Ethembeni is located in the township of Mpophomeni, an extremely rural area. Many of the homes are simple mud huts, and the people living there walk everywhere they go.
There are tons of chickens and goats wandering around everywhere! Here's Brianna with one of the roosters that hangs out in the yard at Ethembeni.
There are 3 parts to this clinical site. First, the main Ethembeni building is a small hospice that can hold 4 patients. It's not a hospice like in the US, though. The patients are only there temporarily to get better, and they go back home after they've recuperated and gained their strength back.
We didn't spend much time with these patients when we were at the site. However, I was able to talk with one of them each day that I went. Her name is Zodwa. She is really sweet and told me all about her kids. During my most recent visit with her, she said she gets to go home next week! I'm very excited about her improvement. Here's a picture of us together.
The second part to Ethembeni is home visits, which is my favorite part! There are only 2 nurses working at the site, Sister Kathryn and Sister Louise. All the rest of the workers are volunteers. Some are from the church that runs the whole organization, and the others are Zulu women from the community. For the home visits, each Zulu volunteer gets paired up with either Sister Kathryn or one of the church members, and we students join one of the pairs.
We drive out to the patients' homes to visit them. Each Zulu vounteer is assigned to 8 patients. On Tuesdays, we go to all 8 homes and talk with the patients for a long time. On Thursdays, we only go to 4 homes, and we give them food that is donated from the church. We also have a short Bible study and prayer time. We then go to the other 4 houses the next week.
The home visits are really interesting because you never know what to expect! As I mentioned earlier, the area is very rural. The first day I went out on home visits, we went up in the hills where the houses are tiny huts made of mud and sticks. I couldn't believe that people actually live in them!
We had to drive on narrow, bumpy, dirt roads to get to some of the houses.
For one of them, we parked on the street, got all the food out of the truck,
and then hiked about a quarter mile along a narrow pathway through mud and thick bushes just to get to the house. It was quite the adventure!
We also visited a "child-headed household" that day, which means that both parents have died (most likely from HIV) and now the oldest child is left to take care of the younger ones. They were all at school when we visited, though. We found out from one of their neighbors that their house had been broken into early that morning, and most of their possessions had been stolen. I couldn't believe that someone would do that to a bunch of kids!
Another home that shocked me was basically a one-room log cabin. It had an outhouse a few feet away. There was one double bed, a tiny stove, and a small refridgerator in the house, plus a few things stacked up against the walls. That was it!! I couldn't believe that anyone could live with so little.
The adult wasn't home, but there were three young girls sitting on the floor, happily coloring and drawing. I was amazed that they could live in such a tiny, sparse place, yet still be so seemingly content. I will never have a right to complain about anything ever again after seeing how happy those girls were with so little.
Another home that was about the same size of this cabin, but was built by the government and so was much more structurally sound, had 15 kids living in it, all taken care of by one lady! The house had 2 double beds, a bunkbed, a table and chairs, and a small bathroom. The lady said that the kids sleep all over the beds, and on all the floor space as well. Wow.
We get to play with lots of kids during our home visits. At one home, the caregiver was an 80-year-old lady who was taking care of her 45-year-old mentally challenged daughter, her 22-year-old HIV & TB infected granddaughter, and two 5-year-old boys with way too much energy, one of them being her orphaned great-grandson, and the other was an abandoned neighbor. I couldn't believe the stamina of this granny!! I have no idea how she's still standing, let alone taking care of 4 people who are completely dependent on her for everything! The boys were at least able to entertain each other (and Chelsea and me) by playing together outside.
At another home, we met a 2-year-old girl who was so incredibly smart! She chatted nonstop throughout the visit. I found myself wondering what type of future she'll have. If she's able to get an education, then she will definitely do something incredible with her life.
On my most recent day at Ethembeni, one lady we visited served us hot mealies, which is just like corn on the cob. She was so generous in feeding us even though she had very little food to begin with. Another lady had a garden in her yard, and she excitedly picked some ripe peppers and gave them to us. These ladies barely have anything, yet they are still so generous and willing to share whatever they have.
I have learned so much just from visiting these people at their homes. Ethembeni has definitely had the biggest impact on me so far in the trip. I have no right to ever complain again because I have been so incredibly blessed. I just hope that I will always remember these lessons.
This post is getting too long, so I'll talk about the third part of Ethembeni, the family center, in a separate post.
Words of the day: "umama" (oo-mama) means "mom," "ubaba" (oo-bah-bah) means "dad," and "ugogo" (oo-go-go) means "grandma"
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