The soaring impulse

Susan and the Angels of Makhewu

2009-07-11T16:14:00.007+10:00

I've written about my friend Suze on these pages before

She is a devoted mother, esteemed lecturer, comedienne and wonderful ambassador for the Australian Muslim community. But more than all of this, her heart is as wide as the southern sky.

When I told her I was returning to Swaziland this year, her response was simply
‘Well…. Let’s go shopping!!!’.

She bought enough childrens clothes and shoes to quite literally fill my entire suitcase. Over 30kilos worth.

So when I arrived in Swaziland I spoke to my friend Make ( pronounced ‘Magay’ meaning mother) Bhembe who works with the orphans in the community of Makhewu. She engaged a local youth group to go out into the surrounding area and find the names of those AIDS orphans who were in desperate need of clothing.

She then took Susans gifts and painstakingly made a set of clothes for each child, packaged them in black plastic bags and wrote a name on each one. She stored them in her own two room home until it was time to give them away.

Then one fine Saturday we organised one of our regular parties for the orphans at Makhewu.

This particular day we began by visiting the Maziya’s. A family about whom Make was very concerned.

Babe and Make (father and mother) Maziya were in dire need. Babe had come to Make Bhembe in tears one afternoon, saying that he had spent the day thinking of how he might steal some clothes for his baby. He was a good and decent man who had worked hard his whole life, and yet supporting a child was becoming just too difficult.

So we brought a bag of Susans baby clothes for the family.

Their joy was pure and unrestrained.

Later that day at the party for the orphans, we took 50 of the poorest and most vulnerable children in Makhewu into a room at the care point, and one by one began giving them their gifts.

I never cease to be amazed by these little ones. As much as people might think that we are helping them, I truly believe that they are our angels.

They have so much to teach us. About loving honestly, with the entirety of our soul. About living centred in the open moment. About walking forward in the face of the most tremendous adversities imaginable.

These little children bless the world with every breath they take.

They may have no parents. Often absolutely no adult guidance whatsoever and yet they seem to know something that we have lost along the way.

They give before they take. They feed each other before they are fed. They cry for a moment and then get back to the business of sharing love and seeking joy.

As I step back into this land overflowing with milk and honey, I am baffled as to why so many are reluctant to give to those who are without.

We come to the earth with nothing. We leave it with nothing.

Holding on to all that we perceive of as accumulated wealth, is simply feeding an illusion. None of it is ours to begin with anyway. Giving is a way of unburdening the soul.

Why should I clench my fist in selfishness, when I can open my hands and be free?

There is a line in one of my fathers favourite hymns which says:

"Brother, Sister, Let me serve you.

Let me be as Christ to you. Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant too."

It is always a privelege to serve.

This video comes with love and humble thanks to all those who have given and continue to give in ways big and small to the people of Swaziland,

Inkosi ini Busise (God bless you all)

Maithri

From Siteki With Love (Swaziland 2009)

2009-07-06T09:41:00.005+10:00

Detour

I took a long time getting here,

much of it wasted on wrong turns,

back roads riddled by ruts.

I had adventures

I never would have known

if I proceeded as the crow flies.

Super highways are so sure

of where they are going:

they arrive too soon.

A straight line isn't always

the shortest distance

between two people.

Sometimes I act as though

I'm heading somewhere else

while, imperceptibly,

I narrow the gap between you and me.

I'm not sure I'll ever

know the right way,

but I don't mind

getting lost now and then.

Maps don't know everything.

~ Ruth Feldman ~(The Ambitions of Ghosts)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1MWth1RnqQ

Possible dreams

2009-06-19T17:00:00.008+10:00

June has arrived in Swaziland and the aloe is in bloom. Her sunset orange flowers curve like fingers of light towards the African skies.

I have not written here for some time. Sometimes it feels as though there is too much to say. How can I explain all that has been lived and loved and tasted over these last few months. Little words seem incapable of holding the vastness of it all. The subtleties of sorrow, the laughing beauty, the vibrant richness which has filled the contours of every new day.

And yet I also feel a deep need to share the stories of these people; Their hardships, their little victories, their spirit of grace. So when I return to Australia in a couple of weeks time I will start documenting them here on this blog. One by one.

I wrote a post recently entitled 'Does it matter whose child?". I described two little orphaned children who were quite literally all alone in this world. Their mother had died of AIDS and their father was working in a town many miles away. They had no one to feed them, clothe them or show them the love that is the birthright of every little child. There were also rumors in the community that they were being hurt; That a man convicted of rape was lingering around the household in the early hours of the morning.

After many discussions with the social workers from the Ministry of health, I am happy to report that we have managed to place these children at Belembu, the only orphanage in Swaziland. They were moved last week.

I visited them there and was so glad to find that they were living in beautiful surroundings with a community of very happy children and kind carers. They are now receiving 3 meals a day, clean clothes, education and loving care. Slowly but surely, they are finding their smile.

Sometimes it feels to me as though so called 'developed' countries wash their hands of developing world issues. Naming them too large, too difficult, too complex. But it has been my experience that it truly is possible to find ways of changing the trajectory of life for children who are suffering in our world.

It requires only that we have hearts brave enough to turn our faces towards them and say "How can we help?"

I am well aware that we live in a wounded world. A world where bandaids are temporary and the buds of change are often torn from their stems by the impatient and cynical.

But there are still possible dreams. There are still gifts of hope which each open moment provides.

May each of us be granted the grace to see them,

My love to you all,

Maithri

A Bridge of Hope

2009-06-08T19:34:00.000+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland

07/06/09

The world is so very small.

Last week I spent some time with my friend Babe (pronounced Bahbay) Elliot Matsenjwa in the rural community of Mambane which is situated in the loftiest part of the Lebombo mountains.

He told me of his dream to build a care point for orphans and vulnerable children in his area. While we talked he told me of the problems facing his community. HIV, malnutrition amd poverty consistent with the menacing cloud of despair which looms over every little hamlet and molehill of this beautiful country. He also described a very high incidence of diarrheal disease, and all the complications associated with it including a very high rate of infant and child mortality.

I asked him "Babe, where do your people collect water."

Gesturing down the hillside, he said "The stream Dokotella, the Stream."

"Can we go there?" I asked.

And we proceeded down the jagged hillside which 3000 people in Mambane walk down every day to collect water for their families.

This is what we found:

A pool of mud.

I stood in utter disbelief as Babe Elliot described to me how this puddle of muddy, brown water no larger than one metre in diameter, served his entire community with drinking water.

There was certainly water there. It was rising from deep beneath the ground, but as it rose it became mixed with the soil and turned into sludge.

As we watched, two mothers came down to collect their water. They had each walked 15 kilometres from their hoomestead to arrive at the 'stream'. This would be the first of two trips they would undertake to collect water that day.

We watched as each mother collected 20 litres of water from the little puddle and carried it home to their children.

Later that day I wrote to my friend Kathleen, to whom we are donating all funds raised from this little blog.

I described the situation and this is what we have decided upon:

We will drill a borehole at Mambane in the coming weeks.

We will supply a water pump and 10,000 litre water tank for the community.

600 hundred homesteads (approximately 3000 people) will have clean water thanks to the generous readers of this blog who have shared their love with those who are suffering in Swaziland.

My friend, I cant describe you the joy I feel today.

I have been reminded that even in the most wounded corner of this world, change is eminently possible.

I believe with all my heart that when we come together as a community of caring we can build bridges of hope which stretch their open arms out across the seas of despair and embrace our brothers and sisters in need.

On behalf of every mother, father and child who will be blessed over and over again by the great gift you have given, I say 'Siyabonga'.

Thank you.

Love the world into change,

Maithri

Peace on Earth

Written by Laura Stamps

Sometimes I am certain

the peace I feel,

floating among

the silver leaves of early evening,

can surely travel from my fingertips

halfway across the blue mouth

of the sea to a country foreign

and fettered with men

squabbling among themselves

over politics or land or power,

until one suddenly notices

the apricot stain of this setting sun

and the silver leafed trees,

his burden easing,

and he turns

to another and says:

May we drop these stones,

cold and light dazed,

and find

a way to live in peace.

Baby Philiswa (Reposted from 2007)

2009-06-08T10:00:00.002+10:00

Dear Friends,

I am so excited about our new project bringing water to the people of Mambane (please see previous post). I wanted to re-post a story I shared in 2007 on this blog. It was written by my dear, amazing friend Sister Maureen McCarthy. (I will leave the old comments as they are ;) )

I think she underscores with great eloquence just how important a clean water source truly is, and puts our new project into context. Ok, I'm off to talk to a man about drilling! ;)

Much Love, Maithri

The following is reprinted with Permission of Sister Maureen McCarthy (Good Shepherd Hospital, Swaziland) copyright 2006

Tiny Philiswa Maziya is a patient on the Pediatric Ward at Good Shepherd Hospital. Philiswa was born 3 months ago weighing a little over seven pounds. Since that time both her parent have died of AIDS and she has been chronically ill. A loving and attentive Gogo (grandmother) now cares for her, a not uncommon experience in a country where 56% of women in the 25-29 year age group are HIV+. Gogo Maziya and her family are part of the 77% rural based population in Swaziland depending on rivers and unprotected wells as the main source of household water, the cause of Philiswa’s chronic and increasingly life-threatening illness.

Because breast milk is not available to her, Philiswa has been fed from unsterilized bottles, using milk powder, which has been over diluted with unsafe water. She has had diarrhea for many days. On Feb.13 she is admitted with severe malnutrition, wasting and dehydration, weighing 4.8 pounds, a significant drop from her birth weight. Children under four years of age must have a caretaker with them at all times, so Gogo Maziya must now leave the rest of the family to attend to Philiswa in the hospital. An IV drip is inserted to replace needed fluids, and because the baby is so weak that she cannot feed adequately on her own, a feeding tube is placed. Gogo Maziya learns to measure the milk mixture into a clean cup and dilute it with boiled water. Using a clean syringe she carefully inserts the milk with added micronutrients through the feeding tube in the hopes of coaxing this little one back to health. Gogo has learned to do this from Dr. Joyce Mareverwa, a pediatrician from Zimbabwe. Before Dr. Joyce came, GSH had no pediatrician. Since her arrival she has filled the pediatric ward with critically ill children – TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS, wasting and malnutrition. Because she is African herself, Dr.. Joyce knows well these diseases. She has gained the affection of her young patients and the confidence of their caretakers.

Dr. Joyce nurtures and nourishes many of these children back to life with her heart as much as with her medical knowledge. Now she turns her attention to Philiswa and the difficult work of saving her life.

In Swaziland, only 33% of the rural population has access to a clean water supply. This lack of potable water is the chief cause of the high rate of infant mortality in the country from diarrhea, malnutrition and infectious diseases. Gogo Maziya and her family are part of this statistic. They live in a homestead in the Makehewu Community, an area not far from the hospital. There are over 800 households there, each family living in a one room, thatched roof house, without electricity or running water. There is only one water source for the community, which must serve them for bathing, cooking, drinking, laundry and crop irrigation. Women and girls spend an inordinate amount of time fetching water, often walking 3-5 miles, collecting it in large containers, which are then transported home in wheelbarrows or carried on their heads. It is from this water source that Philiswa was fed

Every year 1.8 million people die from diarrheal diseases, 90% of them children under the age of 5. I begin to worry for Philiswa. She has done well the first 5 days after admission, raising her weight from 2.2 to 2.8 kilograms. On Feb. 19, day 6 of admission, however, she has started having diarrhea again and has begun to lose weight. Despite the feeding and medication, the diarrhea continues.

The next day, Feb. 21, I am shocked at the rapid change in her little body. . She is now severely dehydrated, clearly in distress. The soft spot on the top of her head is sunken in from lack of fluid, and her little heart is racing madly in an attempt to meet the demands of her stressed body. Gogo Maziya does her best to comfort Philiswa, but she too is feeling the urgency of the situation and her concern is evident.On Feb. 22, as I make my daily visit, I see Gogo gently rocking the fragile little body in her arms. The feeding tube has been removed from her nose and the IV drip from her tiny arm. For the first time she looks like just a baby. And I realize that even Dr. Joyce, with her medical magic and caring heart, could not keep Philiswa from becoming one of the 1.8 million lost to this preventable disease.

I have read that it would take the equivalent of 1% of the world’s military expenditure to provide safe water and decent sanitation facilities for all human beings. How do we measure a life?

I sit on the bed with Gogo Maziya for a while, not saying much, our shoulders touching. She asks me if she can have some of the photos I’ve taken of Philiswa, and I say yes, I will send them to her. Her grief is deep but restrained. She is a strong woman. She has buried her children; now she will bury her grandchildren.

I look at the still, small body, still swathed in blankets and words of Isaiah, which I happened upon, come to mind:

In my pastures the poor shall eat and the needy lie down in safety.

Rest peacefully, Philiswa.

You are safe now, little one. You are safe.

On Gratitude

2009-05-28T21:08:00.005+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
27/05/09
20:00

Early one morning in a borrowed truck, my friend Anna Zwane and I, ventured out through the mist laden African scrub. We were in search of three poor but eminently courageous Grandmothers (Gogo’s).

Each of these Gogo’s had experienced deep, life altering suffering. They had watched the ones whom they had given life to, die unspeakable deaths in the callous, unyielding arms of HIV. As each one died, they left behind their own children, a legacy of lonely hands and feet to add to the river of tears that ebbs and flows across every tender curve of the Lebombo mountains.

For a spoilt westerner like me it is hard to imagine the depth of strength that lives within Gogo Josephine, Gogo Alvina and Gogo Dlamini. Frail, unemployed and barely able to look after themselves, they did not hesitate in taking into their care each and every one of their orphaned grandchildren.

In Gogo Josephine’s house there are now twelve little ones. With Gogo Dlamini there are thirteen, and Gogo Alvina has twenty children whom she is supporting.

Earlier that day Anna and I went to the local grocery store, with three scribbled shopping lists in hand which read: Five kilograms of peanuts; Another five of sugar; Ten kilograms of rice; Fifty kilograms of cornsoya meal; A kilo of soap; Ten white candles; Five grey storm blankets.

Anna, who is a matron at the Good Shepherd hospital, explained that our gifts would last each family a grand total of two weeks.

When we reached her house, it seemed that Josephine was waiting for someone. Walking stick in hand she sat silently outside her crumbling home. Her sight almost completely gone. Her beautiful brown face deeply wrinkled from the stream of love and tears which had flowed mingled down for so many years. Hers was the gentle unheralded wisdom which only comes from the washing of clothes, the harvesting of maize and the feeding of little mouths. There was dignity in her presence.

We explained why we had come: How amazed we were by her courage, endurance and love; That we had a small token to share with her; A trifle really; Not even the faintest shadow of what she really deserved.

She looked at us, not seeing us and seeing us at the same time.

And she began to weep.

“Can I touch them?” She asked in tender Si-Swati.

One by one I held out the inanimate objects for her to hold.
I watched as she caressed them, adored them, enfolded them in her love.

The long green bar of soap held softly to her face like the hand of a gentle lover.

The bag of cornsoya meal embraced like the shoulders of a child.

And that dull, grey storm blanket touched with a reverence and love which I’m sure a storm blanket is not used to.

She began to pray: “Siyabonga, Siyabonga, Siyabonga”

“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.”

Inspite of myself I couldn’t help but wonder how she could be so grateful?

Josephine who had lost everything. Her husband, her children, her mobility, her vision.

Why would she, of all people, fall down at the altar of her life and cry ‘thank you’? For a bar of soap, for a portion of rice, for a dull, grey storm blanket.

And yet, as she prayed and talked to us about her life I realised that for Josephine gratitude was not a choice.

Gratitude was a way. Through broken mornings and wounded middays. Through unexpected storms and the blinding dark.

Within a landscape of tears, her life was a painted thank you,

Meister Eckharts once said “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is thank you. That will be enough.”

As I looked at her face, lined in pain and gratefulness, I knew that it was.

Wake up old man!

2009-05-20T16:27:00.003+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
20/05/09
0800

Hey there friends,

Well i dont know how it leaked out but it did....so i've decided to celebrate instead of hidin it like I usually do ... Tomorrows my birthday!

I got a call from my friend Jacque last night, it was just after 10.30 and i was already in bed. As I answered the phone mid-snore lol, with a sleepy hello.... I heard my vibrant friend on the other end of the phone sayin "Wake up old man, its your birthday!!!"....

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all your cards and well wishes. I really AM ok my friends and I am looking after myself. I still laugh every day. I'm still as silly and crazy and bug-phobic as i've always been.

I've decided my next few posts are going to be about lessons which i've learnt from these beautiful people... They are my teachers in a myriad more ways than my little words can explain.

I know I'm turning another year older tommorrow, but i've gotta tell you, I feel young.... I feel loved. I feel as though the mind of the universe knows my name... And I just wanna make sure that everyone walking this broken road has the chance to feel the same way.

Thank you for all that you mean to me,

I love you,

Maithri

Today

2009-05-18T20:05:00.007+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
18/05/2009

Today
The sea eagle flies
From the roost she has built
In those staid, brown
Electricity pylons

A vagabond wind
Came whispering to her last night
Songs of silver backed fish
And burnished waves
On his salty breath

And her tired eyes
Glimmered golden
As dormant freedom
Arose like blood

To make a weary heart
Ache from wingtip
To wingtip
with fervent anticipation.

Here on the other side of the earth,
I hear her calling.

Here, where the jade mountain
slopes gently like
The curve of a mothers breast,

Where the road is jagged
And densely peopled
with forgotten hearts
Drowning in the tide of
Unabated sorrow

Where little children
with soft eyes and fairy floss dreams,
Die silent deaths
Of preventable disease;
Of hunger and thirst.

Where an HIV infected
God coughs and splutters
In the interior of a little brown hut,
Lying in her own wastes,
Alone

While the self entitled
'First world'
Build anxious shrines to trivialities and self aggrandizement,

Washing their hands of the blood
Which flows in crimson tears
down every hill and mountain of Africa,

Today the sea eagle cries,
Her urgent voice resounding across the painted waters
Of seven seas

A clarion call
Piercing the obdurate shell of apathy

Speaking
to the hands
of every pilgrim traveller
Who still believes,

“Woza Moya” She cries,

Her words rising as wings of flame
across a tired sky,

"Woza Moya,"

"Come Change,

Come.”

Maithri Goonetilleke, Copyright 2009

Where some dreams come true

2009-05-15T18:22:00.009+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
15/05/09
10:37

Those of you who have been following these little words for some time will have glimpsed how deep the river of need runs through this wild and beautiful country nestled in the heart of Southern Africa.

Every single day, oftentimes many times in the same day, some new area of need opens like a dark flower before my eyes.

In spite of the pain and suffering which surrounds us here, I am uplifted and inspired by the outpouring of love and support which we continue to receive from compassionate people all over the world. Over the last couple of months, through the generous readers of this blog we have raised several thousand dollars which will be used to alleviate suffering and bring hope to those who are in most desperate need.

In Africa and many parts of the developing world donating to 'relief projects' can be fraught with difficulty. Where there is poverty, there is often corruption, theft and unethical practices which occur to displace money from where it is intended, into the pockets of thieves.

This is why i have always agonised over the placement of donor funds. I want to ensure that every cent that is given, is used reverently to honour the hearts of those who have donated.

So it is with great humility and gratitude that I have come to a decision as to where funds to the 'Swaziland Appeal' will go.

I have written earlier about the wonderful work which the Homebased care team at the Good Shepherd are doing for those who are suffering deeply and are living in abject poverty. Not only do they provide medical care but they provide needed food and compassionate care to those who have the least.

Many times on this blog, I have refferred to my dear friend Kathleen Hartmann.

Back in 2001, Kathleen and Matron Anna Zwane envisioned a holistic approach to patient care for the sufferers of HIV and incurable disease which took the hospital into the homesteads of those too sick or too poor to reach our hospital on top of the mountain. Since that time the homebased care team has grown into what it is today, reaching hundreds and hundreds of people each month who are dying and impoverished.

When I first met Kathleen many years ago, it was on the Wards of the good Shepherd. I have always described that moment to my friends 'as a certain fragrance suddenly entering the room.'

Kathleens compassion is without parallel.

I have never seen any doctor or nurse treat patients with the beautiful compassion and tenderness which she affords each one whom she meets.

It has been one of the great priveledges of my life to work with her and I was deeply humbled when Kathleen asked me to come and help further empower the HBC team in the incredible and difficult work which they are doing.

Kathleen and her husband Dr. Alfred Hartmann who both live in New York, have set up a fund for home based care. Money from this fund goes directly to the HBC team. It provides money for:

Specific projects such the buliding of houses for very poor people,

School fees for orphans unable to attend school,

Transport fees for the many people we see who need hospital care and are unable to afford the few dollars it takes to reach the hospital.

Food packs for those whom we meet in the community, many who have absolutely no food. Often displaying the clinical effects of starvation.

The homebased care fund is one of the most secure entities which I have found anywhere in the world for making donations to the sick and impoverished. Each day I see first hand the very tangible results that donated funds make through this fund.

Let me give you an example of a homebased care project which I have recently been involved in and was funded entirely by 'The Homebased Care fund'.

On a recent home visit we met a frail old Grandmother (GoGo) who was shivering in the cold with ants crawling all over her tiny body.

Gogo's children had died of HIV and she was living in a hut which was quite literally collapsing around her.

There were huge holes in the roof which meant that when it rained Gogo would become drenched, and the hut itself was so cramped and dark that all of Gogo's possesions were kept very close to each other. The night before we arrived, Gogo's only blanket had fallen in the fire and she was quite literally freezing.

I remember Kathleen saying to the team "How on earth can she survive the winter in that house?" And we determined to build her a new house with donated funds from the Home Based care fund.

We enlisted the support of the local community and began to build her a new house.

Everyone got involved ;) . Carrying rocks, sticks and sand, pumping water. Even the doctors tried to help. lol
A young local builder (who himself was orphaned by AIDS many years ago) worked day and night with a team of volunteers to turn Gogos dream of a new house into a reality.
And soon before our eyes, there it was... A new house with a bright red door and a corrugated iron roof to keep Gogo safe and warm through the coming winter.

Moving day came soon enough, and Gogo could not believe her eyes.

Those who had built her house knelt in prayer for her life and for the gifts which all of us had received through being part of her story.
And to me it felt as though loves light wings had wrapped around her once more. Reminding her that her life mattered. That she was not alone after all.

And with the new house, came a new blanket to replace the one that burned in the fire. And a new hope, that even here in this broken, hurting country, some dreams still come true.

Thank you for walking with me into the lives of these beautiful people.

Your love is changing things.

I know.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Does it matter whose child?

2009-05-12T23:47:00.003+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland

12/05/09

14:20

I have a Swazi name. It is Mduduzi (meaning ‘comfort’) and was given to me by a warm and beautiful woman named Make Bhembe

Make Bhembe (pronounced Magay – meaning mother) is a phenomenal woman who runs the Makhewu care point for orphaned and vulnerable children, which is situated just a stones throw away from the Good Shepherd hospital.

I’m sure that the poets would say that her wide smile and gentle heart tell of days ‘in goodness spent’. Make has dedicated her life to working with children who have lost their parents to HIV. There are approximately 70 orphans who visit her care point for food and informal education.

Yesterday she rang me to say that there were a few homesteads in her area which she was very concerned about and asked whether I would go with her to see them and offer whatever help we could.

So this morning as the sun burned golden above us, we ventured forth in my little blue car to visit some of the families in Makhewu.

The first family we visited was run by Gogo (grandmother) Ndzimandze.

Gogo had 5 children who have all died secondary to HIV/AIDS. As is the custom here in Swaziland, as each child died, Gogo took their respective children into her own home.

She now has 13 orphans whom she is looking after.

The most recent death happened early this week when Gogo’s last remaining daughter died in her bedroom in the early hours of the morning. Gogo took in her children Modra and Bongani and she is now preparing for the funeral this weekend.

The childrens only food supply is corn which Gogo harvests from the fields and grinds down into a powder which can be used to make a porridge.

They are lucky if they eat one meal a day.

They sleep together in one room of Gogos house on straw mats.

They each have just one pair of clothes.

In order to fetch water, the children walk for half an hour to a little stream which lies a great distance from the homestead.

I cant imagine the pain that must live within Gogos heart. What it must be like to watch your own children suffer and die, one after another, only to find that you must now find some way of supporting 13 orphaned grandchildren between the ages of 2 and 16.

She is a woman of deep strength. A strength which I can barely begin to understand.

The final homestead we visited today quite literally took my breath away.

Their mother had died two years ago of AIDS, leaving behind a husband and two children who are now aged 2 and 3 years respectively.

The father works night shifts and is absent from the homestead most days, while the children are left on their own.

Each day they can be found in the same pair of dirty pair of clothes, with no food, completely vulnerable to anyone who might want to hurt them in any way.

One of my favourite movies is called ‘The Girl in the Cafe’. In the film, a girl describes how she was sent to jail for ‘hurting a man, who hurt a child’. After telling the story her friend asks “Whose child was it?” And the girl responds “Does it matter whose child?”

As I watched these children clearly malnourished, showing evidence of micro and macronutrient deficiencies, without clothes, or protection, or care in an unforgiving world, I remembered those words.

“Does it matter whose child?”

If we saw little feet this dirty, this wounded, this unprotected in our own house would we not fight for them?

If we knew that there were kids next door who were dying because they needed a meal, would we deny it to them?

Then why does it matter if these children live elsewhere? In another house, on another shore.

I know how the story goes. I know that these children will die if no one helps them.

Their only chance lies in someone deciding that it truly ‘doesn’t matter whose child’.

Perhaps you and I, can be that someone.

Love the world into the change,

Maithri

Lessons from Zama

2009-05-10T13:11:00.000+10:00

Siteki,

Swaziland

09/05/09
05:30

I am a firm believer that children, in their innocence, resilience and love have so much to teach those of us who have turned into ‘serious adults’.

I once thought of writing a book called, ‘The Tao of Ice cream’. The first page would read “Live now. Live well. Taste the moment.”

Nowhere are the lessons we can learn from our children more readily apparent than here in this little mountain country where 10% of the population are orphaned children.

On a recent trip to the Hlane game reserve with some of the children from the paediatric ward, I met Zama.

Zama is 6 years old with porcelain skin and wide brown eyes that i’m certain would make Bambi herself squirm with envy.

Since my first trip to Swaziland, it feels like we’ve taken a thousand kids to Hlane. Sometimes In wheelchairs, sometimes covered in burns or sores or Kaposi sarcoma, barefoot and carefree with IV cannulas still in their hands and dreams of lions and elephants in their heads.

Of all the children I’d taken there, Zama was by far the quietest. Even with all my clowning around and silliness it was hard to make a soft smile break upon the shores of her beautiful face.

Precious Zamas story is hard for me to tell. She was born to a very poor homestead even by Swazi standards. Her mother was infected with AIDS and died giving her life. In her family there were only her grandparents, and her father remaining.

At the age of 5 Zama was first admitted to hospital for trauma secondary to suspected sexual abuse.

At the age of 6 she was readmitted for genital warts and steps taken to remove her from her homestead. She has been in hospital ever since.

The sadness which a child should never have to endure is written all over Zamas face, etched into her ways of being and behaving.

How could anyone hurt something so tender, so beautiful, so wholly innocent? Why does child abuse become more common in communities where people are impoverished and destitute.

I don’t have the answers.

A wise friend told me once, that sexual abuse has less to do with sex than it has to do with power and disempowerment.

After a few hours of driving and dancing, I ask Zama what her favourite animal is?

‘Impala’ – she says. Impala are among the gentlest animals I’ve seen. They are always listening to the wind, to the slightest sound that might herald the approach of danger.

Zama says they look very kind, like goats, and asks me if she can have one to take home to the hospital.

By days end, after a meal of pizza and icecream and, her smiles come much easier. And as I walk her back to the paediatric ward she offers me her tiny hand in a wordless gesture of trust.

I want to tell her how beautiful she is, how priceless, how nothing that she has been through can tarnish the beauty that rests and abides within her.

But I know that this is not the time for words. So I take the soft hand she offers me and walk with her back to the ward.

Somehow I know that there is much more to Zama than even the farthest reaches of her pain.

With love,

Maithri

The broken road

2009-05-06T20:33:00.011+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
06/05/09
Midday

As the mist settles over the emerald mountains of Swaziland, the Good shepherd hospital stirs into movement.

The first few hours of my work day are spent in clinic. There I see patients afflicted with every imaginable ailment. From tropical infections like schistosomiasis to the complications of terminal HIV like toxoplasmosis, cryptococcal meningitis and multi drug resistant tuberculosis. These severe conditions are interspersed with the more benign aches and pains and dripping noses which can still malign the days of a Swazi man or woman.

After clinic I assemble with the homebased care team and we drive out to the the neigbourhoods surrounding the little hamlet of Siteki.

The yellow grass grows wild and taller than a basketballer. And we drive through it each day.

Sometimes we go around it. But usually it is 'through'.

The nurses say "Left here!" - and we turn.... making roads where I'm sure no road was ever meant to be...

The homebased care truck is small but sturdy. The windshield cracked by years of being battered by pebbles and flying debris as the team travels the dusty roads of Siteki. It navigates the most inhospitable terrain, roads covered in mud and potholes and ditches. Grass quite literally as high as an 'elephants eye'.

Each day we visit a series of homesteads. A homestead is a group of huts where one or more families reside.

We are a medical service, and as such the primary purpose of our work is to provide compassionate medical care to those afflicted with severe HIV, Tuberculosis and those who are simply too sick or too poor to get to hospital.

In addition to medical care each family recieves a bag of corn soya, milli meal (which can be made into a porridge), beans, and on good days a bag of oranges or a bottle of milk.

Many of the homesteads we visit consist entirely of orphan children fending for themselves. In a country where 10% of the population are orphan children under the age of 15, orphan headed households are sadly very common.

A doctors or nurses office is where you find it in Swaziland. Sometimes in a field of corn....

Sometimes under a tree. (This is what we might look like if you were inside a hut)

The aim of homebased care is to treat not only the patient but their family. To assess issues within the home like access to water, sanitation, poverty, malnutrition and sick family members. It is to look broadly and see a patient within the context of their every day lives as opposed to merely an afflicted body part or disease process.

In addition to assessing and treating patients, the reason I was asked to work with homebased care this year was to empower the team, teaching further clinical skills and knowledge about disease and its management. But in truth I am the one who is learning.

This team are expert in areas where every physician can refine their skills. They know how to see deeply and listen intently, how to treat the ostracised, unloved and dying with dignity and gentle reverence. They believe that the soul of medicine is not simply about handing out pills to patients but about helping an equal in need.

In more ways than my little words can describe, this team of beautiful men and women and the other human angels whom I encounter each day are my teachers.

We walk the broken road together, delving into our own woundedness to find a seed of hope to plant in the heart of another to whom the winter has come.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Yvonnes smile

2009-04-29T22:08:00.004+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
29/04/09
14:30

Maybe if I was a better photographer I could capture it. The un-nameable softness that can melt the hardest heart.

Yvonne is 15 years old. She has a progressive neurological disorder which has never been fully diagnosed.

Since birth she has had episodes of profound weakness, whereby she develops flaccid paralysis of one or more limbs and at times is unable to even lift her head from her pillow.

When I visited her recently in her homestead. She was shivering under a tiny, dirty blanket, breathing very rapidly, and suffering from a pneumonia which was resistant to oral antibiotics.

We transferred her to hospital where she has been receiving intravenous medicine now for several days, and making a steady recovery.

Every night after work, I visit my friend. She cannot move her head to acknowledge my presence in the room. But she smiles, with a deep sincerity and gentle grace which never fails to move me.

In the last two days, Yvonne has seen two young women die in the bed next to her. Both were infected with HIV, and both suffered greatly.

I sit down on the wooden stool by her bed and we talk about her day.

Due to weakness of her laryngeal muscles, Yvonnes speaks very softly and tires quickly.

Yvonne loves yoghurt. Thick, apricot yoghurt.

So on my visits I always try and remember to bring a little tub. I lift her head off the mattress with one hand, and with a borrowed spoon from the hospital kitchen, feed her a little yoghurt before bedtime.

She savours each spoonful and swallows slowly and carefully, before nodding her head to tell me to continue.

This has become our little ritual and I look forward to it each day.

When she has had her fill, she quietly says ‘enough’. I wipe her mouth with the hand towel that sits by her bed and ask “How was it my friend?”

Yvonne smiles broadly and gently as if to say “It was good.”

In the wings of her tender grace and unbounded dignity, Yvonne reminds me each day that we are not called to change this crazy world.

We are called simply to love it.

Love the world into change,

Maithri

A thank you and note re: donations

2009-04-29T21:49:00.002+10:00

My dear friends,

From the very depth of my heart I thank you for your generosity and kindness to me and most especially to the beautiful people of Swaziland. My internet access is very limited and very slow ;). I find myself simply writing to my USB drive and transferring it to a blog post when I can. My email inbox is overflowing with unopened email and I do apologise sincerely for that. Please know that I appreciate your love and support more than my little words can express.

In regards to monetary donations, i have not made any firm decisions as to allocation yet. However there are several projects which i am currently considering supporting. These include feeding orphan children at the Makhewu care point, a vegetable garden for sick and dying patients in Mopoyeni, the Hartmann fund for Home based care run by my dear and wonderful friend Kathleen Hartmann and her husband Dr. Alfred Hartmann. Finally I am also considering supporting the work of my dear friend Dr. Joyce Mareverwa who is director of the paediatric clinic in Mbabane (the capital city of Swaziland). There is so much need and all these projects are very worthy.

I want to ensure that money i give will be used as constructively and efficiently as possible... So i will take my time in deciding how and where to use donated funds. I will detail any and all of my decisions in later posts in the coming months.

With love and deepest thanks,

Maithri

Maybe its the third world

2009-04-25T20:59:00.004+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland,
25/04/09
13:07

Paul Simon sounds better in Africa than anywhere else in the world.

The sounds of 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' and 'you can call me al' have meant so much to me while I've driven the long Swazi roads that connect this country like a shining wide black river from mountain top to mountain top.

There is a line in 'You can call me Al' which has always spoken to me.

"A man walks down the street. Its a street in a strange world. Maybe its the third world? Or maybe its his first time around.

As I drive each day from the confines of our hospital nestled on top of the Lebombo mountains into the deep Swazi wilderness, finding homestead after homestead consisting of little huts... sometimes with a floor, sometimes without. Sometimes with a roof made of a sheet of iron or thatched leaves and sticks, sometimes without one at all. Finding young men and women dying alone, usually without food, usually ostracised from their communities due to the stigma surrounding their illness.

As I find little children running households on their own. Trying to feed one another, clothe one another.... Attempting to forget the deep void that the loss of their parents has left and live just one day at a time....

What strikes me, is not so much the rift between developed and developing world cultures....

What strikes me is how similar we truly are.

Children are children whereever you go. If they dont have enough money for a swing, they make one with rags. If they cant play with a soft toy, they find things in the rubbish - like an old rusted wheel to occupy their imaginations and need for little joys.

Men and women care about the self-same things that 'we' care about. About providing for their children, about trying to find purpose in their lives and live fully, without the encumbrances of illness and poverty.

And yet, somewhere in our collective imagination, we have created worlds within worlds. Third worlds and first worlds. Worlds where it is not ok for even one child to die and other worlds where a child dies every 3 seconds and no one blinks an eyelid.

Last evening after work, I was visiting a young friend at the hospital. He is awaiting surgery next week and we went across to play a game of cards.

As I was returning to my car, I saw a young 26 year old girl lying on a stretcher in the corridor.

She was desperately short of breath. We spoke to her mother and found out that she was HIV positive and had been just seen by the doctor on call. He had asked for her to be admitted as she was clearly in a critical condition. However the hospital was 'full'. So they would have to return home.

She told us " Dokotella, I'm too tired to breathe anymore."

It was clear that this girl was in severe distress and on the verge of respiratory failure and death. We spent the next half an hour pleading with the nursing staff and hospital admin to admit this girl while she still had a chance. Eventually we succeeded and I was glad to hear this morning that she made it safely through the night.

The fact that a girl can be left to die in a corridor without oxygen or care seems heartless and cruel to us. But I have to wonder if my hands are clean in all of this.

The African hospital system does what it can with the very minimal resources which it is afforded.

On the whole it does a wonderful job, given the depth and breadth of the problems which it faces.

However the fact is that there is more disease and death in this continent than any single hospital can cope with.

The world has stood back for so many years and allowed human life to become expendable in Africa and the developing world.

I hear of words like 'compassion fatigue'.... And I have to tell you that the concept nauseates me. That we who have so much can even contemplate tiring of reaching out to those of our human family who have absolutely nothing, is absolutely incomprehensible to my little brain.

I know that if we were face to face with these people. If we could only see their humility, their dignity, the immensity of their love and kindness in the midst of the deepest sorrow imaginable... Then there would be never a hospital in Africa so full that it cannot find room for a dying young girl. There would never be a day when I am out with homebased care team, that we would run out of food or medicine, to give to a needy family.

I am grateful for everyone who reads these words. Who dares to take the people of the world into their heart, and act from love and compassion.

I know that if you walked down the streets of Siteki, you would see what i have found.... That this is not the third world.

Its just our first time around.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Maithri Vs Bugs

2009-04-22T16:20:00.000+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
21/04/09
04:30

I have always been a big fan of the tv show ‘man vs wild.’ In it a man who is aptly named ‘Bear’ (granted I think he was a navy seal) is literally dropped into the wilderness with only a swiss army knife and the shirt on his back. Through will power, determination and a steady diet of insects, seeds and various other ‘natural delicacies’ he has to not only survive but find a way out of the most rugged and unhospitable terrain on the planet.

I am considering making my own Tv show. I will call it “Maithri vs Bugs”

It will consist of Maithri being dropped in Swaziland, and then being killed by bugs. Sound like a ratings winner?

Two weeks since arriving in Swaziland, the prehistoric, midnight black denizen of my room whom I have named “Dude” has now acquired wings and at various hours of the night will start flying through my room like Wesley Snipes…. “Always bet on black”.

Last night as a consequence of the rains, a different flying insect the size of a bat which I’m sure co-starred with ‘Dude’ in the last Jurassic park movie, came into our house and landed on our kitchen roof. I took a long pole and tried to gently nudge it back into the garden. I succeeded only in causing ‘batman’ to fly down to eye level. For a few seconds he stared at me with those beady little eyes, and then quite literally started chasing me around the house…. In the end it chased me out the front door into the pouring rain.

Ah well, as my friend ‘Bear’ would say… ‘Better wet than dead.’

Send your love

2009-04-16T18:08:00.000+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland

16/04/09

Our world is in need.

Every day I walk into little homesteads bereft of food, proper shelter, clothing.

I see little faces with dried tears upon their faces, mothers whose breast milk is running dry because they have not enough to eat. Young men just like me drowning in disease and despair.

Yesterday while making our visits, I was taken to the homestead of a young man. He was 29 years old, the age I will turn in just over a month.

He was lying on a woven mat outside his house, shivering...

A severe fungal infection had overtaken his scalp. Wart virus had erupted across face. His body was covered in black Kaposi' sarcoma. He could not swallow because of candida infection in his throat. He was in what we describe as stage IV HIV. Terminal AIDS. His immune system shutting down, allowing every opportunistic infection imaginable to take over his young body.

Severely dehydrated. Starved to the point of death. I took his hand in mine and in his eyes, saw my own reflection.

Were we that different, He and I?

Should we both not have the right to live in a country free of disease? To be educated. To have food. To hitch our dreams to a distant star and follow them with the knowledge that all things are possible.

How could i have lived my life of complacency and excess and forgetten this brother whom I never knew, dying in another corner of the world. Our world.

After examining him, I stopped to peel him an orange. He sucked the juice from each little quarter.

I asked the nurses to say a prayer. To sing a song for him.

In wild harmonies a little family sang a plaintiff prayer for their son.

I hung my head and could not hide my tears.

We sent him to hospital for intravenous rehydration, but knew that what this man needed was another chance. Another life. A world where people cared about more than their own bordered existence.

A world where the splinter was removed from human minds which caused them to mistake distance for immediacy.

So my friend, whomever you are, whereever you are.... Send your love.

Tie it to a kite string. Breathe it in fragrant prayers into the open sky.

Send it in food and clothing, in rice and shoes and heartfelt wishes.

Stand in the face of the nay-sayer, the pessimist, the cynic and declare the world one nation. One home. One dream.

Yes, our brothers and sisters are dying.

So why waste our lives in tears, or worse, in denial of the truth.

Pick up your broom. Your pen. Your own wounded hands...

And send your love,

From Siteki with Love, M

Khosiyendzile

2009-04-15T16:24:00.007+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland,
14/04/09
09:05

Just a fifteen minute drive from the town of Siteki is Hlane Game reserve. Every weekend since my first visit to Swaziland, I've taken a few kids from the paediatric ward at the Good Shepherd hospital there, to marvel together at the animals of Africa. In my tiny hired volkswagen we take a little rollercoaster drive through the rugged terrain of hlane and 'see what we can see'. Afterwards we go to the 'country club' nearby for ice cream and chips. We are always assured of some strange looks as we walk in, a rag tag bunch - barefoot and dressed in blue hospital gowns, but the people that work there have become used to this crazy doctor from Australia now and they greet us with smiles and affection.

Last weekend was Kosiyendzile's turn.

Khosiyendzile is 7 years old. She was diagnosed with HIV when she was five and just last week her immune cells reached a point where she required commencement of Antiretroviral medication. Like thousands of beautiful children here in Swaziland, she is an orphan.

Inquisitive and playful. Full of life and joy. Her dream is to see a giraffe.

I explain through my wonderful friend and interpreter Thando that in all my trips to Hlane I have never yet seen a giraffe. I say a silent prayer that this time will be different.

In the car we play a little music... 'Iko Iko'...Paul Simon...the chipmunks! The children dance, make faces and laugh as though illness and suffering was no part of their reality.

Poor Thando is very soon turned into a life sized toy;)

Once we reach Hlane. The next part of our adventure begins. For the first time, the children see the animals for which their beautiful country is famous....

After an hour and a half of driving. I become aware that we have not seen a giraffe, and that in our last few minutes I decide to drive back to the shop to buy Khosiyendzile a toy giraffe to take back to the ward with her....

But then...

Suddenly the car is alive with the sound of children screaming.

I turn my head briefly and see Khosiyendziles eyes grow wide with soft hope.

"There" She says....

Two giraffe grazing just a few metres from the car. "Giraffe!" "Giraffe!" she beams.

Next stop... Simunye! for ice cream and french fries.

Khosiyendzile imitates me eating....

At days end we head back to the hospital with fragrant joy dripping from every pore of our skin, from every eyelash, from each word we speak...

I turn to my friend Thando and say "Tell me brother, what does Khosiyendzile mean?"

He says "What God has made."

"What God has made".

I look at her shining face and whisper "Amen."

I see you

2009-04-11T17:10:00.003+10:00

11/04/09

Siteki, Swaziland

8:45 am

The most common greeting you hear in Swaziland, is "Sawubona.'

It means "I see you".

There are many ways of seeing.

I remember during my student years, reading Foucault, an anthropologist who described 'the medical gaze'.

He postulated that when a health care worker meets a patient, the patient often becomes objectified. Dehumanised. That power resides with the health care worker and rarely with the patient.

I wish it were not the case but i know that in many, many parts of the world it is true.

It is not because health care workers are cruel. To the contrary the vast majority I have known are genuinely compassionate individuals with a commitment to the welfare of those whom they serve.

And yet there is just so much to do. So many patients to see. So little time for sleep, or food, or self care. So many agendas being thrust your way. Is it any wonder that the clinical gaze would be one which tried to be as efficent and detached as possible?

But there is more to healing than fixing a broken part.

Nowhere is that more apparent than here in Africa. I know many people who have taken a 'fast food' approach to Developing world Medicine. Their aim is to see as many patients as quickly as possible. And I know that to some degree this is required. In fact much of population health is based upon this principle... Do the most good, for the most people.

And yet if we truly want to create sustainable solutions to the crises facing the developing world, we need more.

In addition to much needed acute services such as outpatient departments and clinics that are able to see hundreds and hundreds of sick people each day. We need other services which can offer broader solutions to the complex problems which these people are facing.

Three or four days each week for the duration of my stay in Africa I will be going out with the home based care team at the Good Shepherd hospital. This wonderful team of nurses drives out along the red, dusty roads around the lebombo mountains and visits people who are known to have severe HIV infection/ or are unable to access the acute hospital because of lack of money or being too unwell to walk.

I have been asked to do some teaching for the team and offer ways of optimising the service.

Here are some of the suggestions I am making:

- No patient should be assessed on the back of a truck.

- The team should go into the hut, sit down with the patient, if possible at eye level, before making a medical assessment and prescribing medications.

- There needs to be an assessment of the needs of the family, of water supply, of sanitation. Do they have enough money to get to hospital? Are other family members sick? Are there orphans who need support services? Do they have access to food?

It might take longer. It will probably mean we see less people during the day.

But my hope is that whomever we do encounter will be 'seen'.

Some will criticise this approach as idealistic and impractical.

But i disagree.

Most of the patients seen by home based care have refractory AIDS and are going to die. It is the tragic reality of HIV and poverty in Africa. What these people need more than anything else is to be seen. To be heard. To have a thorough assessment of their physical and social needs so that further complications of their disease, like opportunistic infections, can be prevented. And so that their families will be supported and well looked after.

I say it over and over again, but when you have nothing, when you are dying a painful and solitary death - the smallest kindness, the most seemingly insignificant touch, the most cursory glance - means everything.

In truth, is this not a connecting thread that runs through the human condition?

The need for someone to look in your eyes and say simply, from the heart

"My brother, My sister,

I see you."

Sawubona,

Maithri

Happy Easter

2009-04-09T23:53:00.004+10:00

April 09, 2009
Swaziland, Siteki
3:55pm

It is Maundy Thursday.

I remember all the 'foot washing' services I have been to over the years. It always moved me more than i could explain, seeing the priest (usually my Dad) washing the feet of their congregation.

Throughout my life I have fought not only for tolerance, but for the celebration of all faiths and belief systems. To reap the harvest of our diverse understandings of love has always seemed to me to be part of the excitement, the joy of living.

My friends are muslim and hindu, jew and pagan, atheist and agnostic. I see no belief system as exalted. No way as the 'right' way. Merely a thousand painted ways of presenting the same universal truths.

Still the stories of Jesus' love, have always spoken deeply to my heart.

I fear that his ideals of unbounded, inclusive, universal love have been warped and tortured by small fearful minds trapped within cages of literalism and spiritual arrogance.

For me, at its core, his teachings were and always have been about deep humility and non judgement.

I see him washing the feet of the poor, the outcast, the reviled. I see him walking with leper and prostitute, thief and liar. And I think to myself "I wanna love like that."

Here in Swaziland, a day feels like a year. I ride the rollercoaster of deep despair and wild gratitude and celebration for the smallest act of kindness.

This morning before i headed out to see an old grandmother who was unable to leave her bed, I saw two Swazi women talking.

One said to the other "I know you are going through such deep sorrow CiCi (sister). I will take it all to God tonight and lay it under his cross."

Jesus is dying here in Swaziland and throughout the developing world. Covered in sores and kaposi sarcoma. He is a little girl being raped by her drunken father. Two little boys who are weeping at the freshly dug grave of their mother. He is the outcast. The forgotten. The hated and unloved.

Tommorrow is Good Friday.

We have organised a meal for 50 orphans at the Makhewu carepoint. Cooking starts at 7am. The party starts at 12.

I think there are more than enough 'religious' people in the world. Enough judgement and arrogance and exclusiveness.

I dont want to be religious. I dont even want to be a Christian.

All I want to do is take a bowl of water and wash the feet of my brother, my sister in pain.

To love them.

Not because I am 'special' or 'chosen' but because we are one.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Hope flickers on

2009-04-08T00:26:00.006+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
4:30 pm 7/04/09

The world is full of tears.

Tears that would overflow the banks of any sea.

And yet I still believe in us. In humanity. In the power of love.

It has only been two days since I've been back on Swazi soil... The red dust is burning my eyes as I write these words at the 'veterinary clinic' which doubles as an internet cafe.

Each morning i spend an hour in clinic, before heading out into the communities to meet the people....

In every hut there is a story of sorrow.

Yesterday we drove up the most inhospitable hill.... Where there was a single hut perched upon rock after jagged rock.

In the hut we found a man with end stage HIV. He was lying naked in his bed, next to a pool of his own wastes.

Every bone in his body, literally every bone was palpable, visible. He had suffered a stroke secondary to complications of HIV/Toxoplasmosis and was unable to move his left side.

One of the wonderful Swazi nurses in the team explained that he had a caring daughter who washed him and fed him each day, but was only able to visit him once a day.

I cant remember a time ive seen someone so hungry.

We gave him an orange. He took it in his skeletal hands and devoured it.

We took out a bag of corn meal and the nurses mixed it with some milk into a paste.

He ate it faster than anything i've ever seen.

He held his hands in prayer and through wide brown eyes filled with tears said "Siyabonga" - Thank you.

There is a story of a sparrow, which my Dad told me once.

He was lying on a gravel road, with his little scrawny legs facing the open sky.

A horseman was walking past and seeing the sparrow, alighted from his horse.

He said "Little Sparrow, are you hurt? Why are lying there so awkwardly? Face up to the sky?"

The sparrow said "I have heard, that sometime today the sky will fall."

The horseman laughed and said "And you think you can keep it from falling with those little legs?"

The sparrow shrugged his shoulders and said "My friend, I will do what I can."

And that is all I am doing. What we are all doing here in this beautiful, little hamlet so filled with pain.

What we can.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

A candle for Mthobisi

2009-04-08T00:23:00.001+10:00

Siteki, Swaziland
6/04/09
03:35 am

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep”. – Rumi

Its 3.35 am and I am keeping watch. I wish I meant that metaphorically. “The brave young doctor, keeping watch over his patients”.

But the far less glamorous and infinitely more pathetic truth is, I am keeping watch for bugs.

I had been resting quite contentedly within the warm arms of the African night, until my slumber was interrupted by the sight of giant black armoured insect walking across my floor. Three times the size of a cockroach, more sinister looking than a dung beetle, (although I am beginning to think it might be from that family of creatures. Perhaps an uncle twice removed or a brother recently escaped from prison.)

I jumped off my bed and mustered enough courage to ambush it in mid run (and I use the term ‘ambush’ generously), which succeeded only in causing it to pause for a moment before continuing to saunter straight underneath my bed.

It is upon that self-same bed which i am now preecariously perched as I write these words, poised at any instant for a quick and shameless get away.

As the sages would say “There are no accidents”. So I am taking this mysterious guests entry into my life as reason to take a few moments now to write to you.

It has not even been 24 hours since I returned to this town high in the mountains of Swaziland, and yet I am brimming over with excitement, heartache and a pervasive sense of urgency.

I am honoured once again to be working with a host of real life angels. Their passion, commitment and deep unvarnished humility are constant sources of refreshment and inspiration on this journey.

There is need everywhere.

In every cold corner of every hut.

My young friend, Mthobisi, an AIDS orphan who just a few years ago told me he wanted to be a doctor some day, has been having trouble paying his school fees.

Thankfully he has found a sponsor through the young heroes program www.youngheroes.org.sz and has had this year of school fees paid in full.

Mthobisi, lives in a little hut with his brother. After school they work in the fields to earn enough money for food and clothes and all the other basic necessities of life. Their parents died of AIDS.

His only time for study is deep in the night, by the light of a little candle.

Recently though, he has found that he has run out of money to buy candles.

Have you noticed that you only truly realise the power of a candle when the lights go out?

When the world is so black that you can’t make out your left foot from your right?

In that moment, the soft light that a candle brings, is as powerful and beautiful as an orange sun peeking its head over the sleeping mountain.

I start work today. I will go to the hospital and visit the children. Go out with homebased care team to visit the homesteads around these beautiful wild Lebombo mountains.

Here in Siteki, there are tears everywhere. But like my beautiful friend Susan once taught me, “ Why curse the darkness, when you’re holding a candle?”

Why indeed.

I will go to the shop today and buy a candle for Mthobisi.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri

Letters from a Young Doctor

2009-03-22T06:43:00.007+11:00

Sunday, 22nd March 2009, 5:50 am
Melbourne, Victoria

I am 28 years old. Twenty Eight.

In countless ways I am like every other 28 year old guy who has ever walked this blue planet.

I love to laugh. I think there is a gene in my family for really loud, hysterical laughing. We are the people in the cinema who will laugh uproariously at every single joke. Till invariably someone during the course of the movie will look around and ask “Who the f**k is that?”.

Undeterred, we laugh on.

My childhood was richly peopled with comedians. From Billy Connolly’s lilting brogue to Richard Pryor’s wild irreverence. From a cast of ‘Friends’ who became a very real extension of my family to John Cleese working tirelessly and shamelessly at his ‘Fawlty Towers’. Laughter is the ambrosial wine which accompanies my every day. It roots my body to the earth, and lifts my spirit to the waiting skies.

What else does every (honest) 28 year old man love?

Sex.

I can tell you my friend, on this charge, I’m as 28 as they come.

Gentle, embracing sex. Wild, toe curling sex. Sex as communion with the earth, with the divine, with the pulse and the thrill of life.

In all our propriety and piety we have betrayed our bodies. Our naturalness. We have compromised our ability to let go and as the poet Mary Oliver writes “let the soft animal of your body, love what it loves.”

I see this betrayal of the sensual manifesting in our world in more dysfunctional ways than I can write about here.

I try to live a little counter culturally. To honour sensuality and all the relentless beauty which it brings to my world.

As I talk about sex and sensuality, I must not fail to speak about music.

When someone asks me what i do, it is more comfortable for me to say “I am a singer” than “I am a doctor.”

Singing to me, is as natural as breathing.

In so many ways, my life is my song.

Each day stands as a single verse. I paint it with colours of tone and lyric. Punctuate it with rhythm. Gild it with melody.

Somedays it all falls a little flat. And i might as well be singing a jingle for a cat food commercial.

But always in retrospect, and sometimes in real time, it feels as though life takes whatever humble fragment of song I offer and supports it with the rich, elegant chords of a greater song. Enmeshes it , and my life, within the wild, textured harmonies of grace.

So this is who I am. A laughing, love dazed and little ‘sex crazed’, minstrel, who is doing what he can to become more intimate with the world.

It was this desire for true intimacy that first led me to medicine.

And it is what has led and continues to lead me to Swaziland now.

Swaziland, where there are more coffin salesmen than grocery stores.

Where so many ‘Aid agencies’ will not go, because its ‘a lost cause’.

42% of the population infected with HIV. 70% of people living on less than one dollar a day. The lowest life expectancy of any country in the world: 32 years.

Why should a 28 year old guy who can often be found swimming in the Southern ocean with his Hawaiian board shorts on, leave his stable job and secure income at a hospital in urban Australia and fly to a hamlet of heartbreak in the heart of Sub-saharan Africa?

Delusions of grandeur? Some kind of strange ‘Jesus complex’ or naive belief that he can make it all better? Or just sheer stupidity?

I once read about a Japanese scientist who was experimenting with water.

He would write a word on a bottle, fill it with water and ‘super cool’ it. Cool it to the point where crystals would form.

When he wrote the words “You make me sick” or “I hate you”, the crystals that formed were jagged and completely disorganised.

But amazingly when the words “Love” or “Gratitude” were written. The crystals would turn into precisely ordered structures. Figures of deeply moving beauty. This phenomenon happened over and over again.

He tried it with water from the fujiwara dam. This time he froze it before and after a prayer.

The results were astounding. Before the prayer the crystals formed were chaotic, but afterwards glorious order was as apparent as the sun in a summer sky.

I’m under no illusions about my abilities as a doctor or as human being. I am deeply aware of the immensity and complexity of the problems which plague this beautiful mountainous country and the world.

I go simply with the intention of holding a little love in my heart.

Of reaching out my hands to those who are hurting with the breath of this love inside me.

We may never be able to turn a chaotic ocean into a symphony of peace.

But what if we can affect the cup of water that we offer our brother or sister who is suffering?

What If we can fill it with kindness, and understanding and gentle listening?

If we can make it ripple with whispered hope, infuse it with a single drop of grace?

John O’Donohue says “When one little flower opens, spring awakens everywhere.”

Perhaps this is why we go to Swaziland and all the places in the world wintering in despair.

To coax the buds.

Picture Credits

Ripples of hope

2009-02-26T11:49:00.016+11:00

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

~ Robert F. Kennedy

Dear Friends,

I am deeply humbled by all the loving comments and emails which I have received over the last few days....

You fill my heart with deep hope and wild love, and inspire me more than my little words can express.

I want to be as transparent, as 'real' as I can, with you.

Not simply because I believe reality is always good (except perhaps on certain 'reality Television shows' lol)...

But because I think in the work I do with people in Africa, there is a temptation to put people up on a pedestal... To almost 'deify' wounded human beings. And I think this is not only dangerous, but counterproductive.

I am as real, as human as the next guy. As filled with flaws and imperfections and annoying habits ;).

But I have found that imperfect, 'everyday' people like me can make a difference in this world. And this is why I write this blog and share with you the stories that I do..

I wrote recently of my friend Juliet. She lives across the ocean in Virginia, USA. But through the medium of the internet and this little blog we have become friends...

She is filled with passion for the this world and like so many of us wants to make a difference...

This weekend she will take a group of young adults on a wild ride of love, to show them how they each can make a difference in the world...

They are making 800 crosses to plant by the side of major road, each cross representing 325 children that will die of hunger in that day....

They will sleep in a cardboard box city which Juliet has built, so they can experience what its like to be homeless...

And among the other incredible activities she has planned, they'll see five little clips from a young good looking doctor in Australia (LOL!!! you've heard of McDreamy now meet McGoonetilleke ;) ;) about some of his experiences in Swaziland and some little thoughts on making a difference ;).... you'll find them here....http://www.youtube.com/user/MaithriGoonetilleke

The internet is a miracle... How else could we form such strong heart to heart connections with people all over the world?

When I spoke to Juliet on the phone last week about how I might be able to help her in her project, we just kept saying... "How is it possible that we're talking right now!"

It somehow turned this whole experience of blogging, which has the risk of feeling a little ephemeral at times, into a very real, tangible experience...

It happened again yesterday as I was reading your beautiful comments and emails... I felt a tide of very real tenderness and gratitude wash over me... I could feel you each in that little internet cafe with me... ;)

Africa is just a breath away... but there is still much to do...

I just didnt want to neglect saying a humble and heartfelt thank you to all of you for your love and support...

I think I shared these photos with you a while back on my blog....but I thought i'd repost them...To me they will always represent "HOPE"...

When I left Swaziland the last time, my friend Jacque and Babe Elliot Matsenwa had a dream of building a care point for orphans and vulnerable children in the Moyeni area.

It would be an enclosed seven room structure with toilet, windows, tables, blackboard, two ten thousand litre water tanks... where AIDS orphans, and poor people in the community could come for a meal each day and informal education provided by volunteer mothers in the community.

The dream was there...but sadly funds were not...

So when I returned to Australia I spent 6 months talking.... Talking till i grew sick of the sound of my own voice lol... I spoke at medical 'grand rounds' at tertiary hospitals, at tiny sporting club meetings in isolated country towns.... I spoke to Christian churches and muslim groups...at retirement homes and youth groups....

And in 6 months we had raised 40 thousand dollars... Just a whole lot of ordinary folks making ripples...

These pictures tell the rest of the story and is a testament to the work that Jacque, Babe Elliot and 'the angels of Moyeni' did with what we raised.

Picture 1 - Where it all began

Picture 2 and 3 : It doesnt need to be built to start serving!

Picture 4: The Angels of Moyeni - Babe Elliot, Jacque and the the mothers who cook a meal a day for the kids)

Picture 5 and 6 - A Roof!!!! And holes to let the light in!

Picture 6 and 7 - 2 ten thousand litre water tanks!

A Coat of Paint and a little love as 'holes' turn to windows ;).... and the children find a place.... A "Care point"...to call their own...

Theres a sufi saying which I love...( if you want to meet an angel and a Sufi Darvish visit Brother Irving )

I dont know the exact wording but the saying goes something like this:

"Past the seeker as he prayed,

There came the helpless and the hungry and the homeless,

And seeing their suffering he cried out to his God saying

"Great God, How can you see your children suffering and not do anything to help them?"

And God in His heaven replied "I did do something.

I made you."

My love to you ripple maker,

Sala Kahle (Be well), till we meet again in Swaziland,

Maithri

Post Script - I fly out April 2nd... I will post again in the first week of April from Africa.

For all those who have enquired about making donations, I will set up a paypal account and put it on my side bar in the coming weeks...Once in Swaziland, I will assess with the team where best to allocate collected funds.

My response

2009-02-24T15:05:00.001+11:00

Friends,

I am writing to you from a internet cafe, as our internet service provider has been affected by the fires in Victoria. I am going next week to Queensland to work as an aged care registrar in a hospital there for a couple of weeks before I head to Swaziland. I will upload the rest of the videos of Swaziland stories I am working on for Juliets project (see my 2 earlier posts) to the youtube channel I set up yesterday.... You can find the link on my side bar....

I want to thank each of you for your beautiful words and emails which nourish me with such love and tenderness.

As I quickly checked my email today I was surprised to find a very angry message from someone entitled "from someone who USED to follow your blog"....

It went on to say that he hated my last post.... and that (i paraphrase here) "my mission must be to make people feel guilty and depressed."...when it was clear to him that there was 'nothing' he could do.....he also thought that as a doctor I am one of the 'elite' and so do not understand what it is to 'suffer'.... He concluded by saying 'as such I have decided to press the 'stop following' button'....

I would like to respond...

Friend,

I understand that some of the stories of poverty and HIV are difficult to hear. But never has it been my intention to depress anyone nor make anyone feel guilty.

The title of this blog is "The Soaring Impulse" - It is based on a few words by Helen Keller which have changed my life...

"One can never consent to creep, when one feels the impulse to soar"....

I write this blog for all those who have been forced to creep due to oppressors like poverty, disease and prejudice.

I write because I believe with all my heart in the power of everyday human beings to make a difference, to change things.

And I write it because I know that the world is one.

I was born in Sri Lanka and when I was 6 my family were forced to move to Australia because of the civil war.... They did not call us 'refugees' because my parents came to work in Australia, but that is what we were.

I went to a school where i was the only person of colour and the poorest person. There were so many days when I would not want to go because I knew I would be taunted...

Throughout my own life I have had people tell me at every stage that for whatever reason I was not good enough. That my dreams were not worthwhile, that i didnt have what it takes to achieve success.

When I was in high school, they laughed when I told them I would be a doctor some day.... 'you'll end up a poet on the streets..."

But i never listened to the voices of fear. I never listened then and I will not listen now.

There have been other parts of my story too raw to share... But I have never ever been one of 'the elite' and i have most certainly known my share of suffering in my life...

I write this blog not only for the people of Swaziland, but for everyone who has suffered.

I do not believe in wallowing in pain.... I believe in overcoming it... In healing it... In transforming it into something beautiful....

This is the sacred alchemy to which we are called. To take a broken moment, a wounded world, and love it into change.

In my profile on this blog I call myself "Just another young poet walking the broken road to freedom...."

And that is all I am.

But if just one person reads something here and is touched, is moved to act.... to give a little more of themselves... To add one more drop of love to the ocean that already is....

Then that will be enough.

I send you my love and hold you softly in the light,

Dont follow me....

Follow love,

Maithri.