I don’t know what to say after today.
Why?
Why?
Why God?
How can this be?
Today I visited a “head of household” homestead – where the
kids have no parents and are living on their own.
There are 3 sisters, 18, 14, and 12.
Their mother and father dies 2 years ago from
AIDS.
As we drove off the main gravel road and onto a secondary
gravel road and on again to more of a path than anything through scrub brush
and aloe plants, we came upon a small clearing with a 2 room cement block
home.
The pictures of the parents hang on the bare walls.
The moldy cabbage sits alongside the rotten
potatoes, all the dinner they have to eat.
In the bedroom they all share when they sat on one bed, it broke right
in front of us.
The younger girls are in school – 4th and 5th
grade.
The oldest sister was in school
but the school fees have been unpaid and she was not allowed to finish.
She is only 2 years from graduating from high
school, speaks beautiful English, and sits at home praying for school fees.
The real danger lies in the fact that these girls live in a
very vulnerable situation – sexual predators abound here for
many reasons, and these girls are prime targets.
And with the HIV infection rate hovering at
44%, the chances are great that if they are abused, it will be by an HIV
infected man.
We will go back tomorrow with food and the promise of paying
the school fees so they can all stay in school.
Something so little while they live in such danger.
The other house we visited was the home of 4 beautiful
children, 2 of them twins.
Their clothes
are more tattered than any other kids, the live in a 2 room mud and stick
house, and their mother has died with AIDS.
The father is not far behind – displaying the glassy eye and skeletal figure
of one in their final weeks.
The pastor told us this alcohol abusing father violates his
13 year old daughter.
Yet she smiles
like any school girl when you smile and shake her hand.
The twin boys are of sweet disposition and
the younger sister is a spunky delight.
It is hard to imagine the hardships they have and are experiencing.
And in the weeks to come, the father will be
gone and they will be on their own.
We met a neighbor lady who cooks for them and takes them
food, but she is single with 4 children of her own.
Her resources are limited and she does all
she can.
In our ministry here we have helped all these children with
school fees and encourage them in their church attendance.
That seems a hollow victory in light of the
horrors that happen behind the walls of their homes.
I don’t understand the culture why we can’t
call the police on this man, but sadly that is not how it is done (or not
done?)here in
Swaziland.
What can I do put bring clothes and food and prayers?
I am left empty with these solutions.
