This year, we’re celebrating the 60th anniversary of the MSC Missions Office on the Western Road, Cork, and as part of our anniversary commemorations, we’re looking back on old issues of our newsletter, the MSC Message, on a walk together down Memory Lane.
Jomo’s Story
In the Summer 2013 edition of the MSC Message, we shared a letter from Jomo Kgapane Simango, who was being cared for at Tshwaranang Hospice, located close to Ivory Park in South Africa, following a HIV diagnosis. The care he received here allowed Jomo to reclaim his life, and go on to have a family and a successful job.
For sure I would have died!
I was 24 years old when I discovered I was HIV positive. One morning I was preparing for work, I felt dizzy, cold and very weak. When I got to the butchery my boss could see that I was not right and called an ambulance. They took me to the hospital and said I was dehydrated. They put drips in me and I felt better. The following week the same thing happened and I was back in hospital again. The doctor advised me to get tested for HIV.
I ignored his advice but weeks later the illness came back even worse, I could not take the pain and terrible diarrhea. This time I had the sense to go and get tested. The result came back positive and very shortly I started on the Anti Retro Viral tablets.
After some months I felt so good I forgot I was HIV positive and I stopped taking the tablets. It was not long before I was in hospital again. I was so weak I couldn’t even walk. I was there for almost a year but did not seem to be improving and the nurses seemed uncaring. So I discharged myself. I was foolish as I was in no condition to look after myself and I struggled with the simplest of tasks. I could not even get to a toilet even if I had one.
I had the help of a Home Based Care Giver coming to visit. She told me about Tshwaranang Hospice set up by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and how good they cared for people. I was frightened but I went. The hospice was like a five star hotel and the nurses treated me very well. They bath you in the morning and give you breakfast and all meals during the day. Over the months I learnt to eat properly, take my tablets and walked again.
I thank all the sisters at the hospice for giving me hope and changing my life. I am now blessed with a baby boy and he is negative. I am back at work again and proud of my life. I thank the hospice for giving me my life back. I will never forget the staff. Keep up the good work and save more lives.
With thanks
Jomo Kgapane Simango
Ebiany’s Story
Summer 2013 also shared Ebiany’s story, as a student in the school run by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
My name is Ebiany Yussayu. I am a 4th year student in Our lady of the Sacred Heart School in the barrio of Chino Julio, Maricaibo, Venezuela, where I live. I belong to the Wayiuu ethnic group.
For those of you who do not know our tribe, I will give a little information. The original habitat of the Wayiuus is the territory north of Maricaibo right up to the Columbian border.
My parents moved into Maricaibo some years ago and took up residence in barrio Chino Julio where we live today. Our house is a humble residence made of galvanised sheets and wooden poles. I live there with my parents, 5 brothers and sisters and my paternal grandparents. At home we speak Wayuneiki, our native tribal Indian language but with others Spanish is the language.
The presence of Our lady of the Sacred Heart School in our barrio has meant a lot to my family and me. If it was not there, we would have had to walk very long distances to school. The school gives a good education. We get secondary education with emphasis on technical subjects such as accountancy and computers.
After graduating from high school we will be able to get a job or if we wish we can go on studying in the University. A few friends of my family have already done this and have got on very well and are now able to provide for their families.
This opportunity gives families like mine hope for the future and for this we are very grateful to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart for providing this school. The school caters for 800 students now having recently opened 3 new classrooms for an additional 150 students and I know they hope to build more in the near future. Supplying learning materials to children makes a huge difference as it changes all of our lives.
Thank you.
Lorraine’s Story
Finally, Summer 2012 gave us Lorraine’s story, as a volunteer care worker at the MSC HIV/AIDS Response Programme in Nzhelele, South Africa.
I am a volunteer at the Drop-In Centre in Nzhelele, South Africa, working with Fr Andre Bohas MSC helping orphans and vulnerable children in the HIV Aids Response programme.
Our care-givers who visit families in the village come across orphans and inform us. We visit the families to see their needs. These children often live and are cared for by a grandmother, the real unsung heroes of the Community. If necessary, we provide them with food-parcels and help them apply for grants. But what happens when the children out there, living with a grandmother, or in a child headed family? Our church is looking after some of their needs. I volunteered to work at this mission according to what I have learned before.
The children age from 7 to 17 years. They have had no time to grieve and as a child they feel the pain but nobody cares. Later they act out of character. We sympathise with an adult, but not with a child. It hurts me. I lost my parents as an adult and found it difficult having no one to turn to. Children who lose parents keep everything to themselves as they afraid that life might become worse and they could be victimized.
Street children are vulnerable and some beg for money to buy bread, but often for something else like drugs. They are neglected and nobody wants them. They did not choose to be orphans. We talk with them and find out the true situation. If we don’t see them for two weeks we ask the care-givers about them. We have become a big family.
At the Drop-In Centre the children meet other children and it is there that they become friends for life. Most of these children do not know anything about Christmas or the Church. To me, it is my calling, my passion to care. It is mostly our Church who cares for them and we do not discriminate, there are no Catholics among them. It takes a village to raise a child.
I am happy to show love, compassion, to be the love of God in Africa, in every situation, where children are involved. What can a child do when he or she is left alone in the world?
Lorraine