Botshabelo: A place of refuge: Heart & Head Work

Hello and Happy (belated) Valentines Day everyone! Thank you Holly and Leah for your sweet Valentines emails.

I chose to call this blog entry Heart & Head Work. It's pretty cheesy and social worky. But, at Botshabelo I am just doing so much more than working on social work stuff (grants, forms, projects, etc). I'm also growing into a better person! It's so fun/terrifying/unexplainable. So, Botshabelo is heart work AND head work. Being a good social worker means doing a lot of self-assessment. If you are working in social work, avoiding introspective thought is half-assing your education/credentials. It just doesn't work. It's like a flower vase without the flowers. Yuck.

Ok, so I'm going to give a little update on my work progress. On Wednesday I began managing this awesome dentistry project! Botshabelo got chosen to have a mobile dentist clinic come visit for an entire 3 weeks! I wish I had gotten some pictures of this but I was too busy organizing the kids to get teeth cleanings this week that I was just not able to take any. I'll have to post some next week. Most of the children here have never been to the dentist and we are providing them their first teeth cleaning, toothbrush, and tube of toothpaste. It's soooooo cute to watch them sit in the chair and get their teeth worked on. Most of them giggle the entire time because they're so excited. Some kids just cry. This week and next week will be organizing all 250 kids at the school to get cleanings. The last week we will be doing operations and teeth extractions. I need to figure out a way to make this project sustainable. I think these next few weeks I'm going to have to work out some sort of negotiation so the dentist can come back once a year.

Also, yesterday I went up to Johannesburg with Pauline (she's in my video) and we took some of the children who are HIV+ to the Women and Children's Hospital for their ARV* refill and check-up. The hospital has a special program called ECHO (Enhancing Children's HIV Outcomes) that provides ARVs and helps us take care of the kids at Botshabelo.

*ARV (antiretroviral therapy):

Standard antiretroviral therapy (ART) consists of the combination of at least three antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to maximally suppress the HIV virus and stop the progression of HIV disease. Huge reductions have been seen in rates of death and suffering when use is made of a potent ARV regimen, particularly in early stages of the disease. Furthermore, expanded access to ART can also reduce the HIV transmission at population level, impact orphanhood and preserve families.

Source: World Health Organization (WHO)

This particular hospital we went to was really really nice and everyone was so friendly. I was in charge of one of the babies and I had to be present during her check-up to give her information and hold her while they did blood work. This baby is six and she is in my 1st grade class. She's the child I mentioned in the previous blog. I've grown really close to her and she's just one of the children I've really connected to here. She’s doing so well! Her t-cell count (what determines the severity of the virus) is stable and she is at a healthy weight. Unfortunately, when it was time to get her blood drawn she was so scared. She just began sobbing when we walked into the blood room. I held her on my lap and hummed songs and kissed her forehead. You know, a 6-year-old just shouldn't have to live with HIV. It was jarring to see her blood slurp up into the vial because I kept thinking about how that liquid determines her livelihood. Something so tiny makes such a big impact. After her blood was drawn she ate candy and listened to my ipod. I turned on Madonna's "Lucky Star" and we danced in the waiting room.

We also took a new resident of Botshabelo, a girl who I think is probably my age... 20-25 years, to the hospital. She has a 1 month-old baby girl who is really really sick and almost died the night before. We took them to the maternity ward to get assessed because the mother was feeling sick as well. It turns out they are both HIV+ and had to be admitted into the hospital for a few days. While we waited for the other kid's ARVs to be refilled I just sat with her and rubbed her back. She didn't really say much. Obviously, she was really upset... her new baby almost died, she just found out they BOTH have HIV, and she has no family. Botshabelo is now her family. It was an intense moment sitting with her, consoling her, and trying to convince her she can live a normal life with HIV. I have a snapshot of this moment in my mind and I have been playing it over and over in my head ever since.
It goes like this: She was crying and leaning over the hospital bed to hold her baby's hand and I looked at her and said, 'Yeah... HIV is going to be a challenge, but it's a challenge that you can live with if you fight for it. Are you a fighter?' and she just stared at me like I was insane. She gave me this who-the-fuck-are-you? face. Like, how do you know about living with HIV? Who are you to ask if I'm a fighter? Needless to say - I shut up real fast. My little social work pedestal of pride was knocked down. I just cannot empathize with her on deep level because our lives are too different. Our immediate struggles are the polar opposite.
Anyways, I will pick her up on Sunday with Pauline. Fingers crossed that baby makes it through the weekend. I will also have to arrange for her to get a mentor at Botshabelo to help teach her how to take care of herself and her health now that she will be doing ARV treatments as well.

So, yes. That was an exhausting trip.

OH – I have a new roommate! Daphne, from the Netherlands, has come to Botshabelo to help volunteer. We share a room and I LOVE her. She’s 19 and has been working as an au pair in Amsterdam. I’ll post pictures of us eventually. I’m hoping she’ll travel with me and the other UT student (who’s placed in Cape Town) during Spring Break to Durban, Victoria Falls, or Kruger National Park.

My professor/faculty liaison, Tammy, comes next Thursday (Feb 21^st). We are also going to travel and do safaris and I can’t wait!! I'm going to see baby elephants! and baby cheetahs! and baby everything! I love it I love it.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this poorly made video. It's about 4 minutes long and took over an hour to download. South African internet is suhhhh sloooo:

And of course pictures. These are pictures taken by the kids. So, it's a little view from their eyes.