A Reflection on our time in Africa (17.07.08)
When I sit down to reflect on the last six months I really don't know where to start. I can honestly say that is has been the most amazing six months of my life. When I look back it feels like we have been in Africa for years, it seems like two completely different people arrived at Jo'Burg airport on the 2nd of January. I'm not sure how we have changed but I know that we both have. The last six months have defined, changed and shaped us in so many ways that we cannot imagine who we were before or who we would have been today had we not undertaken this journey.
We have both found great happiness and joy in the people and children we have worked with. We have also both experienced frustration and anger at Africa and it's injustices but ultimately it has been an experience of discovery, growth and learning. We have discovered things about ourselves and Africa that have amazed and thrilled us. We have grown in directions we could not have anticipated both individually and as a couple. We have learned that life is truly precious and that we can decide to turn our lives into whatever we want them to be, creating experiences and situations to learn and grow in.
We will return to Africa, hopefully mid way through 2009, to live, work and grow some more. When we arrived in January we didn't know whether we would leave loving or hating Africa. In the last six months we have found so much more than we had anticpated finding, our lives now have new direction, purpose and meaning.
Andrew
Fear, Guilt and Pain. (24.06.08)
It has not been an easy decision to share this picture with you. I changed my mind several times about whether or not it was appropriate to put it on the website. Ultimately I have decided to share this image with you because of how it makes me feel. When I look at this photo, I can feel the pain that this baby experienced, I can hear his screams, feel him wriggling in my arms, fighting me, fighting the pain. I remember the skin falling away from legs as I poured cold water over his burns, how the dead skin ballooned out as the water filled the little pockets the burns had made. Most of all I remember his eyes, pleading and begging for someone to take away his pain, to make it all better. None of us could. We still can't and it is a feeling that eats away at me when I look at this picture, when I for a few short moments connect with and share this babies pain.
After his burns had been dressed he was returned to Beautiful Gate in the care of our two nurses. However a week later he was readmitted to hospital and today in that under resourced, understaffed hospital he will go into surgery to receive 'skin grafts' (I have been told by the nurses that they don't do 'skin grafts' in Lesotho so not sure what they will do but it sounds painful). I shudder at the thought of the pain he is about to endure and the risk of infection. If he had a mother or a father they would be sitting by his bedside, anxious and fearful for their childs safety. But he has no family apart from his Beautiful Gate family so we all shoulder some of the anxiety, guilt and fear. It makes me angry to think of how easily this could have been avoided and how some of the staff here still brush this off, saying the burns weren't serious, that he will be fine soon. I'm frustrated by my inabilty to help more, by the guilt that I share through association, by the possibility that this could happen again to another innocent child.
So I share this picture with you to extend the family surrounding him, to ask for your prayers and to ask for your forgiveness. Through this picture I share with you my pain and his. It is all that I can do for him at the moment and it feels like precious little. It was his first birthday yesterday, celebrated in an overcrowded childrens ward, with cake, balloons and singing. A day of distraction and joy I pray he will remember more than today's horror and pain.
God have mercy.
Andrew
Ownership of their work (09.06.08)
After a week of planning and preparing we started the painting today. I was nervous about mixing the colours as I knew it would be messy. I did okay with all the colours except for purple. I just kept on making a grey/brown colour instead. I gave up and made pink instead. We had red, blue, yellow, orange, green, pink, brown, grey, black and white.
Yesterday Andrew and I drew the pictures on the wall. This morning I started painting. The main objective is to get the Bo Me (all the careworkers and other staff) to have ownership of the paintings and learn how to do it and learn that they can do it.
I was anxious this morning because I did not want to do it alone. I got Andrew to supervise the children while Me Liako came to help me. Then Ausi Mathe came to help and then I had two administration staff painting aswell. It was great. Two hours later there were 9 staff painting the walls while I stood back and watched. I was so happy they were enjoying it and already making comments like "Did you see my bike?" "I did the plane, go have a look". I am so happy and hope that I can make sure everyone gets a chance to paint if they want to.
Jodanne
It's the Numbness that Hurts. (4.06.08)
It's not the panic or the stress of traumatic situations that affect you the most. Usually the demands of the situation ensure that you don't have time to focus on what you are feeling, you just have to act and hope you are doing all that you can. But afterwards it's the numbness, the empty feeling inside, the close your eyes and make it all go away feeling that really get you. I'm in the numb stage at the moment and you are my therapy.
Babies cry a lot, it's one of the things that they excel at. It is said that a mother can often tell exactly what is wrong with her child just by the pitch and intensity of the crying. I'm not a mother but I could easily tell what the crying I listened to for the past two hours meant; pain. Unbelievable, unbearable, intense pain. This morning one of the babies that we care for was badly burnt. One of the care workers took her hot tea into the baby room and when her back was turned one of the babies tipped it over himself. It was an accident that never should have happened, the policies and regulations are in place to prevent it, however, policies and regulations only work when people care and understand enough to obey them. This young child will pay for that inattention for the rest of his life.
After applying first aid via cool running water we took him to the Queen II hospital in Maseru. The hospital itself is a death trap; the only option for the poor of Lesotho but only slightly better than leaving things to heal by themselves. The screams of the baby opened doors and jumped cues in the crowded waiting room and we were soon ushered into a cluttered, hot treatment room.
I held him still while the doctor lanced all the blisters and the nurses pulled away the burnt skin. His cries conveyed the terror and pain that he was feeling. The skin on his thighs and lower legs were in many places completely scalded away, his left hand was badly blistered and his stomach was burnt a bright red. His eyes constantly pleaded with me to make them stop not understanding that this torture was the only way we could help him. The nurses were sympathetic but there is no nice way to remove burnt skin and he screamed and cried and fought while they cleaned and dressed his burns. It was a heart wrenching half hour while the nurses did everything that they could for him given the limited third world hospital facilities. We returned to Beautiful Gate and thankfully he slept the whole way, a blessing for both him and us.
It would be easier to feel anger than this numbness and part of me wants to go out there and yell at all the care-workers for not been more careful, take each one of them into the clinic to show them this little babies burns, to make them understand that we don't make policies because we are mean and are trying to make life difficult. But this would achieve nothing and it wouldn't be fair, it would only serve to help me feel something other than numb. Everybody makes mistakes and the care worker responsible still hasn't stopped crying, she is the second victim in this but at the same time at least she had a choice.
I am angry but not at any individuals; at the moment I'm angry at life and Africa. I'm angry that right now I know of abandoned babies lying in Queen II who are not been cared for. Recently a child died of dehydration because the nurses did not feed him. I want to go back to the hospital and take those babies away and care for them, everyone here at Beautiful Gate feels the same. We know we can care for them here and they will survive but the red tape and legislation stops us really helping them. It is one of the many frustrations here.
I love Africa but damn it can be hell sometimes. Burnt babies, starving babies, abandoned babies, murdered babies we hear and see it every day. Some days you can forget and see the paradise and beauty all around you but when Africa shows her dark side it is hard to turn a blind eye. It is hard to not run away and leave this God forsaken place with her dying, desperate people. It is hard to stay and impossible to leave. We know that Africa with all her beauty, frustration and death will be a big part of our lives and while it is hard sometimes to reconcile all the feelings that she stirs up within us we can't stay mad at her for long.
So thank you for listening to my vent and don't worry whatever Africa throws at us we will be fine and better for the experience. It helps us to share it with you, it helps us deal with days like today.
Andrew
First Look into a Mirror (30.5.08)
It was such a great experience being able to share, with a child, their first look into a mirror. Some of the little ones didn't quite understand that it was a reflection and instead spent the time looking at other people in the mirror rather than themselves. Some of the older ones and the inquisitive children who spent a long time sitting in front of the mirror starting to recognise themselves, and loved it.
Playgroup is going well. The children are beginning to wave to everyone in the morning and enjoy taking part in the "Hello" chart. They are also learning some other commands and gestures such as stand, sit, listen and stop. The children are enjoying playing in the imagination corner and absolutely love pretending to cook, eat and drink with the kitchen toys. It is great to see the children starting to use blocks appropriately and it warms my heart when a child builds a tower. I enjoy seeing their happy, fun faces when we blow bubbles in the relaxation corner and love it when they bring a book to me and plonk themselves in my lap. They enjoy the creative corner and love playing with the boxes, plastic bottles, foam trays, yogurt containers and other forms of containers I bring from home. Playgroup is going well and I am enjoying the time I spend with the kids.
Beds, Borders and Bribery. (28.05.08)
"I am going to take your husband to jail now".
Not the phase Jodanne was hoping to hear and I wasn't particularly excited about the concept either. We were standing at the Lesotho border post, my passport had just been confiscated and a rather large Basotho Border Control Officer had just announced I would be sleeping in a third world jail cell. We were ushered into the office to discuss the particulars of this surprising twist of fate that began three weeks earlier with the illegal importation of a slightly burnt bed.
It was a trip that was fairly routine for me now, this was the third day in a row that I had driven out to the Maseru border post on the Lesotho/South African border. We were heading to Ladybrand, the closest South African town to withdraw money and collect a borrowed bed to return it to its rightful owner in Maseru. Crossing the border is not a particularly difficult process but it is definitely a process. We have to stop at the Lesotho side, get out and go the immigration to get our passports stamped out of Lesotho, then drive across the congested border bridge to the South African side where we stand in line for somewhere between twenty minutes and two hours to get stamped into South Africa. Having made this trip nearly a dozen times in the last few months I was fairly comfortable with the process and as usual it all went smoothly. We arrived in Ladybrand, a very friendly quaint little town about 10 minutes drive from Lesotho, conducted our shopping, banking and collected the borrowed bed to return it to it's owner in Maseru. Everything was going well until we tried to leave South Africa.
My passport was stamped out of South Africa and we cheerful started the drive across to Lesotho, only to be stopped by a very disgruntled customs official who informed us in no uncertain terms that we should have declared the bed and on finding out that I was from Australia told me to 'go home'. I assumed he meant my Lesotho home and drove off, his gesturing in the rear view mirror did not inspire me to stop. The Lesotho customs official on the other side of the bridge did however insist that I stop and another tongue lashing began. Our saving grace was the burnt patch on the bed which proved it wasn't new and saved us paying import tax on it. After all of the fun with customs I was ready to leave the border behind me and as soon as the customs official said we could go I jumped in the car and went. Unfortunately forgetting to stamp my passport back into Lesotho, meaning that I was now an illegal immigrant, a fact I would only discover a few weeks later when Jodanne and I tried to go into South Africa to draw some money.
"I'm so happy, look at me, I'm so happy I have caught an Australian and he is going to jail", the border guard was indeed very happy and this made it hard to judge just how serious she was. We joked along with her, Jodanne insisting that she liked her husband and would prefer it if he didn't get taken away to jail. I felt the same way and was desperately trying to find an alternative to a night or two as a inmate in the notorious Lesotho penal system. The alternative presented itself in Jodanne's insisting that we needed to get to Ladybrand to withdraw money for 'Beautiful Gate' and when told to go alone as her husband was under arrest, she suddenly forgot how to drive and thus could not go without me. It worked and the border guard released me to accompany my wife into South Africa on the condition that I report back to her so that she could take me to jail when we returned from South Africa.
More than a little bit concerned about the threatened jail time on my return to Lesotho, I contacted the Australian High Commission from Ladybrand. They were very helpful and told me that they hadn't heard of anyone going to jail for not stamping their passport but they weren't sure about Lesotho law. They offered to send a letter via e-mail to say they had been informed about the situation in case I had further issues re-entering Lesotho. Unfortunately there was a miscommunication about our e-mail address and the said letter never arrived. We gave up waiting about 5pm and nervously headed for the border. We passed through the South African side without incident and taking a deep breath approached passport control on the Lesotho side. The border officer who had told me to see her on my return was on the other side of the building in Departures and nobody on the Arrivals side had been informed to stop me entering the country so my passport was stamped and we decided not to go next door so that I could be arrested. We drove back our home near Beautiful Gate feeling more relieved with every kilometer we travelled away from the border and possible incarceration.
I'm not sure what would have happened if we had returned to the border officer but I'm happy not to find out. If my mistake warranted a fine then I would be happy to pay, if the border officer was just trying to scare me into offering her a bribe then I'm glad we avoided that situation, if she was serious about taking me away to prison then just about any other alternative would be preferable to a Lesotho prison cell where untold horrors could have awaited a skinny white Australian guy. So all in all I'm very pleased with how things turned out, the only information the border guard had about us was that we worked at Beautiful Gate and so far nobody has arrived here to arrest me. It was not a pleasant experience and standing in the border control office facing the prospect of jail time was more than a little bit scary. It reminded us how corrupt, confusing and dangerous Africa can be and how one small mistake nearly lead to a very unpleasant situation.
Happy to still be sleeping next to my wife in a warm house instead of a cold jail cell. My passport now looks like it has been attacked by several three year olds armed with an array of multi colored stamps but I'll make sure I get a new stamp every time I go anywhere near the border. A timely reminder that while we are very comfortable and feel safe here in Lesotho, we are a long way from home and living in a country that we don't really understand yet. We are really loving been in Lesotho but standing in that border office I would have gladly jumped on the next plane to be back home and safe in Australia.
Andrew
Africa asks many questions...can you help us find answers?
(20.05.08)
Below I've listed some of the difficult situations and decisions we face. We are genuinely interested in your ideas about them and any possible solutions you can suggest, so don't be shy to write a response in our 'Contact Us' section after you read this with any observations, suggestions or comments that come to you. Thanks in advance for your input.
1) Of Children and Trash....
This is a particularly difficult one and we were faced with it almost daily while in QwaQwa. Whenever you throw anything away in Africa it doesn't ever go straight to the rubbish dump, it is processed through a network of scavengers that include adults, children, dogs, cows and rats. The only one of these that we found difficult to accept was when the children we have just been teaching or playing with one minute are sifting through our newly discarded household waste the next.
So, the question is.... should we try to stop children going through our trash?
On the one hand we are concerned about their safety and hygiene as they are often sifting through broken glass, discarded tissues, sanitary products etc. There is also an element of invasion of privacy to it because some of the things you throw away are definitely not things that you want to see again, let alone in the hands of a child. But on the other hand what right do we have to deny someone, anyone, things that we throw away. If someone wants something that we have deemed to have no further value to us then how can we turn around and say 'no' you can't have it.
So what do you think? Everytime we take out the rubbish we are followed by children of all ages eager to get first pickings at our fresh trash, do we look the other way and let them fight over it or burn it straight away (all rubbish is burnt here, no rubbish collection) to deny them the chance of going through it?
2) To help one and anger many....or help none....
One of the problems we have when working in areas where everyone is poor and in genuine need is just that... everyone is poor and in need, so who, if anyone, do we help. It might seem easy to say help whoever you can but when working as part of an organisation such as Beautiful Gate with over sixty staff members, choosing to help some and not others can turn into a major problem. It might seems petty that people would squabble or get jealous over someone in need receiving assistance but it is hard for us to understand and unfair for us to judge people for having this reaction because we ourselves are not in need. I'm not sure how I would react if I was struggling to keep my family fed and saw that someone at work was getting a handout of food and I wasn't. So we face this dilemma daily of seeing people who desperately need help, wanting to help them but knowing that if we help them and can't offer the same assistance to everyone else it will cause jealousy and anger. It is doubly hard when someone who we have developed a friendship with asks us for money or food because the natural reaction is to give but where do you draw the line, where to you stop helping the one because it angers the many.
So what do you think? Is it better to help whoever we can and it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks, or is it more important to help people as equally as we can to avoid anyone feeling left out?
3) Personal Security Vs Community Involvement?
This one poses less of a challenge to me because personal security must to a certain extent always come first. It is impossible to help others when you are constantly watching your own back so some measure of personal safety is always a must. I do take considerable measures to ensure Jodanne and I are always as safe as we can practically be, the dilemma emerges in the interpretation of what is and is not 'practical'. For example it is practical for me to walk everywhere carrying a big, aggressive looking walking stick because in African culture men often walk around with 'sticks' and it is actually taken as a sign of respecting the culture rather than as a sign of distrusting the community. On the other a 'Tazer' or some other type of more aggressive weapon would be more useful in a bad situation but this would cause its own problems when we are working with children. Ultimately we feel safe in the community we are in but the stories of assaults, robbery, rape and murder are unnerving at times and while we would like to believe the best about people it would be difficult for me to sleep at night if I didn't have all the security provisions in place.
So what do you think? Are we being paranoid and should we just embrace the community we live in with open arms, trusting that most people are good and kind? Or are we being naive with only a big stick and locked doors for protection in a country with high crime rates? What protection would you want if you were in our situation?
4) Education... should the priority be children or adults?
In countries with relatively poor histories when it comes to education, we are often working with adults that require education as much as the children. So which is more important? To educate the adults as much as possible so that they can find work and provide for their families or to focus on the children so that they can do well at school and escape from the cycle of poverty? Ultimately we would love to help them all but we haven't got the resources, indeed Africa doesn't have the resources, to educate everyone so where should our, and in the bigger scheme of things, the countries education priorities lie?
There are many adults at work who see what we can do on our fancy computers and want us to teach them so that they can start a business and make some money. I try to show them as much as I can in the limited spare time I have whilst cautioning them that computers don't just print money and having one doesn't guarantee you an income.
Jodanne has at times been very frustrated with the schools she has worked at where teachers seem not to care about the students education and students who are very, very eager to learn have gone untaught. So where do we, or where does an entire country, begin to turn around the lack of education at all levels of society?
So what do you think? Are we better off teaching the children who are the future or should we be teaching their parents to ensure the kids get fed enough to reach the future?
Your thoughts, if you would be so kind, would be valuable to us and I'm sure everyone else reading this and thinking upon these questions themselves, so please click on this link to the 'Contact Us' section and share your thoughts on these daily dilemma's we have shared with you. Thank you.
Andrew
(13.05.08)
A trip to our local.
Yesterday I accompanied one of the nurses from Beautiful Gate on one of the regular trips to the children's HIV/AIDs clinic. A couple of the HIV+ children under Beautiful Gate's care needed to get blood samples taken. The nurse headed there early in the morning, before 6am, so that she could stand in line and hopefully that way we would be seen some time in the morning and not have to wait in line all day. I arrived later, about 7.30am, with the two children. It was an interesting and confronting experience.
Situated in the run-down, dirty and dilapidated industrial area of Maseru the clinic itself is a strikingly beautiful building. American built and funded, the building stands out like a beacon of hope amongst the burnt out buildings, Chinese factories and slum dwellings that surround it. Inside, however, the scene is decidedly African; the waiting room packed full of sick children and anxious parents, patiently waiting for their life saving drugs. It presents as one of the many conundrums we face here in Africa... should we feel thankful for these life saving drugs or angry that they are experimental and these children who have already endured so much are the guinea pigs? Ultimately, experimental or not many of the children we are working with would have died without them so I suppose thankful is the way to go but it still doesn't feel completely right. The children have to go for regular blood tests so that the pharmaceutical company bankrolling the program can cash in on their investment in the form of research data. Thankfully the children at Beautiful Gate all seem to be responding well to the treatments, so I'll say no more about it.
It was difficult sitting in the waiting room and seeing not just the current suffering of the children but also knowing that it wasn't going to get any easier for them. At the moment blissful childhood ignorance shields them from the true devastation of the virus they carry; shields them from the adult realities of sickness and death; shields them from a sometimes cruel and unfair world that will judge them for carrying a disease most of them were born with. It breaks my heart to know that their shy smiles and laughter will all too soon give way to the reality of being HIV+ in a country where treatment is a luxury, work is for the healthy and welfare non-existent.
On the positive side, our blood tests were completed (with more than a few tears and screaming), our medications obtained and we escaped back to the sanctuary of Beautiful Gate well before lunchtime. Leaving behind the beautiful American building filled with terrible African suffering.... at least until next week.
Andrew
(05.05.08)
Full weekend in a Full House.
Jo’Burg Team Visit- ‘Far Out’
On Thursday evening a team of 9 adults and 6 children arrived at our house ready to start their Beautiful Gate Mission Trip. They settled in, unpacked, found a mattress to sleep and Ray gave them an introduction while dinner cooked in the oven. Friday morning they came to Beautiful Gate and their mission was to paint some murals on the walls of some of the buildings. Most of the women and the children attended playgroup and played playdo with the BG children. It was lovely to see the interaction and it gave me time to sit back and enjoy the fact that I had set up the playgroup atmosphere and it worked well. In the afternoon the team started their murals and it was looking great when we left to go to the gym. We went to the gym with Dean and then went back to Dean and Sarah’s for dinner. That night three more adults and 2 children arrived and were part of the Jo’Burg team, making 12 adults and 8 children (20 people living in our house with us!).
Saturday Dean, Sarah, Andrew and I headed to Bloemfontein (it was 1.5 hours from Maseru). We left early and hit the shops by 9am. It was a rainy, miserable day outside so it was great to be inside shopping. Sarah and I shopped and let Dean and Andrew walk the shops together. It was great fun. We had a very nice seafood lunch at Ocean Basket and headed off at about 3pm. As we got closer to the South African border the car started giving us some trouble and it died when Andrew and I were getting our passports stamped at the South African border. We asked around for jumper leads but no one could help us, not even the police that are stationed at the border! Allan and Donna, another couple who work at BG, had to come to our rescue. It was an adventure because the car needed to be jump started about 5 times and then eventually towed, in the rain, as it got darker (6:30pm), and Andrew and I needed to get our passports stamped into South Africa and Lesotho as well. It was definitely a good bonding experience which we all came through with flying colours. The Jo’Burg team had worked hard all day to get the 5 murals finished even though they had to fight the rain as well.
Sunday I went down to BG with the team to finish off the murals while Andrew continued to work to burn all the dvd’s for Ray. Andrew has worked solid for the last two weeks on a powerpoint presentation for Ray and Sue and a photo/video slideshow for them to take on their trip to America. He worked all through last night to get it all finished and completed. He did an outstanding job and it looks amazing. The team left around lunchtime and I we had our house back to ourselves. I tidied up and cleaned the house all afternoon and had a nap as well. Andrew is actually still napping as I write this update.
The weather here looks like it is getting colder again and we will possibly have snow soon. I have never seen snow so even though I now it is going to be very cold, I am looking forward to it too.
I enjoyed the experience of the last the three days of seeing how a big team of people work together on a mission trip as they get so much accomplished in a short visit. I was very impressed with their efforts and the murals and their painting of the buildings are fantastic and I know all the BG staff, children and future visitors and volunteers will be very impressed.
Jodanne