Home Visits

On the twenty-sixth, I went with Lorren and a local community leader named Priscilla Moyo, to the Jambezi area for home visits of child carers.  E. Africa has an extensive child carers program for assistance to children (under the age of 18) who are responsible for the care of their chronically ill parents or grandparents.  Unfortunately, this is an extremely common situation in Zimbabwe, with most of these children taking care of their chronically ill grandparents.  Most of these grandparents became infected with HIV while caring for their ill children, the parents of the now-child carers, most of whom have already passed away from HIV leaving the ill grandparents and possibly ill children behind. 

The visits we conducted on this day focused on child carers who are also chronically ill themselves.  The first household we visited was that of Happiness Nyoni, a ten-year-old girl who is in charge of the entire property, and the care of her chronically ill and blind grandmother.  Originally, Happiness was trained in home-based care (HBC) to take care of her mother, but her mother has since passed away.  The BEAM program (basic education assistance money) pays for Happiness’ school fees, but she is not given any other assistance in running the household or with other fees. Since Happiness was at school when we visited, we got as much information as we could from her grandmother.

Happiness' grandmother, Lorren, and Priscilla (top)

The next household we visited was that of Precious Ncube, 15, who lives with her grandparents, taking care of her chronically ill grandfather.  She is currently not in school due to inability to pay the fees, but she attended through grade seven.  Precious was also the recipient of goats and chickens through the E. Africa small livestock program for child carers, and these animals seem to be doing well.  This family is currently having problems with their garden, due to lack of a steady water supply (a typical problem, none of these houses have electricity or running water).  The goals for Precious are to work on the garden, and to find some way to raise money to send her back to school for next year. 

Precious and her grandfather

The whole family, Lorren, and Priscilla

The last visit we were able to complete today was to the house of Nothando Ngwenya, 14, who is currently taking care of her chronically ill grandmother.  The grandmother was recently in the hospital for quite a long time for complications from HIV and problems with blood flow to her hands and feet, but she is now at home again.  The other three children and families we tried to visit were not at their houses, the sad reality being they were probably at the clinic for treatment.  We were unable to complete the last visit of the day due to the first huge rainstorm in the rural areas.  The roads went from perfectly dry to Indiana-Jones-quality raging rainstorm flooded in about fifteen minutes.  It was terrifying to drive in, but quite a blessing that the rains are finally here!