm, intestinal parasites, and diarrhea/dehydration.  All of the medication we provide is entirely free to our kids – and all of the ailments we saw today was entirely curable!

We met a little girl at the clinic who is 5 and entirely mute.  She is orphaned and her grandmother wants to send her to a special school where she can learn sign language, but it is $140 per year.  Anika without a moment’s hesitation offered to pay for Banelile’s scholarship! Thanks Anika!! We’re thrilled to offer Banelile an opportunity to learn a mode of communication!

Now that we have a borehole (thanks to The Thirst Project), we can cultivate vegetables at our New Hope Centre.  The only challenge is that there are lots of community cows and goats roaming our land who inevitably eat all our crops.  Maseko found a man who owns a fence making machine and is donating his machine and his time to make the fence for us – we need to only buy the raw material: wire.  This will enable us to build the fence at a fraction of the cost.  On our way back to town today we bought $334 worth of wire and hope to buy $334 more soon to complete the entire fencing project.  This will expand our vegetable garden area by 100% enabling us to double the amount of veggies we can grow for our children’s meals. 

After school was released, we went to Philo’s home to fetch her, Mazwi and Bongani.  Philo mentioned that her sister is pregnant again which is adding stress to the family as they already struggle to feed all the existing mouths.  She said Samkelo speaks to her often about staying away from boys and focusing on her studies.  She said now that her neighbor is operating a bar out of their home, sometimes drunk men come looking for Philo.  But her brother once chased them away swinging a piece of barbed wire and yelling – so now they are all afraid of him and wont come back.  Way to go Samkelo!!

Once we rounded up the kids, we went to see Black Panther at the only theater in Swaziland.  The 12 of us loved the movie but I don’t think anyone loved it more than Mazwi.  I love watching Mazwi watch movies.  He was on the edge of his seat the entire time and was gasping at the action parts and cheering aloud for all of the victories.  I told Philo that she reminds me of the General – loyal, courageous, and strong.  Mazwi placed dibs on being the black panther/king himself!

I kept thinking during the movie how much Sifiso would have loved it!  If you had been following along when my friend Sifiso died at the end of 2017, you know I was in a rough place for a few months.  Yesterday, we drove past his grave and went to the same mountain top where we used to hike.  I was fighting back tears on the ascent but somehow when we reached the summit, I was at peace.  It’s still hard thinking of him suffering as he died in excruciating pain and knowing that if he would have had access to the medical care I have access to, he wouldn’t have died at all.  But the warm air last night on the top of his mountain seemed to engulf me in a peaceful hug and I look forward to going to pay Sikhanyiso’s (his 3 year old daughter) school fees in the morning.  Everyone is always asleep when I write the blog and I am following shortly behind them.  Goodnight from Swaziland! http://www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html