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31 July 2002
Swaziland is facing two devastating crises - massive crop failure
and the Aids epidemic. The result is a generation of hungry orphans dependent
on frail grandparents. World Vision New Zealand correspondent James Addis
files this report from Swaziland.
It is a terrible shock to discover how old orphan Thembela Dlamimi actually
is. At a glance I would probably have guessed about six years. Actually
he is 12 - such is the impact of years of undernourishment. When I met
him he was rubbing his empty tummy and complaining of pains in the left-hand
side of his stomach.
"Sometimes it goes away," he says of the dull ache, "
but it always comes back again."
Thembela has an intelligent face and says he used to enjoy school until
he was kicked out because he had no money to pay the fees.
Unfortunately Thembela's plight is an unpleasant reminder of two evils
quietly crushing his community to death. The first, and most obvious,
is hunger - the staple maize crop failed completely this year because
of drought. The second, and more insidious problem, is Aids. Swaziland
has the second highest Aids infection rate in the world - it's estimated
up to one in three adults are HIV positive. According to a US census bureau
report, if present trends continue, by 2010 life expectancy in Swaziland
will drop to 33.
In the drought stricken Eastern Lowveld region where Thembela lives,
young men are conspicuous by their absence. Those that are found might
formerly have made good money in the gold mines of neighbouring South
Africa - cash they could send home to care for their families in tough
years. But today they find themselves limping home to infect their wives
and to die.
"I do not remember my parents," says Thembela, "they died
when I was very young."
The parents of his three cousins are also dead. The four children are
now cared for by Thembela's grandmother Kelete Shongwe, who can't be sure
of her age but thinks it must be about seventy. Again, it's a typical
situation. Care of youngsters is down to the elderly and infirm. They
must somehow feed and clothe their grandchildren, while their fields are
barren and their animals dying for lack of fodder.
What keeps this family going and hundreds in similar dire straits are
emergency supplies of maize distributed by World Vision and supplied by
the Swaziland Government and the United Nation's World Food Programme.
The relief operation is conducted under the auspices of World Vision's
Lubombo Area Development Programme funded by child sponsors. But according
to ADP manager Sibongile Sigudla it is just a temporary stop-gap measure
while the programme pursues the more ambitious goal of helping impoverished
Lowveld communities become self-sufficient, despite the cruel dry spells
which regularly ruin their harvests. To this end the programme is teaching
farmers new techniques, encouraging diversification of crops, assisting
with irrigation systems and showing farmers how to produce cash crops
such as cotton. It's a big job. Lubombo ADP serves some eleven communities
with about 23,000 beneficiaries.
But according to Sibongile the biggest job of all is to get the Aids
prevention message across to largely uneducated communities, often in
denial about the true nature of the disease, reluctant to change sexual
behaviours and sometimes given to bizarre superstitions.
"We need to put a major effort into education," sighs Sibongile,
"some communities don't get the message. They will say Aids is actually
brought on by using condoms.
"Men in Swaziland believe it's their God given privilege to have
more than one wife. They still shy away from HIV education."
Given such attitudes it's easy to see why programme staff sometimes become
discouraged but the message is getting through to some. One of the first
people I meet in Lubombo is 24 year old Jubalani Mamba, now responsible
for caring for his younger siblings following the death of his parents.
His perspective on Aids: "Stick to one partner and be faithful to
one another," he says without hesitation.
Unfortunately Thembela's grandmother Kelete Shongwe is less clear.
"Yes," she says uncertainly, "I have heard about it [Aids].
People who get it seem to lose a lot of weight very quickly."
"And how do people get it?" I ask.
"I don't know. Maybe it's hunger - people not eating well."
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