By this part of the trip I was starting to feel very unwell. I'd had a bout with a sore throat and a bit of a head cold while at the Lion Project, but it didn't seem to amount to much. It came back again while at St. Lucia, but again didn't seem to catch, now I knew it was going to hit with a vengeance. I had taken what antibiotics I brought with me already, but the cough was getting worse and I was pretty sure that it was going to turn into bronchitis, which had been my fear all along because it can be pretty humid here and on the coast. I was surprised though as it hadn't seemed humid at all, but something was bringing this on; probably the stress of the travelling and not really eating too well, plus who knows what I had been around on the projects so, realizing I only had a few days left and not wanting to be sitting on a plane for all those hours, with the long layovers hacking up a lung, I looked in the phone book and found a local doctor down the road from the guest house. I decided to just drop in a see if they could see me and luck was with me. The doctor was in and had no patients (I had to come to Africa to find this?) and took me right in to his examination room. He asked what the problem was, took a quick listen to my chest and said he knew just what the problem was. He pulled out a syringe and gave me shot of something in my butt, right away; I afterwards thought how stupid I was, I had brought my own syringes for just such an occasion, having been warned by Dr. Johnson not to allow anyone to use their own, opps! We then headed out to reception, where I discovered they had their own version of a pharmacy where I was given 2 different pills to take (never really told what the problem was, what the pills where, or what to expect), handed a bill for approx. 300 Rand and that was it. Unfortunately the doctor's medicine didn't work well and I did sit hacking up those lungs all the way home. I'm actually kind of surprised they let me on the planes.
Anyway, before I headed home, it was time to visit Fundiswa and her family. Within the first couple of days arriving at the Livingstone project, I received and e-mail from Sah; I was then informed that a few months back Fundiswa had been raped; was I sure I still wanted to visit? WHAT! Of course I did! I was crushed at the thought I had spent a lot of time from then till now thinking about this poor little girl and what she must have gone through and on how I should approach the subject, if at all, when I met up with the family. As the time was approaching I found I was getting more apprehensive, not wanting to upset Fundiswa or act inappropriately causing any cultural misunderstandings. I was hoping I would handle it all well.
After Sah picked me up, we made a quick visit to the office to sign some papers and then headed out to where the family was staying in area about 1/2 hour back towards Stanger. They were staying, for the time being, with Marion, one of the ADP workers. I think everyone was a little anxious, but within moments greetings and hugs were exchanged and I sat down to hear from Sibongile, Fundiswa's Mom, about this terrible ordeal.
About this time Marion brought out a huge platter of chicken for our lunch, so we all put on our happy faces and had a bite to eat. After lunch Luwazi (Fundiswa's older brother) sang a beautiful song for me, he has a lovely voice; her little brother Dando is quite a handful, being a typical 5 year old. It was then time for gifts. The idea for Nikki having a phone for emergencies had come from hearing what had happened to Fundiswa. I thought that perhaps if she had of had a phone with her, she might have been able to call for help and so I had bought one for her and then decided that Nikki could probably use one as well. The Eco_zoom stove was handed over, as well as food I had bought and some clothes for the children, along with Mom's apron, of course.
After giving the gifts, we headed outside, where it was Fundiswa's turn to sing for me - Lovely! Sah wanted me to see the new program she had instigated setting up at the pre-school down the road, so we walked down to observe the children. The program is something new they are trying, hoping to get the really young children to be less violent, calmer and help them learn to get along. What I saw seems to be working, the children were all really well behaved, quite and played well together, along with listening to their instructors. After the children all filed out, we had the place to ourselves and we watched Fundiswa and Dando play (Sah said she had not seen Fundiswa laugh like that for a long time) and then she and I danced a bit, just being silly and having some fun. We headed back outside and the kids played on the jungle jim for a short time before we headed back to Marion's. It was Fundiswa's turn to sing for me, how sweet the sound.
Then it was unfortunately time to leave. That was such a sad moment, Fundiswa cried and cried when I had to go - my god I wish I could have brought her home with me.
Sah then took me to see another worthwhile project they had put together for a group of vunerable youths. The project was a egg farm, which was supporting this group of children and a wonderful idea, but I was disturbed to see the chicken's living 3 or 4 to a cage, with the cages stacked upon each other. Sah realized I was a bit upset and I had to explain that I found it inhumane for the animals to be living in such conditions. I tried to give a heads up on how it would be healthier for the chicken's and the eggs they produced to be lose in a run. I hope they have listened and learned and those poor chicken's have a bit more room to move.
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| we drove down the side of this mountain to get there |
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