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Victoria Hlatshwayo - unemployed and mother to 92 orphans
Thuli Nhlapo. 26 November 2003. Cape Argus. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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It's hardly imaginable that a middle-aged woman with no income can feed 92 orphans in rural Mpumalanga and still care for six of her own children. But without the hard work and support of her husband she wouldn't be able to do it.
"I'll always be grateful to God for giving me a husband like ubaba. He supports everything that I do. Not that he is rich but he knows what makes me happy," says Victoria Hlatshwayo.
Her husband, Charlie, is battling to cope as a self-employed entrepreneur who sells wood and sand in the area because his truck broke down a while ago. A small white van does the job that supports almost the entire village.
Hlatshwayo believes so ardently that she has something to be thankful for that in 2000 she named her home Siyabulela - Xhosa name for "we thank you". Home for them is a simple house in the Embonisweni tribal trust near White River.
Hlatshwayo is a restless woman. She knew we were coming but can't settle down to talk. It's as if she can't forget all the things that need to be done. Finally, I find a way to get her attention - talking about "her" children. She loves children - any child, for that matter, not only the orphans and sick.
"I think the kids are fine. Do they have a choice? They don't know anything better than what they have."
It still doesn't stop her pacing occasionally, fiddling with a cushion that needs no tidying. A little gentle probing and I discover why she is so edgy. She doesn't know where the food is coming from to feed the 92 orphans this day. rants from the department of social services and population development have been getting fewer since 2000 and now she receives grants for only three of the children. She's scathing in her comments. "What grants? Do you think educated people care about the uneducated like us?
"All this is unfair to children. I don't care about myself or the adults. We can survive. But what about the children?" Now she's sobbing loudly.
Finally Hlatshwayo takes comfort in a poster on the wall. "Ndazifundisa ukuba mandoneliseke kwindawo ondibeke kuyo." In translation it means: "I taught myself to be content in whatever situation you have put before me."
The words sum up the woman's life. She has six children of her own and a granddaughter.
Apart from worrying about the well-being of 92 orphans who rely on her for all their daily needs, she also has to assist elderly people who do not receive old-age grants. At present she is looking after three critically ill patients.
Death is an ever-present threat hanging over her "family" and in the past two weeks four of her patients have died. Her job does not end when a patient dies. In fact it complicates it because in many instances she has to raise money for the burial in the poverty-stricken village. But she refuses to dwell on death and its implications. Life is for getting on with her unpaid job as a community worker in and around the dusty and bumpy roads of Embonisweni, Phatfwa, Bhodlindlala, Kotapeni, Bilani and Backdoor.
When she can, she visits her patients with a plate of food or a painkiller - and if there is nothing material she can offer for the day, week or month, she prays for and with her patients.
Hlatshwayo says it would have been better had the area been allocated a social worker to help the community. "I don't want to say too much because after this interview you're going back to Jozi and I'll have to answer to educated people," she says. What Hlatshwayo finds hard to admit openly is that a social worker in the area, has not helped her with the registration of Siyabulela. And neither has she assisted with the processing of foster grants, child support grants and old age grants for those who qualify.
Instead the social worker approaches Hlatshwayo with new case loads - such as that of 12-year-old Bonginkosi Godi in April. The social worker asked Hlatshwayo to keep the boy at her home while, she said, she was going off to regularise the arrangement by getting the necessary foster papers. But still no foster papers, no grant.
It has been left to Hlatshwayo to buy the child clothes and food and educate him out of her husband's meagre earnings.
"I know the boy is here illegally, but what do I do? "I can't throw the child out of this home because it is also his now. I love him, so he will eat with us when we have (food) and starve when we don't," she says, tears welling up again.
On the stoep, 30-year-old Christine Ndlovu is drinking tea with bread. She was disabled in a car smash and she comes to Siyabulela for a meal. Then an elderly woman arrives. She is barefooted, there is an urgency about her. One of Hlatshwayo's patients is dying.
We followed her to Samson Malambe's shack. The frail man lost his partner last year. Now, coughing incessantly, he is given a bath and a glass of soft porridge. Malambe seems to gain a little strength.
And so the cycle of Hlatshwayo's life and of loving selflessly continues... day, by day, by day. |
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