Day Two: Action

Today was…for once words escape me. Magical is wrong. Powerful comes closer. Life altering is going overboard. I think I’ll stick with important. Today was a very important day.

I met the Cotlands kids today. One of the projects I’m working on is called the Hope Train, pairing orphans who live here at Cotlands (until, ideally, they are fostered or adopted out) with families back in Canada. Cotlands helps nearly 2000 kids throughout South Africa, predominantly with its various outreach programs but they also provide residential care for nearly 60 orphans – close to 40 here in Jo’burg, and 20 near Cape Town. When I found out I was returning to Africa one of my sarcastic friends asked me if I was going to “pull an Angelina” while I was in South Africa. Let’s be honest: today, I wanted to take at least a half-dozen home with me. I wish I could, but it isn’t as easy as our celebrities make it seem.

I spent a chunk of time with Mealang Van Heerden, the head of the Educare program. Educare is like our pre-school – the kids are in this program until they are developmentally ready to go out to schools in the community, usually around six-years old. As she showed me the classrooms she talked about the challenges: many of the children who are brought in are so ill that they are already four steps back before they can move forward. HIV doesn’t just attack the body – it attacks the mind, it stunts both physical and mental growth. Beyond that, some of these kids come to Cotlands from such horrible situations – living in a shack with a mother dying of AIDS, with zero mental stimulation, or with a grandmother who is caring for several children. These children need to be nurtured, almost rehabilitated, before they can even start to make progress.

First I met a small group of kids. They were painting placemats and one of the girls, strapped to an oxygen tank, did nothing but smile at me. The classroom was like one of our pre-schools: a mobile hanging from the ceiling teaching colors and the alphabet, Lego pieces and building blocks, and a wonderful cork board filled with photos and packages of “Healthy” food and “Unhealthy” food.

I did note to Mealang that this was pretty advanced for six-year olds: they had put a bag of white sugar on the “Unhealthy” food list. I’m not sure our Canadian pre-schools teach that.

Gorgeous Rebecca, 6, stood out. Her jet-black hair combed back, her shy smile, the pink t-shirt. She didn’t want to put her painting away, and Mealang whispered to me later that Rebecca is one of the many success stories of ARVs: When she was brought in, no one here thought she was going to live past a year; she didn’t walk until she was three and a half. But with successful intervention – drugs, a healthy diet, and stimulation – Rebecca is thriving and going to school next year.

Little Kwalele, 8, grabbed a hold of my heart and wouldn’t let go. When the middle kids (6-8 yrs) came home they were told they had to form a line for lunch, and tell “Auntie Erin” their names, their favorite food and movie. Some were quite shy, some were anything but. I’d met Kwalele a few minutes earlier when I noticed his shoes were untied. He tied them in front of me as we talked about what he’d done in school that day. He was very excited because they were planning a Christmas party. I told him about Christmas in Canada, and how we have snow when they have scorching hot summer and promised to send him photos of snow.

So when it came time for Kwalele to tell me his favorite food, he did the most remarkable thing. I was asking some other boys questions while Kwalele stood there with his fingers to his temple, softly chanting, “Chef! Chef! Chef!” He opened one eye every so often to see if I was looking at him.

I finally succumbed. Chef?

“I want to be a chef,” he piped up. Little bugger has mind-reading skills, because "what do you want to be when you grow up" was going to be my question on Thursday. He elaborated. He loves to cook. He doesn’t really know why but he’s eight – what did you know when you were eight? He loves food – his list went on and on and included vienna sausage and gravy , rice and beans and cabbage. He loves to create. This weekend he is going home with a volunteer to cook with them. That might not sound exciting to you, but you have to understand: these kids are living in residential care, in an institution. As wonderful as that is, as much love as they receive, they don’t get to experience normal things that their peers at schools experience: shopping for groceries, watching a match on the television, going on everyday family outings. An element of the volunteer program is to provide them with everyday experiences, like cooking.

How do these kids look? Many of them are bright and healthy and look like any African child. Some are very small for their age. A few look sick. I haven’t been into the hospice yet, but when I was there last year I saw very, very sick kids. The ones I met today, who’ve responded to ART are doing great.

I’d like to be able to post photos of the Cotlands kids but am confined by confidentiality. A lot of these kids are in the process of being fostered or adopted, so having their mugs plastered over the net is simply not cool. But I’ve been promised, at the end of my blog, I can post some photos of the kids.

I got some amazing insights into Cotlands, AIDS and Africa from the staff. Jolene, who is a member of the fundraising team, talked about the ups and the downs of the job she's been at for five years. When I asked how being a new mum – she has 9-month twin boys – has changed her work at Cotlands, she shook her head. “It is raw to me now, because I know as a mother how much love I give to my own kids. I know how much more these kids need. I know what they are missing out on. You want to speed the process up, to get them fostered or adopted out, to get them the love they need.”

And she spoke of the “Lost Generation” of South Africa. These are the kids that haven’t simply fallen through the cracks – they aren’t even on the grid. Kids born in rural communities, without a birth certificate who are never diagnosed because the clinic is a day's walk away, who often die before their first birthday. There simply isn’t the means to get to them. They die, but it is like they’ve never been here at all.

Incidentally, it is worth noting that the South African government only officially “rolled out” the Antiretroviral medicine a few years ago. When you see what the ARVs can do, it boggles your mind that they waited so long. No, that’s wrong. It makes you really, really angry. But I’ve promised Cotlands I won’t bash the government (who provide them with 16% of their funding) for the time being. But stay tuned. We all know I can't keep my mouth shut for long.

I can say this. Even though the South African government has “rolled out” the ARVs, look at the facts from the United Nations:

• South Africa has the world’s highest total number of people living with HIV/AIDS. According to some estimates the prevalence rate among pregnant women was around 28 per cent in 2003. Among infected 15- to 24–year-olds, more than three-quarters are female, due in part to forced sex. Mother to child transmission is still a huge problem.
• AIDS causes 40 per cent of all deaths of children under age five, and has driven up infant and under-five mortality rates.
• Although 11,000 people are receiving anti-retroviral treatment, very few of these patients are children. The AIDS pandemic has orphaned more than a million children in South Africa.
• Only half of children are registered, limiting access to social services.

So back to Cotlands. They are doing something. They are taking care of kids and families. They are providing grannies, caring for their orphaned grandchildren, with support – with food, with medicine, with income-generating projects. But Cotlands is stretched thin. “I feel like I’m always putting out fires,” says Jolene. Even though they’ve expanded through the years, the core number of paid, full-time staff remains the same. “Everything is reactive –you’re lucky you’re doing forward planning. You never have the time and resources, or the opportunity because you’re always going onto the next thing.”

It’s simple. They don’t have enough money. And the irony is that many people here in South Africa think they are rich. Because Cotlands has been around so long, and are in the media so often, people believe they are rolling in dough. They ain’t.

Here’s the crazy thing. It costs them 8 rand a day - about a buck - to be able to provide for a child. I know we’ve all been desensitized by the Sally Struthers ads, Bob Geldof and Bono and the whole we need to save Africa thing. We’ve muted it out, haven’t we? I know I mute it out when I'm back home. You can't here. If you want to donate you can at www.cotlands.org.

I had written something else but I've edited it. Too preachy. See you tomorrow.