Sorry this next installment is late!...
On Monday (of last week), along with the Canadian boys who are
staying here, I took on a little project. Children in the area don’t go to
school until they are seven, and the crèches around are few and far between, so
they need all the funding they can get to both have the facilities they need
and to cater for the demand. A trust expressed interest in funding and the
Village of Hope volunteered to facilitate this by surveying a few crèches in
the area. So we visited each one to ask some questions and take photos – we
were welcomed with open arms and shown around all of them.
There was a very
different range, as far as building quality, space, facilities and number of
children went, and some were far more needy than others. One in particular was
run by a woman just down the road, who lived next door to the crèche. She was
incredibly warm and happily showed me around inside and outside where they had
a vegetable garden and play area. The building was quite run down and there was
only one small room for 16 children. Crowded as it was, she explained that they
couldn’t attain funding from Social Services until they had 20 children. The situation for people here makes it so difficult to improve things for themselves
and those around them – and it was hard walking in to see only a glimpse of
this, only to leave quickly afterwards. After all the visits I compiled all the information in a document, which was handed back – hopefully this will go some way to offering some support to the creches we saw... I am really relishing the challenges that come everyday here - to get handed projects and tasks like this and have to get on with it on my own has forced me out of my comfort zone and given me more confidence in my abilities.
The week then took a little nose-dive as I was sick on
Tuesday night (my first tummy bug of many I expect!) I still felt pretty bad on
Wednesday morning so I had to forgo my plans to go to the Thembacare craft
session (really disappointing, as I don’t want to appear to be giving up on
them after just one week!)
Jess and I had a planning meeting about Rainbow Smiles (the support group for teenagers with HIV) this week, on Wednesday. As people
have come and gone from the Village of Hope and had different inputs, there has
been a bit of confusion about roles. So in the meeting we tried to clarify
everything. The sessions are led primarily by a woman from the community who
knows all the children really well and has personal experience of coping with
HIV. There are also two nurses from Thembacare who come as a support, and also
help with translation. This week we dealt with HIV contraction, hoping to help
the children really understand the virus they are coping with. We made it more
approachable with drawings, demonstrations and a game (which involved me being
an antibody or ‘soldier cell’ and being attacked by HIV viruses). Embarrassment
aside, the end effect was very rewarding. The children are usually quite timid
and it is often hard to draw things out of them, especially if you’re asking
them to express themselves and their emotions in their second language; but we
had a great discussion of how important it was for them to take their ARVs
everyday and questions cropped up about contact with others and possible
contraction. It felt like a bit of
a turning point, the session running more smoothly and the children visibly
more comfortable and confident with us.
The children in the unit are all doing well and one of our little girls turned 5 this week. They played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, which they’d never played before, some of them not quite grasping the necessity of the blindfold! 
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