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‘Sharing the Blessings’ August 2007 Hilary Lofink |
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Since she feels responsible for the AIDS orphans, their old and often feeble grandmothers and sometimes even their ramshackle little villages of destitute relatives, Nat swore that she would not take more than 100 orphans under her wing.
Now she has 107 and swears that she won't include any more! Nat is thrilled almost to the point of tears with the very generous donation just given to her by people in the U.S. and Canada. She's now able to take care of all sorts of things that she's been wondering how she'd handle. |
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Armed with supplies of mealie meal, bread and packaged, frozen meat donated by the largest meat-packing plant in the country, I accompanied Nat and one of her young sons on one of her ritual Friday excursion into the bush.
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First stop was a rural school to pay school fees for several children. In some cases, she pays for her new charges and in others, she's able to pay the increases in school fees which seem to happen monthly. According to The Economist, in July, 2007, the country's inflation rate was 7,000%! |
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| (need a photo of Taurai) |
Nat has heard that Agnes, one of the latest orphans to join her group, is living in a particularly desperate situation and she'd like to check it out. Agnes speaks no English so we take Taurai with us Taurai was introduced to me, and to others reading my pieces on this web site, in February 2007. Taurai is seen in this piece wearing orange shorts which he won at school for having the best grades in the class!
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The tiny little village of scanty huts is not accessible by car so we walk through narrow paths, over streams until we come to a clearing in the bush.
Agnes is living in a tiny reed hut with three younger siblings and an older sister, who is pregnant. Several other similar huts are nearby, the area is quite barren but very tidy and there is no running water or electricity. |
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Nat is very impressed to see that several men living with this group are hard at work weaving reed mats. These are sold for a few dollars each as sleeping 'mattresses'.
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During the walk into this area, I noticed that the soil at the base of a large tree had been dug away. Having read that in some areas, people are so hungry that they will eat tree roots, I asked one of the older orphans with us if that had happened here. He told me that these people had dug into a rat's nest and eaten all the rats! |
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From here we went to the church where all the orphans congregate every Friday afternoon for what is usually their best meal of the week. They all walk here from school, a walk that takes some of them a half hour and some of them a couple of hours. |
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After sitting under the trees until most of them have literally licked their plates clean, they wash their plates under a tap and then all get together to play games.
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After the games, everyone is sorted into groups so that Nat can give out the mealie meal (cornmeal), bread and frozen cuts of meat. I’ve never seen children's eyes sparkle so much. |
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Shortly after that, each child came to say good-bye and thank-you to Nat - and then they wandered off down various paths headed for 'home'. Nat is an angel in their worlds. It's so rewarding for me to see someone give so much time, effort, patience and devotion to so many people for no other reason than she cares! |
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