Sympathy

11/28/09

Back to Lubombo where the bugs get bigger as the people get smaller. Hut again Hut again jiggidy jig...

A flock of screeching children and my pregnant dog, Shebali, tackle me. Ah- it's good to be home.

That evening, I sit on the stoop of my hut with the two eldest grandchildren, Mndimiso and Nobandile, 12 and 13. Shebali, our dog, is about to burst. She leans hard onto my side, exposing her pregnant belly. I take Mndimiso's hand and place it on her stomach. He screeches, "Simphiwe! How! What is that?!" "It's a head." I tell him. These children are sorrounded by death; it's important I show them life. My one year old puppy comes staggering towards us. He is unable to hold himself up. Open sores all over his body and he is bone thin. I have been gone for ten days. He has not eaten in 10 days. I sacrifice my last bit of matured....ahhh.. cheddar cheese to him. "Simphiwe, why are you giving that to him?!" The kids whine. "Sympathy. I feel bad for him." I explain sympathy. The little dog refuses to eat. I have seen this before, but I refuse to accept it. I let the thought quickly escape my mind. I cannot possibly have another dog with distemper (my dog on my first homestead died in my arms of distemper).

Shebali bursts into my hut and begins to scratch my cement floor. She buries herself under my bed as far as she can go. I turn to Mndimiso, "They're coming..." The children quickly run to bed. I tell them not to worry I'll document the whole thing. I sit with the soon to be mother, camera in one hand rag in other. I hold her in my arms and stroke her hair speaking to her softly as she whines and screeches in pain. She stops her panting suddenly, looks down and lets out one gigantic yelp. She quickly turns and tends to the newborn- ripping open the sac with her teeth and eating, yes, EVERYTHING. She licks her puppy clean as I hover over flashing with my camera. I am in complete awe. She knows exactly what to do. No baby books needed. Foolish humans. This is better than any surgery channel I've ever watched. I hang upside down from my bed watching as baby after baby comes out. Two hours have past and finally the runt- lucky number seven- is born. Shebali sleeps as her babies feed. All through the night, I wake up every thirty minutes to do a head count and make sure no one is being squashed.

Next day is World AIDS Day and I am extremely sleep deprived. Dumile and I planned a march and an event at her school. We spent the previous day literally running around Manzini shaking NGO's by their crisp collars yelling, "We want condoms!" "We want tiny red ribbons!" "We want speakers!" Most couldn't even spare one representative to come speak to these children. World Vision tells me, "Sorry, all cars are in use that day. We have no way of getting to you." To which I respond, "I see. They don't have kombis where you're staying? That's strange." "No they do." She assures me. Sarcasm doesn't quite fly here. "Look. World Vision created this health club, and now they are having a little event and are inviting you to come see them perform. Please come support these kids." They agree to send us a Jr. Rep. Three hours of listening to NGO's excuses and my bag now full of condoms, we finally make it back to Lubombo.

World AIDS Day- a success.

The next day, however, another story. I wake up to Gogo shouting at me and Nobandile explaining Gogo did not ask for me to live here with them. "The umphagatsi told her to take you in." It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I bite my lip and say nothing. To go from a Gogo who considers me one of her kin to....this... it's a challenge. Volunteers who knew the previous volunteer on my homestead tell me there was abuse in this family and some of it was sexual. The horrors of this Mad World are leaking into my own homestead. I don't have time to dwell on this right now. This morning, country director, is coming to my site to "talk" and I am extremely nervous. What could she possibly have to say to me? Our relationship is not a good one. I am still incredibly angry. I felt blamed and abandoned by the CD. I must choose my words carefully. Not be..me.. and think before I speak. I need to have a good relationship with the office. I have eight dogs in my hut right now, but I know she's a dog person. So I let them stay.

Peace Corps' big white fancy car made for big white fancy people arrives. CD steps out of the back. She wants a tour. "You're lookin' at it." I laugh. Big Gogo steps out of her house. She greets Country Director in Siswati who stares blankly back at her. I direct her to my hut.

We chat a bit about the dogs- making small talk. Deep breath, serious faces on. "I came here to apologize." She tells me. I begin to sweat- big gulp. "This post has been known for not supporting their volunteers. When I was assigned here, I wanted to change that. I wanted to make sure I supported EVERY volunteer. After hearing from other volunteers, I see now that I have failed." Tears collect in her eyes. Tears collect in country director's eyes in my hut. "And I want to apologize." Pause Pause Pause. "I'm sorry. When I asked you if you wanted to be here. I was not questioning your desire to be here. The last group that COSed (completed service) had a 50% drop out rate. Swaziland is known for loosing it's volunteers. But that is history. Your group is different and I need to focus on the present."

Country Director of Swaziland drives all the way from sipping lattes Mbabane early in the morning to formally and personally apologize to me.

"Now I want to pet your dog before I go." She bends down slowly and touches the mother on the head. She notices three ticks on Shebali's neck. "Oh, we'll have to get rid of these. Hand me some neusporen." I get up to grab my med kit as country director hovers over my dog twisting heads off of ticks. Is this really happening? I think. Country Director of Swaziland and I spend twenty minutes pulling ticks off my dog today. Country Director, Eileen, and I ..... friends again.

Before Eileen drives away, my other dog, the one year old pup, barley stands in front of us. He struggles to stay standing. His eyes are wide with terror and foam is bubbling from his mouth. Eileen is horrified. I tell her I've been trying to find a vet in the area. Today I will try harder.

I walk and walk. I ask and ask. Dead end after dead end. "What's a vet?" They ask me. Finally, a point in the right direction. That direction being about a 5K walk. No matter. I arrive to the "clinic" on this especially sweltering hot day, sweating and panting. My shirt clinging to my body. My sweat now glue. My thighs, like two hams wrapped in wet velvet, are raw from the journey. Inside, I find four men devouring chicken legs and licking their fingers clean. They look up at me with greasy lips and curious eyes.

"Now I know this is going to sound strange." I begin between gasps of air. "But I have a dog that needs saving." Laughter follows. After chatting a bit with these greasey lipped vets, I soon realize these "vets" do no surgery, no treatment, no lab work of any kind. "We go around collecting blood samples from dead cows to determine their cause of death." "What do you do with these samples?" I ask. "We wipe them onto those pieces of paper and send them to Manzini." He points to a piece of paper I am fiddling with in my hands. I quickly toss the paper. They offer to send me home with penicillin. I explain my fear of it being distemper. Penicillin would just be a waste of money.
"OK. Bring him to us. We will have a look." Vet tells me.
"OK. I'll just cram my sick sore infested dog onto a kombi full of dog loving Swazis." They laugh.
"What do you suggest we do? Are you suggesting we come out to your homestead and have a look?"
"Yes please." I smile big and innocently.
"All right." Older male vet continues. "How does midnight at your place sound? I can leave in the morning?" He smiles big.
"How does I sleep with a really big sharp knife under my mattress sound?" Vets laugh.
"OK Simphiwe. We'll drive you back to your homestead and have a look. How's that sound?"

On the way to my home, my phone rings. It's Mctosa. "Are you sitting down?" He asks. "Negative." He says. "My son. He is negative." I scream with joy. "Are you smiling?!" I ask him. "More than smiling. I am dancing." I ask him to come to my house tomorrow and build me a dog house for 7 puppies. "That place is not meant for humans." He whines. "I hate Lubombo. I hate dogs. But I like my Simphiwe. I will see you tomorrow."

Young male Swazi vet walks onto my homestead. Gogo greets him and laughs uncontrollably when she realizes I've brought a vet home with me. She and vet exchange Siswati words. I'm sure it went something like, "Silly white girl and her dogs. She has eight in her hut right now." They both look and laugh at me. Laughter comes to an abrupt halt when the vet sees my sick puppy.
"Simphiwe. This is..."
I interrupt. "Distemper. I know."
"He will soon die." He assures me.
"Is he in pain?"
"Yes."

I explain to the vet I will take him to Manzini to put him to sleep peacefully. "Let me atleast offer you a ride back to town to get a box so you can transport him on the bus tomorrow." Before I leave I tell Mndimiso I will be back. He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Box in hand, I return home after an exhausting 4 hour attempt to try and save this little pup. Another dog with distemper. I am cursed. I set the box down and enter my hut. I sit with Shebali and her babies. On my burglar bar door hangs Mndimiso. He is looking down- his eyes sad. I show him the box and explain what I am going to do with our dog tomorrow. "He will fall asleep and feel no more pain. It's sympathy." He continues to look hard at the ground. "Mdimiso, what is it?" I ask. Behind him comes Tommy, the 27 year old son of Gogo. With a can of gas in his hand he asks me for matches. I hesitate, fear in my voice. "Why do you need matches?" He looks down and points to a tree. "We took care of it." He refuses to look at me when he speaks. In the distance, on this particularly windy day, I see the limp body of my puppy hanging from a branch swaying in the wind- feeling pain no more. I hand over the matches and make my way to him. A barb wired fence lines the tree and I see new gashes all over his body. He struggled. And then I ask Tommy what I ask every time I hear of death. "How long did he take to die?" "Not long." He tells me. "2 minutes. Just 2 minutes." "Two minutes is a lifetime when you're fighting to survive." I tell him as I stand on my toes, trying to pry the wire off of the puppy's neck. His body falls to the ground. I turn around and see the kids now standing behind me in this open field. The wind blows hard, the sun's one last exhale before sleep. Tears fill my eyes I stare hard back at these children. They quickly look down. I pet my puppy's lifeless body one last time and tell him I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I stand to go, tears now streaming down my face. I want the children to see, but they are afraid to look. "Vula emhelo." I say, standing in front of Nobandile. "Look at me." She can only bare to look for a moment- quickly returning her gaze to the ground.

I return to my hut, sit on my bed and stare at the ground. Mndimiso leans on my burglar bars. I can feel him starring at me as I cry.
"Did you know they were going to kill him Mdimiso?"
"Yes. But they told me they would beat me if I told you. So I didn't say anything when you left."
"Who is they?"
"Gogo and Tommy."

I ask him to sit next to me. We sit in silence. He picks up my headphones and slowly wraps the wire around his finger over and over squeezing it tightly. His nose fills with snot as he struggles to hold back. I put my hand on his knee.
"It's ok Mdimiso. You can cry."
"I cannot." He says.
"This is our safe place. In my hut we are not Swazi. We are whomever we choose to be. If you ever need to cry, I want you to come to my hut. It's your safe place."

He puts his head on my shoulder and exhales loudly. I see his tiny hand move up to his cheek to wipe something away. Is he starting to understand sympathy?

That night Shebali leaves her new litter to look for her first born. She smells the blanket he used to sleep on. She whines and looks up at me. I hold her head in my hands and tell this mother I am sorry. I could't save him.

Wondering how much more I can take today. I check my email. An email from someone back home. Four words I've been dreading. "I've met someone."

Warm tears stream down my face as I lie on my floor and place my hot cheeks against the cool cement. I look up and read the words written along my hut wall.

"Every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around."