Mine Ngili Swati (I am a Swazi now)
This week has left me in a drastically
different place than when I last posted a blog. In the wake of what this week
has been for Haiti I feel like I have no right complaining about anything that
was posted before, however I have to remember that those feelings were valid and
our team and I were in a difficult place spiritually.
So, first of all, the prayers that have
been lifted up this week have made all the difference, they really have and I
can’t thank each of you enough for them.
The last week or so we have been profiling
the care points surrounding us. Just a reminder — care points are the places
where kids can go to get a meal each day except Sunday. This means that we
interview all of the kids that aren’t sponsored yet, take their picture, and
Bryan then creates a word document with the information for each kid so that
sponsors can be found. AIM is partnering with Children’s Hope Chest to continue
to support these care points where sometimes these are the only meals that kids
get in the day. AIM does the on the ground work, like profiling the kids and
teaching VBS style bible stories. They then hand the profiles over to
Children’s Hope Chest who finds sponsors for the various care points, sometimes
entire churches, sometimes just a family. People can also sponsor just one
child if they want. This past week we profiled anywhere from 10 to 81 kids each
day, depending on the care point.
It was while profiling the care points that
one of our translators, Mapile, or Innocent, who has become a good friend to
all of our team, pulled me aside and told me he wanted to give me my long
awaited SiSwati name. He has been trying to think of names for all of us and
had settled on Sibusisiwe for me, or Busi for short. When parents give this
name to children it means that the child is a blessing to them, in this
situation Mapile told me that it means that I am a blessing to this
community. Needless to say my feelings
of not making a difference here are disappearing.
**
Sibusisiwe is pronounced “see boo see see way�. And Busi is “boo see�
One of my favorite people here is
Alvina, she is a 59 year old gogo that I call “Make� which means mother because
she is the same age as my mom. (Make is pronounced “ma-gay�) On top of Mapile giving me a siSwati name,
Alvina gave me one as well, the name Lindewe, which means the one we have been
waiting for. I had asked her some time ago to think of a siSwati name for me
and thought she either hadn’t understood me or had forgotten. But after church
yesterday she told me my name is Lindewe (her 26 year old daughter Faith
translated all of this for me)…I don’t know how to tell her that Mapile already
gave me one…I think I’ll just let her call me that but the situation is more
complicated as Lindewe is the name that Mapile gave Jessica, my teammate…
**Lindewe
is pronounced “lend de way�
I have been surprised by just how private
HIV/AIDS is but I’m not really sure why I am. It’s quite understandable that
people don’t want to disclose their status or even talk about HIV/AIDS. It’s
talked about as a problem in the community but hardly ever I have heard the
words “I have or live with HIV/AIDS�. Now I understand that Uganda’s drop in
its HIV+ population began with people just talking about it. I really think
what it will take is people being open about their HIV/AIDS status and
encouraging one another to believe and understand it. Not just a bunch of white
people telling everyone how bad HIV/AIDS is. But the majority of why I wanted
to come to this part of the world was to help somehow with the epidemic. So how
do you get people talking about it? You talk about it and don’t ignore it
yourself. You encourage people, young and old to get tested. And you educate
people on what it means to be HIV+ and how you can still have a life worth
living. A side note, that is frustrating, it’s quite uncommon for children under
the age of 18 to be tested, but doctors and nurses at clinics will test kids if
they have parental approval. I’ve even been told that children just aren’t
tested without any explanation as to why. I don’t know if people just don’t
want to know if their kids are HIV+ or if the people in charge don’t want the
percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS to rise so they don’t encourage kids
to be tested.
Health issues are a part of my ministry and
much of what I’ve been doing so far has been observing. But with Pastor Gift
and Philile’s help (his wife) I am learning the best way to take action. One
way is to gather all of the gogos, or grandmothers, of the area together when
we go to a care point and go over the basics, quell any myths and make sure
they understand so that they can share and instruct others. Hopefully this will
happen soon after we finish profiling the care points.
Many times throughout the week I have
random thoughts that I want to write down and share but don’t want to write an
entire blog on them so here are my thoughts of the week:
–
The
idea of catching a ball, even one that is tennis or baseball sized, is a
foreign concept to most small children here. But put any size ball at their
feet, even a two year old will know you are supposed to kick it and try to get
it past your feet and hands. Like most countries except for the US, they are taught
at a young age to play football/soccer.
–
Sugar
cane is a big industry here, and Nsoko is right in the heart of it. Kids pick
it up as it falls from passing trucks heading to the processing plants. It’s
not uncommon to see kids walking down the road, carrying an arm load of sugar
cane pieces and chewing on it like we would gum.
–
Night
before last we all piled in the kombi, Philile told us there was a soccer game
that she thought all of us might want to see. There was supposed to be a game
earlier that day and it had been cancelled. To us we thought it meant that we
would be going to a field where somehow they had managed to light it enough to
see the ball and each other. In reality it meant that we were going to a sports
bar about 20 or 30km away to watch Mozambique and Egypt play for a spot in the
semifinals of the African Football cup. We all had a great time playing the
Swazi version of pool (the pool balls are smaller, lighter, and therefore
easier to shoot), watching the game and enjoying *gasp* air conditioning. TIA
and nothing is what we expect for the better or for the worse. 🙂
