Swaziland: Big Bend Care Point

As hot as I have ever felt.
Sun baked ground,
scrubby brush with thorns,
grass laced with thorns;
thorns enough to crown every head.

Children arrive from every direction
seemingly from nowhere to nowhere.

Eight poles and the last remaining
shreds of tarp form the only shade
around for miles.

Hands of children and mothers
clutch crayons and colour photocopied sheets;
Baby Jesus' hair in waxy shades of
blue, red and orange.

And Gogo feeds them all.
She chuckles when we come near,
so glad we've come to visit.
I tell her she does such wonderful work there.
Again she chuckles.
"Nothing special" she says.
"Nothing special."

Wisps of smoke come from
the shack of cinderblock and tin
as today's one meal cooks in iron pots;
pap and beans.
The older ones feed the younger.

A fortified orange drink
miraculously multiplied
until the last child drinks
the very last drops from the bucket.

A scrawny dog pants in the shade.



The first few days in Swaziland I couldn't journal at all. Simply couldn't find the words for what I was seeing and feeling. When words came, it was short phrases, details that stuck fast in my mind. In trying to process to write here, again, words fail. So I'm posting those journal entries. And I'm praying that God will do whatever translating is necessary...