Containing the problem: the Save the Children reception centre at the South Africa-Zimbabwe border

The 12-year-old girl seemed OK at first.  She was telling me how just half an hour earlier she had walked up to the Save the Children reception centre on the Zimbabwe-South Africa border near Mesina. How she’d come from Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe side and led her 9-year-old sister across a mile or so of ‘no-man’s land’ bush to reach South Africa.  She said she’d left behind her blind grandmother – her only carer it seemed, after her mother had died and her father had ‘run away’.  She said she had come because she and her sister were hungry.  She seemed barely aware of the risks she had taken, crossing a wild stretch of land where gangsters rob and rape the desperate people climbing through holes in the border fence in search of food, shelter, safety or a better life.

She smiled as we talked, as I told her how her name was similar to my own daughter’s, and as she explained how she wanted to return to her grandmother in a few days.  And then suddenly, mid-sentence, she stopped talking, stopped smiling, turned and walked away, returning to the middle of the small group of children who had made the same journey. Had some awful thought or memory flashed through her mind, something I could only imagine? Or had she simply decided she didn’t have to be the brave big sister anymore?  I let her go, knowing that at least for now, she was safe, in the care of my colleagues from Save the Children.

Ever-present shadow of Zimbawe

As on many occasions in the last day or two, I felt proud. Sad, and proud. A little earlier I’d met a seventeen-year-old boy, who said he was a cattle herder from further north in Zimbabwe.  He had come over the border because he couldn’t find work and had been told he would have a better chance here.  But he found there was no work this side of the border either, and he was planning to make the trip further into South Africa.  He had a relative in Johannesburg and wanted to head there. Little chance of cattle herding in South Africa’s biggest urban sprawl.  Such are dreams pursued, and dreams denied.

A boy tells me his story

Zimbabwe is the ever-present shadow over the rural town of Mesina, which, in other respects, looks like many other small African towns.  Someone told us that half the newborn babies in the local hospital are born to Zimbabwean mothers who come over when they are pregnant because of poor and expensive health care back home.  The education, health and child protection systems are under strain, which is why Save the Children is here too, working with the local authorities and other partners to try to stop children falling through the net.

Our staff here tell me the work never stops — they are called on their mobiles when unaccompanied children are spotted, and they rush to find the children before they are picked up by others who want to hurt, not help them.  The calls come day and night.  They’ve had a slight surge in the last few days because the school holidays have just started in Zimbabwe and children are on the move.  But it’s better than it was: a year or so back, there was a short period when hundreds of children were sleeping on the ground by the Save the Children office in Mesina.  Here, success is measured in disasters averted and crises overcome.

We also dropped in yesterday on a training session for medical professionals run by Save the Children as part of our EVERY ONE campaign. We walked in to hear the facilitator wrapping up the first session saying “So we can save many more children’s lives can’t we, and we can achieve the Millennium Development Goal in South Africa can’t we?”  “Yes,” they all replied firmly (and one of the group quietly added “with resources”).  They couldn’t have scripted it better for me if they tried.  It briefly crossed my mind that that is exactly what they did.  I said a few words to the group, pointing out that the success or failure of our campaign will be determined not by summits in London or Washington, or even in Pretoria, but by these dedicated professionals and their work face-to-face with the mums and children who need their knowledge and support.

Football is everywhere in South Africa

I arrived in South Africa on Tuesday after an overnight flight from London to Johannesburg and then a short hop on a 26-seater plane up to Polokwane. The plane was smaller than the airport transit bus that took us to it. I talked football on the way with other passengers. Football is everywhere here. You don’t have to say “Are you looking forward to the World Cup?” You just say “So, 2010?” and people smile and nod and strike up a conversation, about the stadiums, the English Premier League, the stars of Bafana Bafana and so on.  In fact football is part of the reason why I’m here too. At 4.30 this morning I left Mesina for a two hour drive to Polokwane, where I flew back to Johannesburg and am now heading on to Capetown. The football world is gathering there for tomorrow’s World Cup Draw, and I’m joining the team of the 1GOAL campaign, who are down there building on FIFA’s support for the campaign’s push to get millions more children into school for the first time — as a legacy of South Africa’s World Cup.

The airline magazine has a cookery section with a recipe for Beetroot and Honey-Glazed Springbok (which the woman next to me says is delicious).  On another page there’s a list of quotes from faith leaders and inspirational historical figures about peace and stuff.  There’s Plato, Mandela, Thomas Jefferson… wholesome stuff for an in-flight magazine, only slightly jolted by the inclusion of some words of wisdom from John Farnham (yes, the 1980′s big-haired Australian soft-rocker).  “We’re all someone’s daughter.  We’re all someone’s son.”  Not strictly true of course, if you’re being pedantic, but that hasn’t put off South African Airways from putting those words from “You’re The Voice” into their list of quotes to leave their passengers uplifted even after they landed.

And, in a way, it sort of works.

When I first saw this question I naively thought that, this being Save the Children with its global commitment to all children regardless of nationality or anything else, it was a non-question. Surely there could only be one answer. It was very chastening to discover that I was completely wrong.

I was invited to a meeting of volunteers and the discussion was dominated by the difficulties that two of them experienced collecting door to door in, as one of them put it, their predominantly white middle class neighbourhoods. Apparently they were frequently asked how much of the money collected is spent on British children and why it is so little. As one of them said, she was not being racist but it didn’t help that our promotional literature usually featured brown faces and never white ones. As she put it, she felt like part of a threatened minority in her own country.

I have no idea how widespread this view was in the meeting let alone Save the Children as a whole, since nobody, myself included, made any comment. I did however find it very disturbing and quite incompatible with Eglantine Jebb’s original vision. I have to say also that had this been my first contact with Save the Children it would probably have been my last.

I am taking a USAID proposal with me on the plane (7 hour wait in Nairobi so plenty of time to work!). We are trying to get funding for children and young people’s participation in peace-building in Zimbabwe – I can’t think of anything better to be spending my time on.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope to be blogging again! Anna x

This morning, Rachel (the Zimbabwe country director) and I went to a school in Harare to send aloft 35 Save the Children balloons with a class of 9-11 year olds.  The class have been working on children’s rights all term and each of them had written a personal message to read aloud as they launched their helium-filled balloon into the sky.  All of the messages were about a rights-respecting world of the future: ‘I hope that all children can be protected from harm’, ‘I wish that all children can be healthy and go to school’….. As it was an international school, many of the children gave their messages in other languages: Shona, Swahili, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Croatian….. Smaller children from the Early Childhood Development Centre next to the school watched the balloons float up into the clouds from their swings and climbing frames in the playground.  

It felt right to watch children launch their hopes and vision for children’s rights into the sunny, blue Zimbabwean sky on Save the Children’s birthday.

We the members of Getting there(GT), arrived quote early to meet with the children.before that morning,took for granted and stood on one staring at the children in their tarnished gear but they bore accessory.big friendly smiles.a ball rolled to our side was the ice breaker as one of us kicked it back to them and we in no time foung ourselves engagedin a game of ball.

Onias aged 14, was the first guy i spoke to from Zimbabwe. he didnt speak graet english or Venda(my home lunguage)so i was forced to put the little shona (his home lunguage) that i know in action. Onias ,stays at the refuges child protection(RCP). I asked if he want to go to school and his reply, i want to, they have been trying to find a place for me in the local schools but have so far not been successfull. When my friends from (RCP) go to school in their uniforms bought by Save the children, i cant help but envy them, while they are at school, im just brought hear at Save the childre. Am just waiting to be told that i can go to school. And when i asked if he ever wanted to go back home he just said that i dont want to go back since you guys have treated me as a human being but not as a canine by that time i was feeling sory for him giving him a shoulder to cry on.

thank you

This morning, I met a man looking for a job. “I am in big trouble,” he said. He rents a room for about $60 a month and his mother, wife and sister all live in the same space.  He makes less than a hundred dollars a month, so he has very little money left for food and other basics.  These are US dollars I know, because I see Zim dollars strewn about the roads like trash. “Look at my shoes!” He laughs, showing me his worn-out soles. ”I cannot even afford the bus!”

“Does Save the Children have a job for me?” he asked, as I turned into the office gate. I didn’t have an answer for him. He left his cv with us anyway. He wants to be an office boy.  I’ll never forget how cheerful he was, even though he was chatting to me about his biggest worries. In fact, I’d been feeling a bit low on my walk. I didn’t notice the beautiful pink blossoms on the corner of Oxford Road, which I usually stare at in wonder as I go by.  Then, he stepped alongside me, smiling, unwavering, and showing no signs of losing faith. I love that about the Zimbabwean people.

At Victoria Falls, where I went on holiday last weekend, we were being “hassled” by a bunch of  young men who wanted to sell us things. I bought a  carved Nyaminyami, a staff used to invoke the serpent-headed river god that lives in the Zambesi, from one of them.  All the other men wanted us to buy something after that. They were crowding around us, getting too close for comfort.

“Why do you get angry?” one of them asked, when we tried to ward them off. ”We are just asking you to share your business with everyone. We are all hungry, we all need the money.” I had to avert my eyes, to stare at my shoes, when I said, “Please, just leave us alone.” I’d looked into his eyes, and I knew he was right. He wasn’t sad, or pleading, or anything like that. He was simply telling the truth.

Drenched to the bone with the spray of the falls the next day, we  screamed, “Rise Nyaminyami! Rise Nyaminyami!” just for fun. One legend about this very powerful god of the Zambesi is that he broke the Kariba Dam, the first time it was built, because it separated him from his partner. The dam has been successfully rebuilt, and Nyaminyami has been silent ever since. Nyaminyami did not rise. Maybe he’s gone on honeymoon to the Indian Ocean, and has forsaken his people.

Or maybe, Nyaminyami knows that his people are strong, like the force of the nine million litres of water that thunder down the falls every second, and that they will rise up no matter what the odds. If you look into a proud Zimbabwean face, you will know exactly what I mean.

Makadini,  Zimbabwe? Tiripo, my friends, Tiripo!

I walked past a man digging the soil by the road-side, with rows of maize planted alongside him.

Later, I asked one of the Save the Children drivers about this: were people allowed to just cultivate any patch of ground in Harare?

An average sized family in Zimbabwe, he said, gets through one 20-25kg bag of mealie meal a month – this costs US$4, which many families do not have to spare.

A small patch of land, on the other hand, can grow enough maize to feed a family, with only US$1 to pay to grind the maize into mealie meal.

It is not allowed to cultivate land in the city, but many people have no choice other than to do this.

When the dam was being built on the Zambezi – an act that displaced many Tonga people from fertile areas around Lake Kariba, many of whom Save the Children now works to benefit – the story goes that the River God, Nyaminyami, broke down the dam, trying to reach his ‘lady friend’.

The dam was separating the River God from his woman and, totally incensed, he burst through the dam to the other side.

Later, we were told a story about King Luwanyaka of Zambia, whose son it is said travelled into Zimbabwe to the ‘Mountain of the Lozi’ and did not return.

Pining for his son, the King sent men to dig around the base of the mountain, cutting off the top cone to carry, with his son still on top, back to Zambia and to his side.

Unfortunately for them, once loose, the cone toppled, slid on top of them and they were all crushed to death, with the son still on the mountain and no return to the King.

The worm-snack was part of a traditional meal at the Boma Eatery in Victoria Falls. During the meal, I struck up conversation with a man who wanted to know more about what Save the Children had done in the area. He said that although he had heard much about Save the Children for many years, he had not met people who had benefited from our work.

This was one conversation with one person, but it raised the question of how we let people know about our impact and the difference we have made.

From writing weekly situation reports, I know for a fact that we have worked with many beneficiaries in his area.  Since January this year, we have benefited over 8,000 children as part of our educational support program in schools in Vic Falls.

Tonga is spoken in Binga, and in next door Zambia, across the lake, where the Tonga speaking people came from originally. It’s a minority language here in Zimbabwe, where more Shona and Ndebele are used. Because people in Binga are far away from the centre, and largely disenfranchised, we’ve been working with families there for a number of years.

I went to make a report of our emergency work – how far we’ve got, and what else we need to get done. It was warm in Binga, not cool like in Harare, and there’s some electricity, but no email. The cell phone service shuts down at night. My report was more than ten pages long in the end, with numbers and tables and recommendations. But there were many things that were not in it. Some of those things I will carry for life, I think.

I went into the main Save the Children warehouse in Binga. We were poking about in the stocks there, counting up things, putting them onto the computer, making lists, and checking and rechecking them. I was also taking some photos for the record. I saw what looked like plastic sheeting. “What’s this?” I asked. “Body bags” came the reply.

When someone dies of cholera the body needs to be disposed of in a plastic body bag, and no one is even allowed to shake hands at the funeral – that’s one of the many ways to ensure the disease doesn’t spread. We’ve been supplying the government here with the equipment they need to contain the epidemic and body bags were part of our assistance package.

I forced myself to think of Lloyd, 5, who I’d met only a day before. He’d been very sick with cholera in the summer, but he’d been saved. Kezia, a local health worker had been telling people in her village how to spot the signs and symptoms and that’s why his mother knew something was wrong. Lloyd’s father went running all the way to the clinic to get help when he saw his watery, whitish stools. I took a picture with Lloyd, I kept hearing his uncle’s words, “He is well! He is cured!” It made me feel much better.

In Lloyd’s village, there’d been a large gathering of people. They were sharing food and laughing and I was hanging about trying to make friends and take photos. Everything seemed wonderful. I was intrigued with the design of the chairs that some people were sitting on, and my colleague was chatting happily to someone. Later, she said, laughing, that the Prophet had been flirting with her.

The Prophet? I did a double take. The village gathering was in honour of this Prophet, I learnt. He is the Prophet because he knows how to cure people of all their troubles. He takes away cattle from peoples’ homes if they cannot pay him with money for doing this. He tells people, “You are sick because you are a witch.” Do people feel that they are being duped? Not at all. In fact, they revere the man. I realise that it’s a miracle that Lloyd was saved in that same village.

I also think that Kezia deserves a medal. She told me she ran up and down to the cholera clinic several times a day to get help for people with cholera – each trip took her a couple of hours. She isn’t even paid to do that.

I’ve got no right to complain that a third of the eight-hour road journey to Binga is an unpaved road, full of potholes!