Perpetual Change

From the Land of Swaz

Dear readers,
This entry is a roller coaster of emotion. I laughed so hard at the first part and the second brought tears and grief. Blia, I hope you don't mind. I will take it off right away if you do. This is what it is like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. With some I can sympathize, with other parts it is very site specific. Because many of you, if you read, will feel like Blia, like what can you do, and so I have attached also her request in order to give you a way to serve. However, I cannot post her address. Please email me or post a comment, and I will make sure you get the city name. This post is long, so you can skip to the bottom if you want to see how to help.

You do great work, Blia.

So my friend Jabu (Arlene, but we always call her by her SiSwati name (jah-boo), which means happiness), you know the crazy, aloof one, absolutely gorgeous, way too high maintenance for Peace Corps, walks & talks like a cop, is absolutely late to everything, more late than Swazis, anyhow, we had a sleepover at my place. My house is the last one before the mountains, soo it’s beautiful, and has great paths for hiking. So this girl, she gets up in the morning and goes to the pit latrine (toilet), it’s outside. She’s gone for 20 minutes, and I’m just thinking, oh it’s Jabu, so if she’s gone for 20 minutes, that’s normal for her, she’s just aloof, if it was anybody else I would have checked on them just to make sure they’re breathing. Well, 40 minutes passes by, I’m just listening to my Westlife boys, not really disturbed, I’m just thinking now, hm . . . 40 minutes has passed, the girl probably went for a walk. Another 20 minutes passes by, now my bhuti (bood-tee): brother comes & asks me where Jabu is. I said she went to the pit latrine. He said, “Sisi (see-see): sister, Jabu is calling you from the mountains.” Oh my gosh, this girl! She did go for a walk, but come on, there’s a difference between a walk & a hike up a mountain! Who the hell goes to the pit latrine outside and then decides to go and hike up the mountains, and doesn’t even tell anybody?! First of all, there are so many snakes here - remember 3 snakes killed outside my round-aval, a boy was killed by a black mamba in my village, my headmaster (principal) had to shoot a black mamba on school grounds, monkeys just gave birth & there are lots of little monkey babies, which means mean monkey mamas! My bhuti & I had to go up to the mountains to look for her, we brought the dogs, but as soon as we got to the river, the dogs didn’t know which direction to bring us. I was screaming her name & just heard my own echo. We did this for about an hour, and I was really freaked out at that point, I’m thinking a snake could have bitten her, she could have fallen off a cliff & broke her leg, etc., etc. So we head back to my homestead, and look who is talking to my babe (bah-bay): father. Jabu is standing there and asking him where I was. Can you believe this girl? Then she turns around & I see that her arm is all scraped up & bloody. Yep, she did fall off a cliff, then went off the path & got lost! This girl is ridiculous! I was so mad at her, I thought I’d have to send out a search party for her, call Peace Corps Security, then both of us would be in trouble. This girl just does weird stuff all the time!

Then that night we were attacked by bats! So Jabu has personal space issues, like she can’t stand pissing in a bucket in front of someone or bucket bathing in front of someone, even after a whole year now in the Swaz (I make that sound pretty normal, don’t I?). So I’m taking a bucket batch & she has her back turned towards me, and keeps asking me when I’m going to finish bucket bathing. Well, I tell her I’m finish & I wrap the sarong around me, she turns around & screams, “Blia, open the door now!” I got so scared, I didn’t know what she was screaming about, so instead of opening the door I ran towards my bed & got under the mosquito net. While I’m running towards my bed, she is running towards the door. She opens it, hoping the bat will fly out. When she turns around she sees me sitting in my bed under the mosquito net, & she’s now bickering about how I didn’t even listen to her, instead I save my own life, & she could have gotten bit by the bat. Well, the bat didn’t go out, even though she opened the door. Then she’s screaming, “Blia, there’s a bat in your round-aval, there’s a bat, they have rabies, bats have rabies!” Then I look up & finally see the bat flying around, so now we’re both screaming, sitting under my mosquito net, & my family comes running out of the main homestead. When they get in my round-aval & I tell them that there’s a bat, they start laughing at Jabu & I. We’re still under the mosquito net and Jabu is still screaming, “Bats have rabies, bats have rabies, Blia do something!” Me, do something, oh my gosh, I am not going to get out of the mosquito net to kill a bat?! So my bhuti takes my broom & tries to kill it, while he’s doing this another bat flies towards. It lands right in front of Jabu’s face on the mosquito net, she takes my pillow & she’s going to hit it, so now we both start screaming even more! Then I’m yelling at her to shut up, because the bat is in front of her face & she’s completely freaking out, and she’s going to use my pillow! Pillows are expensive here! So I’m yelling at her, trying to grab the pillow from her, then finally by bhuti (brother) kills that bat too! Is that ridiculous or what?! So now I am petrified that if I don’t leave a flashlight on at night that the bats will think my round-aval is a cave & they’re gonna come in! My roof is thatch so somehow they squeeze in, I don’t know.

I didn’t get to go to Tofu, Mozambique. It’s suppose to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world & you can swim with whale sharks. Something was going on in my community & then I had a workshop I attended. But hopefully I’ll do Tofu before I leave. But my friends who went got stuck at the border, because Swaziland wouldn’t let them through so they had to turn around & go back to Mozambique. The only place they found that night was a brothel! Yeah, it had plastic sheets on the beds, condoms on nightstands, & pornography everywhere. How funny was that?!

Oh my friend Derek, a PCV here, he almost got bit by a spitting cobra! He was in his pit latrine (toilet room, it’s like 3 walls with a hole in the floor), and he felt something wet hit his cheek, he thought it was a leak in the tin roof so he looks up, then he felt it again, this time it hit his left eye, and it stung, so he turns his face, and he feels it again, this time sprayed into his right eye, then he hears a hissing and immediately ducks down. Oh my gosh! A spitting cobra spits 3 times before it strikes, then you die! He lives in such a rural area too! But it took him 40 minutes to get to the tar road, then from the tar road, another 1/2 an hour, then he had to wait for the ambulance, then at the hospital they didn’t even know what to do, the nurses gave him saline & told him to wash out his eyes, nothing was really done until our Peace Corps Medical Officer, Daynese got there! He’s okay now, but at first he couldn’t see anything, everything was a blur, and it was very painful, but it took him a couple of days & he fully recovered! That is some crazy story!

... Anyhow, for the rest of the week at a conference I attended, they had Swazis come in & teach, which was now difficult for us 4 volunteers, since everything was in SiSwati. So there were about 30 Swazis there. Some of them expressed concerns in Swazi culture being weakened by foreigners coming in & trying to tell them how to run things. In Swaziland, there are 69,000 AIDS related orphans, in 2010 the projected estimation will be 120,000. There are an estimated 130,000 orphans & vulnerable children, in 2010 the projected estimation will 189,000. There are all these orphans, so UNICEF, Red Cross, & other NGO’s have come in & started NCP’s (neighborhood care points), provided food, & assisted in establishing NCP’s. Some Swazis feel this is taking away from Swazi culture that if a child becomes an orphan a family member takes the child in. NCP’s provide food, so some of those Swazis felt like this is disenabling them from providing food for the orphans. Then other expressed concerns that this dilemma is too big for Swazis to handle alone & that they need to move forward with time in itself & look at the bigger picture. The other 3 volunteers left to go back to their village, so here I was alone in a room full of Swazis, feeling, like who am I to come in here & expect people to understand where I am coming from, when we haven’t even taken into consideration all of this “help” is actually destroying Swazi culture, yet I do believe this is an epidemic too big for one country to handle by itself also.

In spite of this, I believe so much in helping one another, I really do believe you are not just a citizen to one another in your community, you are a citizen of the world, however I now look at community development in such different eyes. I use to think this is the kind of work I would want to do for the rest of my life, and now I am rethinking, just rethinking everything. My whole state of mind on community development has to change or else I will end up looking at it as an evil. People become dependent on you. Then it’s hard to say no, so you end up taking on more yes’s. There is something that is so apparent in Swaziland, or I should say in many 3rd world countries, this thing called “learned helplessness.” In doing what we are doing here, there is such a thin line between sustainability & learned helplessness. Even when you don’t mean to, you end up making someone believe they can’t do things by themselves unless an umlungu (um-loon-goo): white person comes in & does it. There is not a day that goes by that someone does not ask me for money or for something.

After this workshop, I met this boy on the bus, I was heading to help my friend Vincent at his Boys & Girls Camp. When I looked at this little boy I knew he was HIV positive, I knew it, I knew it in my soul, and I didn’t want to believe it. So, of course they teach us to not assume that someone is HIV positive, but being here for over a year now, I hate to say this, but most of the times I can tell by just looking at someone if they have it or not, when they are in the very last stage. HIV can remain dormant for years in adults, for children it progresses faster and becomes full blow AIDS in less than half the time it does for adults. There are 4 stages, he looked like he was at the last stage, which is Stage C & there are apparent severe signs & symptoms. He climbed in the khombi and laid on the front, he had lesions, and he was emaciated, his eyes were hollow. I smiled at him, I said, “Sawubona bhuti. (Hello brother),” but inside my soul, I had this gravitational pull to look away, to just look away. I sometimes think, who are we, who are we, we’re these Peace Corps Volunteers who come into the country, we think we can change things, and along the way we just become apathetic, apathetic to everything.

His name is Sifiso Ndlangamandla (Suh-fee-so N-dlahn-gah-mahn-dlah), he’s 10 years old but he looks like he’s 5 yeas old, he had on these blue suede shoes that just looked way too big for his little body, his father died 10 years ago. I don’t know what to write to you guys anymore . . . his aunt pulled out a doctor’s note for me to read after she found out I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. You see, whenever we get on a khombi (16 passenger mini-vans), or basically when we get on any public transport, Swazis will start asking us questions, because most umlungus (whites), here in Swaziland I’m called an umlungu, anyhow, most umlungus have cars, they never, ever use public transport, unless they are a backpacker, or a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was so afraid inside, so afraid to get involved. Once I get involved, know that person’s name, listen to their story, I can’t turn back. The Auntie was with Sifiso, she was taking him to Good Shepherd Hospital because she spoke English. I took my sunglasses out and put them on, and I kept telling myself, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. This Auntie is holding herself together, this boy is holding himself together, and I am this complete stranger to them and I’m going to fall apart, I’m going to fall apart. We were still waiting for the khombi to fill up, I wanted it to fill up fast, but they always take so long sometimes, I just wanted it to fill up, so we can leave, so I can depart from this Auntie & this boy. This Auntie told me she was going to take him to the hospital for tests. Talking about HIV here is so taboo, sometimes people just don’t acknowledge it, then other times it’s plastered everywhere all over billboards & in the newspapers. I asked the Auntie if she would take him to get tested for HIV. She said she wanted to, she asked me to go along with them, she asked me if it was safe for a child to take ARV’s. When I put my arms around Sifiso to give him my water bottle, he was all bones, and my knee jerk reaction pulled my hands instantly away from him, because all I felt were bones. As soon as that happened, I put my arms around him again, but I know he felt me pulled away the first time, I felt so ashamed. Just looking over this, I hate that I have become apathetic to so much & that I had to debate to myself whether I should even go to the hospital with them or not. I went with them to the hospital. Wednesdays are distribution days of ARV’s at Good Shepherd Hospital, there were so many people lined up, so many, so many, that we didn’t even get a number to be called in to see a Nurse. When they asked us to go downstairs to another section of the hospital I looked again at the doctor’s note, in the front was listed all of Sifiso’s conditions that day he went into the hospital in October, and what medications needed to be taken, then I turned the doctor’s note around, it said, “CD4 count results 17/11/05.” And it confirmed it, he was HIV positive, he was, I didn’t want to believe it. Why didn’t I see this when I read this in the khombi, why didn’t I see “CD4 count results 17/11/05?” CD4 cells control what your immune system attacks. When HIV has turn into full blow AIDS it targets the CD4 cells and reduces them. I told the Auntie that he must have already taken an HIV test, because Dr.’s don’t administer a CD4 count until after the HIV test. The Auntie didn’t know because she didn’t come with him the other time. The nurses told us to wait, finally we got a nurse, she got us his CD4 count results, it was 126. A child needs to be put on ARV’s when their CD4 count is less than 400, his was 126 in October when they took this test, this means his CD4 count is considerably less now, 2 months after that test was taken. I asked the Auntie why they didn’t come back on November 17th to pick up the CD4 results like what it says on the doctor’s note. She said he was still taking exams. At that very moment, I just felt this bolt of frustration go through me, what I have been feeling so much lately, this feeling of me wanting to pull out my hair, but it literally feels like you just don’t even have the strength to lift your arms up to pull out your hair. Then the nurses wouldn’t put him on ARV’s because Sifiso lives near Hlathikhulu Hospital, and that is the hospital that he needs to start his ARV’s, and his mother wasn’t there to give consent, so Sifiso wouldn’t have been able to even start his ARV’s that day. In the end, they treated him for his chronic diarrhea.

I’m telling you this, because I have come to a turning point in my Peace Corps service. It is not about water projects & income generating projects to me anymore. Yes, all of that is important, because it all revolves around the HIV/AIDS epidemic, water is essential for a healthy diet, water is essential for maize (Swazi staple food), water is needed at the NCP (Neighborhood Care Point) that feeds 150 orphans, income generating projects are important, some men & women can have another source of income instead of living off of prostitution, income generating projects are essential to alleviate poverty, yes it is all important, and yes the community needs it, but after attending the Baylor Workshop I have realized how afraid I was to acknowledge what I see. I see it, we all do here, yet some of us just go on with our daily business. I am glad I met Sifiso & his Aunt.

The next Wednesday after going to Good Shepherd Hospital, we bring him to Hlathikhulu Hospital. I wasn’t even thinking, here I was going to meet his mom, and it hit me when I got to Hlathikhulu Hospital, that she was also HIV positive. I meet his mom, she is this soft-spoken, kind-hearted woman, she really is. We wait from 9am – 3pm and finally see a nurse. When we see the nurse, she says that we need to get a CBC done. They counsel Sifiso’s mother on HIV and what Sifiso will be going through when he takes the ARV’s. They ask her if she has been tested and she said no. As we are walking out of the room, the counselors say to me “Talk to her about testing, try to encourage her to test.” So we go down to the Lab, wait again. The Lab Technician knows this boy is HIV positive and doesn’t even wear gloves. I hate needles. So when he sticks the needle inside to draw Sifiso’s blood I look up at Sifiso’s face. This anguish went over his face but he didn’t cry, he didn’t even cry. Here I am my eyes are swelling up, and here Sifiso is so strong. The Lab Technician couldn’t draw enough blood from his arm, so he switches to the other arm. This time Sifiso let out this silent cry that lasted for several seconds before tears and the actual sound of crying came out. When I looked at him, it was like his body wasn’t even there, all I saw were bones and this Lab Technician is drawing blood from bones. I looked away and had to put on my sunglasses, tears just kept rolling off of me. His mom was so strong too, she just stood there and had all of her composure, all this self-control. You know, I held Sifiso’s hand, and I wanted so much for him to not feel pain, I just kept thinking this is a child, this is a child, this is a child, just a child. After this, we had to wait for the results, so we are once again waiting. Finally when we get the results we go back up to the ARV unit, and they are closing up, the doctor is nowhere to be found. Sifiso is so weak & tired that his mom is carrying him on her back, and the nurse sends us to go get a blood test & tell us to come back, and now they are just closing up?! I’m running around looking for the doctor. I find him & tell him that we need the ARV’s today! And the ARV unit closes up while we’re inside. We’re in the doctor’s office now & he writes a prescription for Sifiso to start ARV’s today. He tells us to go to the Pharmacy which is in the main hospital. So here we have to go back to where the lab was located. When we get to the Pharmacy the door is half-way opened. I knock on the door and the lady working at the Pharmacy comes over and says “It’s closed.” I tell her that the doctor says he needs to get started on ARV’s today. She snapped back, “Why are you late to pick up the ARV’s?” I told her that it is not our fault, we’ve been waiting all day, I had to go looking for a doctor when the ARV unit closed up. She said, “Come back tomorrow.” By this point, my blood is boiling, I mean, this is ridiculous, this country has a 42.7% HIV prevalence rate, Sifiso & his mom have been waiting all day at this hospital, the ARV unit sends us in circles & decides to close up even though it told us to come back . . . seriously, I was telling myself do not raise your voice Blia, do not raise your voice. Now the lady looks over at Sifiso’s mother and asks her where they live. See the thing is that most people don’t even go to hospitals unless it is a dire emergency, most people don’t pick up their ARV’s, people just don’t waste what little money they have on transport to come to the hospital. I was thinking in my head, gosh I hope Sifiso’s mother lies and says they live far away, but she told the truth. The nurse just pauses and I tell her that it is really important that he starts his ARV’s today and that they’ve already used their money to come here today, they can’t come back tomorrow. She said, “Understand me, can you understand where I am coming from? The Pharmacy is closed. He has had this for a long time, he is not going to die today.” Sifiso’s mother’s head went down. This whole time, Sifiso has been sitting on the floor. At the moment, my blood was not boiling, I didn’t erupt in anger, instead I just felt this deep sadness go over my heart. Then for whatever reason it was, she told us to wait & went over to the shelves full of medicine boxes and started grabbing the different medicines and writing on them. She came over and gave Sifiso’s mother the ARV’s and gave her directions in SiSwati, then gave me directions in English, then told me I need to assist them to make sure he will adhere to it. And that was that. This is even difficult for me to say, but I cannot say the Pharmacist is wrong, I cannot say the ARV unit is wrong in closing up, I cannot say the Dr. is wrong in leaving his office, there just is not enough capacity for what is going on here.

We met several times in between having before going back to the hospital for Sifiso again. During that time Make (mother) told me about Sifiso’s dad. She said, “One day he lost his mother tongue, then the next day, he just died.” His family married her off to her husband’s brother. This is Swazi tradition. She was worried what ARV’s would do to Sifiso. She was worried he was too young to be taking all these tablets. We talked about HIV testing, and she wanted to test. So a couple of days later we go for an HIV test. We waited 5 hours until she got tested. The nurse had left the room, and I had to go look for her. What happened was that she was trying to work both units, the ARV unit & the HIV testing unit. Swaziland does not have the capacity in their hospitals to deal with this pandemic. They just do not have the capacity. There are not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough counselors, just not enough. There were 9 people who have been waiting since 8am to get tested. Sifiso’s mothser was the 4th person in line. Tell me, please tell me, how do you expect people to come test when you want someone to wait 5 hours until they even see a nurse? She finally got tested and when we were walking out of the hospital, Sifiso’s make (mah-gay): mother, just said in her soft-spoken voice, “I am positive.” I was shocked, because I didn’t know that the nurse used the rapid test, I thought it was an HIV test that would take a week or two for the results. I didn’t know what to say, I really didn’t. We just walked in silence. And then I said, “It’ll be okay Make, it will be okay, you are strong.” I felt like I lied, lied that things would be okay, not lied about her being strong, but just plain lied that things will be okay . . . because she has a 13 month old baby, she has 3 older children above Sifiso’s age, she has a husband – and possibly, all of these people could be HIV positive.

You know, sometimes I really do think, what the heck are we doing here? We are these kids running around saying we are Peace Corps volunteers, that we are HIV/AIDS educators . . . but really, we are just kids. I would say from the 32 that left Philadelphia for Swaziland, only a hand full have worked directly with HIV/AIDS. Swaziland doesn’t have the capacity, so we send volunteers, we send doctors from other countries, we send money, so then here we are, just creating the cycle of dependency that has formed over centuries since the Europeans arrived here.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Sifiso passed away on Tuesday, January 17. He was on ARV’s for a month, but I really don’t know if he was adhering to it or if he just had really bad side effects from it, I don’t know. I was in the office when I found out. I was on the phone with his Auntie, just making sure he had been taking his ARV’s & asking if Make (mother) had already picked up her ARV’s. Auntie told me he passed away & I just felt so heartbroken for Sifiso and his family. I was quiet on the phone, couldn’t talk, tears kept rolling off of me, and his Auntie said, “Fikile, this is a part of life.” I just kept thinking about those big blue suede shoes & his little body. I went to his funeral Saturday. His Gogo (grandmother) called me sikoni (daughter-in-law), they had wanted me to marry Sifiso. All the women were in the mourning room, and his mother was crouched down. She looked even thinner than the last time I saw her. I went from feeling heartbroken, to empty, to just acceptance. I can’t imagine this family, what they are going through. Make (mother) didn’t pick up her ARV’s like she was suppose to 2 weeks ago. I don’t know if she will. I asked her, but she said she has to mourn for a month & not go out. I don’t think she wants to bother with it. I think she saw that it didn’t work on Sifiso, so why bother? You can’t make anyone do anything. I should know that already, but I guess I just thought encouraging someone would be enough, but even that’s not enough. I wish so much Make (mother) would just pick up her ARV’s. She has a little baby. I don’t know, I just don’t know what to think anymore.

Being here has made me realize how easy it is to not want to know someone’s name, to not want to get involved, to just not be a part of Swaziland, it’s easy to take that route, it’s easier to be selfish, in that selfishness you can protect yourself. I don’t think selfishness is a bad thing, I think I just need to find a balance in this kind of work. At the same time, I think it is so difficult to not want to know someone’s name, you live in the community, you are a part of them as much as they are a part of your everyday life here, it’s difficult to not get involved, I’m absorbed into every aspect of Swaziland . . . so I guess in the end it’s an extreme, it’s either too easy to look away or too difficult to look away. Do I make any sense? I am trying to find a middle ground. I miss everyone, hope you all are doing well, update me on your life, & do take care! God bless!

“Love anything & your heart will be wrung & possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping your heart intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it round with hobbies & little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – your heart will change. It will not be broken but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable, & only by exposing that vulnerability to the world, & by using your own pain & grief to serve the world, can you experience the very height of love.” - C.S. Lewis

Love xoxo,
Blia Yang
PROVERBS 3:6

BLIA YANG
P.O. BOX 614

I am sending out a mass e-mail to all my friends & family for a request for Boys & Girls Camp supplies. Please don't feel pressured to purchase anything if you are unable to, it's no worries at all. I plan on having this Boys & Girls Camp in early May, so if you were able to send things, then you can send them SURFACE MAIL, which will take about 2-3 months (no worries, send it SURFACE MAIL, i don't want you to pay extra for airmail). when you fill out the customs form, you have to write down: EDUCATION/SCHOOL SUPPLIES, you can write USED if you want to, if you don't like lying then you don't have to. don't put the actual cost of all the stuff you send, always make it a flat rate of, for example $10 USD, or $20 USD. write GOD BLESS YOU on all the sides of the box in big RED or BLACK letters. i have heard from friends & family that UPS is not so cheap in some areas, so please look around to find the best price to send the package, or just go through the regular post office.

oh, i should tell you what the camp is for, well basically you all know that i have been teaching at the secondary school (high school) for over a year now, and i just started teaching at the 2 primary schools (elementary schools). i teach life skills, which the ministry of education in swaziland is trying to make a required class in all schools, due to the hiv/aids pandemic. life skills class covers HIV/AIDS education, goals & decision making, critical thinking, self-awareness, communication, relationships, etc. i have been collecting data work from the primary schools, i'm finished with ebuhleni primary (elementary school), and 1/3 of the students are an ovc (orphan & vulnerable child- one parent loss, or 2 parent loss). basically i would like to organize a week long day camp which will include life skills education, sports, arts & crafts - most of these activities, my students don't get to do, due to lack of funds within the education system here. i will be able to get porrige (maize meal) from the UN-World Food Program, however, i need supplies for the camp. Example:
1) glue
2) scissors
3) markers (all kinds)
4) pencils (please there are no pencil sharpeners, so i really don't want to be sharpening 100 pencils with a knife, so if you send pencils, try to send the mechanical kinds)
5) pens
6) stapler & staples
7) paper
8) construction paper
9) face paint
10) t-shirts (i was hoping to do a tye-dye t-shirt or hand paint t-shirt activity) - all kinds of sizes: like the cheap HANES ones that are like 3 in a pack, you could purchase all boys & youth sizes, which i will just use for boys & girls.
11) tye-dye for t-shirts
12) hand paint
13) stickers
14) rulers
15) yarn
16) glitter
17) trinkets - okay, this is basically anything in the house that you don't want anymore that is small, because i will be doing prize give aways, so for example, McDonald happy meal toys, playing cards, whistles, pencil cases, folders (you know those Lisa Frank folders or something jazzy), erasers, yo yo's, slinky's, free give away hats, free give away t-shirts, little backpacks you don't want - whatever is like a little toy that you find lying around your house
18) balloons
19) candy - any kind that is individually wrapped, like lollipops, tootsie rolls, starbursts, life savers - (promise it's really for the kids), ANY KIND OF CANDY WILL DO
20) soccer balls (okay, so you can send it deflated & i can inflate it here)
21) basketballs (you can send it deflated & i can inflate it here)
22) volleyballs (same as above)
23) baseball/softball & bat (cheap kind, not so heavy either)

you can send anything lying around your house that you don't want, i could give it away as prizes. caitlin's dad, when he came from the u.s., he brought like over 200 t-shirts that said Octoberthon 1998 and gave it away during christmas to kids in her village - they were so HAPPY, they thought it was the best gift ever. so believe me, anything is fine.

okay, i think that's it, anything that you find on arts & crafts or for camp related things, please send. I GREATLY APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR HELP. basically there have been 3 other volunteers out of the 50 or so that are here that have organized & put these camps together. they got friends & family at home to donate stuff, so i figured, what the heck, i should try. also, this you really don't have to do, but some of them their church's, friends, & family donated money for food, rather than the kids just having porrige, they were able to purchase organges, chicken for at least one of the days of the camp, so i WOULD SOOOOOO BE THANKFUL, if anyone would like to donate money, that would be wonderful. basically 6 emalengeni is the same as $1 USD. So if you sent $20 that's a lot of money, that would be like E120, which i could buy vegetables for one day for the kids. anything that you would like to donate - please don't feel like you have to do this. i understand some of you are still in college, some of you are sleeping on your friend's couch looking for a job after college - so absolutely NO WORRIES.

posted by jjs @ 1:37 PM