Tammy Smecker-Hane http://members.cox.net/tsmecker/Swazi_Trip_Mar07.html

April 20, 2007

Helping Orphan Children in Swaziland

I am a member of the Mission Commission of the St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Corona del Mar, California. By profession, I am an astronomer and Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. In March, 2007, Reverend Cindy Voorhees and I paid a visit to our dear friend, Reverend Orma Mavimbela, in Mbabane, Swaziland. Swaziland is a very peaceful kingdom that lies in southern Africa and is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique. This web page tells you about our trip. Reverend Orma was the first woman priest ordained in the Anglican Church of Swaziland, and she cares for 180 orphan children in three Care Points located in the city at St. Margaret and St. Matthias Churches and out in the countryside in the community of Ekupheleni. She is a truly remarkable woman! About 42% of the population in Swaziland has HIV/AIDS, and an astounding number of children have lost one or both of their parents. They live either with their elderly grannies or with their teenage brother or sister acting as the head of their household.	Above: Reverend Cindy Voorhees (left) and Tammy Smecker-Hane (right). Below: Reverend Orma Mavimbela
Reverend Orma and the women who work at the Care Points provide a hot meal for the children each day, Monday through Friday. Sadly, it is the only meal that many of the children will get each day. Children as young as one or two are brought to the Care Point by their grannies or older brothers and sisters after they arrive home from school (if they are lucky enough to be able to attend school). High school children in the city Care Points come during their lunch hour then go back to school. The children’s meals are cooked in large, black iron pots over a wood fire. Porridge made from ground corn is a staple of their diet. It is usually served with a nutritious stew that is made with chicken, if available, or vegetables. Only the two Care Points in the city have refrigerators, and they are very small compared to the size of an average refrigerator in the United States. Therefore it is quite a challenge to provide 180 children with fresh food. Reverend Orma spends quite a lot of time buying food from the farmer’s markets or discount warehouses and taking it out to the Care Points. Previously, we raised money to help her purchase a used Toyota light truck, known in Swaziland as a “bakkie”, to greatly increase the amount of food she could transport safely. You can see the well-used bakkie in this photo. It always seem to be lightly dusted with the beautiful red soil that is kicked up from driving over from rough dirt roads out in the countryside. Reverend Orma also pays school fees, uniforms, books and school supplies for some of the poorest children, because, as we all know, education is the key to success in life. Reverend Orma is beginning a very ambitious project. With encouragement from Bishop Meshack Mabuza, the Bishop of Swaziland, her goal is to build a kitchen, a school that includes pre-school through grade 3, and a medical clinic at the Ekupheleni Care Point. As you can see from the photos, the current buildings there are small and simply constructed out of mud and sticks. The children must congregate under the trees for protection when it rains. Right now many of the smaller children cannot attend school, because it is too far for these little ones to walk there. However, if they don’t complete primary school, there is little hope for them to get a more advanced education once they are physically big enough to walk to the nearest school. In addition, the nearest medical clinic is 10 km (6.2 miles) away, much too far for people suffering from advances cases of AIDs or other illnesses to walk there. Thus the community’s need is great for the mixed-use complex Orma is planning. An architect has completed the initial design of a complex of simple buildings, and all that is stopping them from starting construction is a lack of money. Please consider donating to help them begin, because a community and church that is struggling just to cover the cost of food and medical care for so many orphans simply cannot afford to build such a complex unless it has help from outside sources like you. See the address below in order to send a donation.	Above: Smaller children, who are the first to arrive with their grannies at the Ekupheleni Care Point, greet their visitors by singing songs. Reverend Orma is shown on the far left, and two of the women who do the cooking are shown on the far right. Below: Boys rush up to help unload the bakkie. Above: The children’s meal is cooked over an open fire. Above: some of the later arriving high school students get their meals.
As described below, with funding from the Mission Commission of St. Michael & All Angels Church, we were able to do a number of very valuable things to help Reverend Orma. She provides clothing for the orphans from donations of gently-used clothing that she receives from people in both Swaziland and in the United States. On our trip, we brought 80 gently-used jackets and sweaters for the children. We gratefully thank the Turtle Rock Elementary School of Irvine, California, for donating these clothes from their Lost and Found. I hope some of the children will recognize their old jackets and sweaters in these photos and realize what a powerful thing they can do by donating their used clothing to a good cause.	Above: Excited girls at the St. Margaret Care Point hold up an inflatable globe and marvel at how far their new jackets and sweaters have traveled to get to them. Swaziland is almost exactly half way around the world from Irvine, California! Below: Most of the girls loved their new jackets so much they were reluctant to take them off despite the crushing 90 °F heat! Some of the boys, who were busy playing soccer, had a good reason to put them aside for awhile. Below: This little girl, the daughter of one of the women who cooks for the orphans, received my daughter’s Caitlin’s favorite sweater and hat, which she had outgrown. Back here at home, Caitlin has taken to calling her “My Special Sweater Friend”. Above: Children at the St. Matthias Care Point and their colorful new clothes. The lollipops, squishy frogs and lizards, jump ropes and soccer balls that we brought them were a big hit, too.
We also bought food for the pantries at each Care Point. Swaziland is suffering from a very severe drought, and by March, which is the beginning of the Fall season in the southern hemisphere, the price of corn had doubled and continues to increase with no end in sight. Because corn is a staple of the orphan’s diet, this development is very troubling. The majority of people in Swaziland are subsistence farmers, and nearly everyone maintains a backyard garden. As you drive around Swaziland, you see whole fields of corn yellow and dried to crisp. The ears of corn that have matured are severely stunted. Clearly, this drought will severely affect people’s ability to feed themselves.	Above: A farmer near the Ekupheleni Care Point has replanted his field and tried to start his corn crop again. While we were there, the drought subsided and for a few days it rained, much to everyone’s relief and joy.
Mrs. Alice Dlamini, who is a certified nurse running her own successful clinic, donates her time one day each week to bring a mobile clinic to a different Care Point each week. She provides much needed medical care for the children and their grannies, too. We purchased some basic medical instruments (stethoscope, blood pressure machine, thermometers), rapid HIV testing kits that allow a person’s HIV status to be determined in a matter of minutes, and stocked the mobile clinic with a wide variety of medicines and vitamins. Alice is very impressed with the excellent children’s multi-vitamins (Target brand-named vitamins) that we brought her from California. Apparently you can’t get anything like it in Swaziland that includes such a wide variety of different vitamins and minerals, and we’ll be sure to send her more in the future.	Above: Alice practices using the blood pressure machine by taking Reverend Orma’s blood pressure. This mobile clinic was set up at St. Matthias Care Point that week. Alice kept Cindy and I busy filling packets with the medicines and vitamins she prescribed for the children and elderly women who were sick.
We also met twice with the Mother’s Union of St. Matthias Church. This group meets once a week to: 1) pray with a priest, 2) visit the sick and shut-ins and bring them food and companionship, 3) to teach each other knitting and crocheting in order to make crafts that they sell in local markets to support their work with the sick, the care of the orphans, and the church, and 4) to review their work for the month. When we were there, the Mother’s Union joyously celebrated their 27^th anniversary. The women currently knit things like teddy bears and socks and do fine crochet work in order to sell. My daughter and son love the bears that they sent home with me! When we met and talked with them, the women of the Mother’s Union said they wanted to do more but were hampered by the lack of funds needed to buy supplies. They also wanted to be more ambitious and have someone come in to teach them to sew on sewing machines. Therefore, we scoured the stores in town and bought a huge supply of colorful yarn and needles for the women. We also found a fabulous bargain at a furniture store – a set of two sewing machines (one straight stitch machine and one overlock machine) – for a fabulous price. We were convinced that someone in heaven was paving the way for us to do good work! We bought 4 sewing machines that we delivered on the last day of our stay. Included with the sewing machines were two free irons, so we were set to furnish quite a wonderful sewing school! We bought a wide array of material and sewing supplies with which the women could practice. We also left Reverend Orma with some money in order to buy sturdy wooden tables and hire a sewing teacher to give lessons to the women of the Mother’s Union.	Above: I am testing out the new sewing machine while some of the women of the Mother’s Union watch. The woman in the green plaid shirt knows how to sew and has a machine at home. She plans on teaching the other women how to use the straight stitch machine. They will pay an expert to come and teach them how to use the more complex overlock machine. Below: One of the women, who was an expert at crocheting, with the project she was working on that day.
Reverend Orma and the people we met in Swaziland want us to convey their heartfelt thanks to the parishioners of St. Michael & All Angels Church for their financial support and the Turtle Rock Elementary School for their used clothing, and they pray for God to bless you even more richly than you have blessed them! I thank you for keeping us in your prayers and wishing us well on our journey. If you would like to make a donation to help Reverend Orma in her ministry with the orphans, you can send a check to St. Michael & All Angels Church, 3233 Pacific View Dr., Corona del Mar, CA 92625. In the memo, please specify “Revd Orma’s Swaziland Orphanages”. Sincerely, Tammy Smecker-Hane tsmecker@cox.net