Heart for Haniville
Trip Start
Sep 09, 2009
1
42
90
Trip End
Dec 18, 2009
Where I stayed
African Enterprise
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
After baba Philip left us we went with Phindile into Haniville to do home visits. The first woman we met was HIV positive and also had TB. She was so weak she couldn't even sit up, the hut smelled too and had lots of flies. Phindile was asked to return later with diapers for her because she can't use the restroom. This was the first thing we saw so it was just an eye opener. We prayed for her and continued on through the township till we came to a very small mud and stick hut where a man laid in his bed also unable to get out of bed. I believe he was also positive for both HIV and TB and he was bed ridden because almost a year ago, his daughter's boyfriend came when he was alone and stabbed him in the back. It was funny to see that he had a poster of 50 cent and then snoopdog, nelly, and t pain written in his hut. We asked if he was a fan and he told Phindile no, his son was. This man still has other children and he can't go to work to provide for them or make them food, I don't know if his wife left or not but it was heartbreaking to see. And he doesn't want to take his pills so he isn't in great shape. From there we visited a few other infected people but they were much healthier and walking around. It's tough though because even though they are ok now, you know that they have a death sentence because they just can't live many years when they are HIV infected.
As we walked about the streets we saw many children playing and even got a chance to play with them ourselves at one point. Taylor and the little boys about 4 and 5 were playing and he would chase them then when he "wasn't looking" they would try to sneak back and he would chase them again. We also played jump rope with these girls and kicked a soccer ball around a little bit. One of my favorite moments today was when we met a 10 year old boy and he just came and put his arms around us. We learned later from Phindile that he lost both his parent to HIV and AIDS and now lives with his grandma. Then to get back to the top of the road we climbed in a very crowded taxi and got close and personal with some of the locals. The taxi gave a lift to the entrance so we could have a short walk back to WITL (Walk in the Light) and it was definitely and experience!
After lunch we moved a bunch of concrete chunks, brick, rocks, dirt, etc. with shovels and our hand and wheelbarrows to clean up the place a little bit. I saw like 4 different bugs that i have never seen before in my life till today... yuck! and we did that for about an hour and a half. And we had an encounter with a snake ! but I guess it was just a brown house snake but it was huge! and purple not brown. For our last 30 minutes we took boxes of food to four families in the township and idk to me I wasn't like thrilled I guess because like we all just hopped into this really cool landrover type vehicle that looks like it could do some serious off roading and then would get out and hand the box to the family at their door and that was it. I just felt like where is our work or our sacrifice in that? we just handed them a box of food, I just feel I want to meet these people's needs more instead of being oh look i'm American and i'm handing out food now I can feel good about myself ya know?
But overall the first day was good. Tomorrow we are leading a Bible lesson for kids ages 7-12 so it should be great! after the site we came back to AE and I had to go to a Muslim woman's house to interview her on her culture for out intercultural communications class with my group. It was actually a really cool experience. She was very nice and her whole family was very nice. They were very wealthy and very hospitable. There house was amazing and it was interesting to hear her thoughts and we had a good conversation about Islam and Christianity on the way back. One thing that caught our attention was how when she talked about Abraham having to sacrifice his son ISHMAEL on the altar and God saved him that she didn't say ISAAC. Because in fact it was Isaac not Ishmael. But that was a cool experience, we are going to be visiting a mosk too sometime soon.
THEN after that we got back after dinner had ended and it was time for class! yeah till 8 15 ! long day, but it was good. A lot to take in for one day.
