Garden Township and the amazing volunteers

Garden Township sits in Northeast Lusaka, self-built brick homes on government land, a few communal water taps, drainage ditches fed by nearby sewage works. I wanted a story on Zambians helping Zambians, and VSO showed me that today. Elsie is a young nurse with three children, a single parent, but she runs a clinic in Garden township. She started the clinic after her sister was diagnosed with AIDS and she realized that caring for her at home was far better than sending her to an overstretched hospital. Others were interested in caring for their relatives, so Elsie taught them basic nursing care. She started up the clinic and now trains volunteers to care for their neighbours.
Elsie takes no salary but gets support from her ex-husband. Her assistant Peter has a family with grown up children and worked with a German charity for 25 years. But when his son was diagnosed with AIDS he knew he had to do more. Peter coordinates who needs help with finding a good source of assistance. Like Elsie, he takes no salary, and is supported by his wife, who works in a lab.
What really impressed me about Elsie and Peter are their devotion – volunteers both of them and not a word about God. They are helping because they feel they must – they have to – they are called! So many reasons that sound too clichéd to describe the notion of not earning an income because you are helping your fellow man.
The west is full of images of poor Africans with their hands out. But Elsie and Peter are too busy helping people to have their hands out. Yes, they would like an income, but they would probably use it to buy a fridge to store medicines, or for tools to help the youth they’ve trained in carpentry. But their hands aren’t out, they are much too busy.
I’m realizing that the HIV story is not about sex and condoms – it’s about the human spirt’s ability to rise to meet a massive challenge. There are big international conferences that branch into continental, national, regional discussions where a huge amount of money is spent in hosting delegates who wring their hands in as they use terminology such as consortiums and stakeholders. But at the end of the day it is the work of people like Elsie and Peter that really affects people’s lives. The only time Peter grew angry was when he talked of big charities and their 4X4 vehicles.
Peter and Elsie were both originally motivated by HIV in their families, but their work hasn’t stopped there.
They now want to help the teenage orphans of AIDS. They don’t want to live in orphanages but, like teenagers around the world, without supervision they are at risk of falling into destructive habits. Elsie and Peter have a young woman staying at the centre. Inonge was 14 when her parents died of AIDS. She was sent to stay with an aunt, but her uncle raped her. When she told the aunt, she didn’t believe Inonge and sent the girl to other relatives. They treated her like a slave and, knowing food was an issue, Inonge ate as little as possible. Finally she ran away and was taken in by Elsie. She has been trained in tailoring and now makes clothes. She has earned enough to buy herself an electric sewing machine. The clothes she makes have beautifully cut swirls and are firmly African.
Peter takes me out for a tour of Garden township. We stop and visit Lomance, a widow with seven children and five orphans under her guardianship. Mrs Phiri sells what she grows in her dusty garden, takes in sewing and does whatever she can to feed the children in her care. But everyday Lomance visits five AIDS sufferers and feeds and bathes them.
“I nursed my husband when he died of TB and wanted to learn to give that care to others,” she said.
Next we visit Justina, a widow with two children. She lives in a one room home which she shares with her mother and eight orphans that were left with her after relatives died of AIDS. Justina takes in laundry from middle class Zambians, and she sells whatever she can grow from her garden. But like Lomance, Justina steps away from her difficult life and volunteers to care for three neighbors suffering from AIDS. She bathes, feeds and ensures they take their medicines.
I feel overwhelmed at the generosity of these people and fight back tears. But I also have to leave. I have an appointment at the UNFPA office to talk about maternal mortality.
Elsie walks me out to find a taxi. A few young men with cars offer to drive me for a fee, but I tell Elsie I would like to take an official taxi. We wait in the dusty heat as blue minibuses screech past. I promise Elsie she will hear from me again, and I feel her sense that she would like support from the outside world.