89 years old, emaciated, bent over with arthritis, barefoot, clinging to 7 year old orphaned (and with AIDS) grand-daughters hand, she walked 21+ kilometers to the orphanage as she had nothing to eat and had heard that we would help her. She had tears in her eyes when I gave her 10kg mealie meal that I had just purchased in Marange a few minutes before, plus some beans and Mahewu. It took her more than 7 hours to reach the orphanage. I’m sure the little girl was very exhausted as well.
Arriving at the orphanage I discovered another child– an orphan, just last week her 16 year old brother that wanted to support them both had gone to the diamond field at Chiadzwa. He was shot and killed there, so this beautiful little 12 year old girl has no one! We’ve also acquired another child that ran away from the other orphanage in our area because they weren’t giving enough food, (which we verified with an older child there) and another brother and sister Juliet and Jon, who are orphans and mistreated, ignored, locked out and starved by their step-sister.
One of our workers was shaking with weakness, and confessed that he had had no food for 4 days. I brought him in and gave him a bowl of cereal, and Liz made him a large sandwich and gave him 2 carrots, and we sent grateful Joshua back to work with a package of Mahewu that he could add to water to have extra strength!
We went by his home to find out the bag of potatoes we had taken there Sunday was taken by his wife to camp-meeting and no food left for the children. Their mother had left early this a.m. and there was no food at all in the house. The lady next door, my age, and limps as a result of a stroke, looks like she has lost 50# and admits there have been days with no food. We gave her some beans, maize, sweet potatoes and Mahewu and asked her to feed the neighbor children when their mother is so neglectful.
This story could be repeated several times with slight variations, but there is stark hunger out there. People are getting very thin. I just got our now village health workers first 32 reports, and almost without exception they state “NO FOOD AT ALL”! It is depressing reading. The two quadrillion I spent for food yesterday is not going to last long! I’ll be buying more tomorrow. Two emergency trips in the night, the last one at 4:00 a.m. this morning and then the regular Wednesday trip with 9 HIV/AIDS patients.
More later when I’m not quite so tired!
Love,
Paula
To donate, go to www.active.com/donate/zimbabweappeal for the Agathos Foundation Emergency Fund Drive for medical supplies, food and farming supplies for Paula’s ministry.
