The women and children who made me cry

Yesterday we biked about 25km out to visit another orphan caregiver group that my NGO has organized. It was a hot, dry, dusty ride out there and we are pretty exhausted when we arrive. We are placed in a small room and dozens of small, wide-eyed children in tattered clothes file in to greet us. Then the women in the caregiver organization come in to perform a dance to welcome us. They took us out to the community maize field where the maize they grow goes toward the orphans, either feeding them directly or sold to provide school supplies and school fees for some of the older children. The group is caring for 43 orphans and the maize is not enough. The group built a beautiful pig kraal and the agreement was that, after building the sites, a partner agency would provide husbandry training and 4 pigs (one male and 3 females). This is the same project that was undertaken by my NGO at 15 other sites in our catchment area for OVC groups. We completed our part of the bargain and all of the kraals were completed by October; however the “partner” organization who committed themselves to this effort has not come through with either training or livestock. So the pig kraal is currently used as a preschool area for the younger orphans who are not attending primary school yet and the OVC group is struggling to care for these children. We visit with the children in the kraal and they sing for us and show us some of the figures they are making with mud and clay. They are packed into one of the sections of the kraal so tightly there is no room to move. I wondered if they always sat in there like this or if they are just gathered into one small place for our visit. I suspect it is easier to control the children when their movement is so severely limited, but it can’t be much fun for them or conducive to learning much.
After meeting with the children, we have a more formal meeting with the village headmen and the OVC group. The women tell us of their accomplishments and their struggles to provide not only for the orphans, but also for the elderly and disabled, some of whom were also present at the meeting. As I look out over the crowd, I am moved again by how much the women in Africa take upon their shoulders. The women hold this continent together, but just barely. They are so pleased to have me there, in their words a “humble white woman who would come by bicycle all the way out there to just visit with them. “ Well, in a rare moment I may sometimes approach humility, but probably not often enough. I start to get choked up. It just comes on me sometimes when I least expect it and it is just one more reason public office is not for me. I struggle to retain the tears, dabbing tissue at the corners of my eyes. God, don’t let me cry. I know my turn to say something is coming up and there is no way for me to bow out. I search my mind for happy or funny memories, anything I can latch on to that will stem the flood. The strategy works only briefly and intermittently. My time comes and I stand. Henderson stands next to me to translate. I start to say something about the women in Africa, how they are holding up Africa, how it is through their strength that anything survives here. Then my throat closes. I stand there knowing that to utter another word is to allow the torrent of tears to flow and I cannot do that. I am not ashamed to cry, but one never knows how that will be interpreted here. They are strong and they expect the same of me. A few tears leak out the corners of my eyes and everything is quiet and still. No one moves, no one breathes. The moments seem an eternity for all of us while I can neither continue nor sit down. Eventually the worst of it passes and I finish, talking about the ravages of HIV, the necessity to get tested and treated, the need for pregnant women to get antenatal care and testing to protect their unborn children and prevent more children from being orphaned, the importance of caring for those children already orphaned. I sit down exhausted.
After the meeting was over, I greeted a man sitting on the ground holding a cane. He was slender and small, dressed all in white, with some gray showing in his beard. He shook my hand with a noticeable tremor. He told me, the shakiness in his hand recapitulated in his voice, that he and his wife are both HIV positive and how difficult it is for him to get to the nearest clinic, which is quite some distance, to get ART for both of them. Governments make a big deal about the fact that ART is free in most places in Africa now, but free doesn’t take into account that they are not widely available and the cost, not only in terms of transport cost, but in terms of physical demands where transport is not locally available and you have to walk miles to even find transport, is higher than many can pay. So, many will die.
I rode back to town wondering if there is a way to come up with some pigs for this group. I also wondered how I can leave when there is so much that can be done. I told Julie I would never come back to Malawi because all eyes are on Malawi and there are countless NGOs and governmental agencies tripping over each other, few making any tangible difference in places like this small rural community. Every time I go into Lilongwe and see all the cars, with their organizational logos plastered on the doors, I become nauseated. I pass all the new buildings in the capital that house the major aid organizations that cost millions to operate, and I want to rip my hair out. Everytime I go to the restaurant even in my small town and see another group eating there because they are attending yet another workshop, resentment boils up in me. But when I get out into the rural area, where most of the people are living, and see how much they are doing with so little, I am awed and I want to help them do more. And even if I could put behind me the poverty and difficulty these people face in their everyday existence, the faces of so many orphaned children will haunt me in my sleep.