Two more days on the homestead with Young Heroes

A double orphan in the Young Heroes program....

...and her support system; her gogo (grandmother)...

...and her cousins

I did two more days of photography for Young Heroes this week. It's been a fascinating way to see much more of the real Swaziland than I otherwise would have seen. Swaziland is a tiny country - yesterday we literally drove across the country and back again. Homestead living conditions are often very harsh and primitive, but at the same time the settings can be incredibly beautiful.

A few stories from the homesteads:

Four children, the oldest 14, were orphaned when both of their parents died, most likely from AIDS. The grandparents, who live nearby, at first thought it best to take the children onto their own homestead, so they burned down all the huts at the orphan's homestead. Later they reconsidered, thinking that it would be good for the children to have their own homestead after the grandparents pass away. A house was built on the old homestead for the children to live in. The orphans now run their own homestead and spend most of their days with their grandparents. When we visited, one of the girls was helping her grandparents out by grinding the harvested maize into meal. The gogo was cracking open Marula nuts from their tree, from which she was collecting seeds in a bucket. Phephe later explained that when she fills up a 5-kilo bucket with these, she can sell them to an oil producing factory for 50 Emalangeni (about $7 US). After half a day of cracking nuts, she had about a quart of seeds in her bucket. The oil factory is owned by the Queen Mother.

Some of the kids we visited seemed relatively healthy and happy in spite of their circumstances. This was not the case for one homestead that we visited yesterday. The orphan, a teenage girl, would barely speak or look at us. She has AIDS and has been taking ARVs, but just recently started refusing to take them. She seemed to have given up on her life. Witnessing her emotional pain was the toughest thing we saw. The three of us - Phephe, Guligani (the Young Heroes program director) and I - were very quiet back in the car.

I tried to photograph the people and homesteads in a very straightforward way. I wanted to include both the harshness of the living conditions on the homestead and the sublime beauty of the environment. In taking portraits I wanted to give the homestead residents the best opportunity to present what they want to show to the camera. Being photographed is not an everyday occurrence for them, so candid portraits are not possible. In general both the children and the adults very much appreciate being photographed.

On the way back to Mbabane yesterday Phephe stopped on the road adjacent to the sugar plantations to buy a massive sugar cane for 2 Emalangeni (25 cents). Each of us broke off a section to suck juice from. We had Brendan's (an American working for Young Heroes) Bob Dylan CD on the stereo. Guligani, who directs a choir in his spare time, was not impressed with Dylan's vocal work. I was again reminded of how small Swaziland is when we passed Phephe's parents on the road through Manzini.

Young Heroes website

Mike