annie in swaziland

Day 3: 

It is always amazing to see the progress at our Give Hope, Fight Poverty New Hope Primary School (and pre-school).  I arrived in Malindza today eager to show the team our free school we are building for orphans.  The school kitchen is now almost done which will make it possible to cook school lunch for the kids when it rains (right now they cook over an open fire outside).  Then the team helped the local volunteers plant spinach, onion, tomato, green pepper, beet root, lettuce, and carrots.  Our first thought was “where are the gardening tools??”  They only had one shovel and one hoe for about 25 people. But don’t worry – you can just chop off a heavy branch from a tree and form a pointed tip to use to dig and break up the big chunks of soil.  I am decently sure we were in the way more than we were helpful but at least we gave the locals some comedic relief from the hard work! 

Today was the end of a school term so they performed “parent” – teacher conferences for grade 1. Maseko, the two teachers, and I sat and waited for the children to enter one at a time to listen to their results.  In Swaziland the students do not earn an A, B, or C.  They are ranked amongst their peers as position 1 down to position 20 (we have 20 students per class).   I was wondering how these “parent”-teacher conferences were going to work out as the school cook and the school committee (our volunteers who have been building the school for free) have their children attending our school, but all 13 other students are orphaned. It was a pleasant surprise to see that neighbors and distant relatives came to listen to these children’s reports. 

I asked the head teacher, Miss Mahlalela, how we can improve the failing 6 students’ performance.  She replied that these children were the most vulnerable – living in the worst conditions.  They all live with ailing great grandparents who have no food and barely any shelter.  So, our team visited each homestead one at a time to deliver the basic necessities of food (beans, rice, mealies, cooking oil, peanut butter, and green bar soap for sanitation).  The living conditions were grim at best.  One of the great grandparents could not walk and was missing most of his fingers from years of hard labor.  Another grandparent said she wanted to dance for joy that we had arrived but she could not because Swazi culture prohibits dancing while you are mourning.  She was dressed with black ties which indicated the death of her final child, her son.  She is raising 8 young orphans ages 2-13y on her own with absolutely no income and a house made of sticks nailed together.  She asked us to build her a cement brick home so she can have a proper place to live with all of her children… and then Kait cried. 

One of our little boys from the group mentioned above – Mpendulo – defied the odds.  He made position 2!! Our team was so proud of him that when we came to deliver his food, we chanted “Position Two, Number Two – Position Two, Number Two!” to which he danced and laughed.  I am definitely counting my blessings tonight and being reminded that we were put here on the earth to abundantly give those blessings away.  For only $30 you can provide a student with a school uniform – most likely the only piece of new clothing they will ever own in their lifetime.  For only $300, you can feed an entire school of 634 orphans for a month – most likely the only meal they will receive in a day.  For $3,000 we built a school kitchen to ensure that the children ate everyday despite weather conditions.  For $30,000 we built one-room classrooms for grades 1, 2, and 3 – rooms now filled with orphans learning, smiling, and laughing.  I will go to sleep tonight happy that they no longer sit at home all day thanks to our generous Give Hope, Fight Poverty donors – THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!! www.ifightpoverty.org