households
Khadija Magardie Xolani Zungu (9) smiles shyly and unhesitatingly says, when asked what he wants to do when he grows up, that he wants to be a doctor. Like many boys his age, Xolani likes sweets, and playing with toy cars, and whispering behind the teacher’s back at school. But unlike his friends, he does not loiter around the school gate every afternoon – he has to rush home to help his cousin, Nomvula (16), look after younger brothers and sisters, ranging from four months to five years old. Despite his tender age, Xolani is “the man of the house”, and does everything a father would do for the younger children after both his parents died from Aids-related infections this year. Xolani’s family is just one of what social workers say are spiralling numbers of child-headed households in the Richard’s Bay area of KwaZulu-Natal as a result of HIV/Aids. Ntombi Ndlovu, of the Aids Task Team at the nearby Ngwelezane district hospital, says the rise in the number of households headed by children is a reflection of the toll the virus has taken on the province.
Aids counsellors and community health workers who do home visits say there are up to 350 such families within the hospital’s area of operation. Many of these children face the psychological burden of becoming breadwinners at a young age, coupled with the trauma of losing one or both parents to Aids. These children require counselling because they are forced through circumstances to grow up way before their time – a subject being tacked at the ongoing 13th International Aids Conference. And as delegates in Durban debate the clinical dimensions of the virus, and alternate between plenary sessions and dinner parties, life for the so-called “Aids orphans” in the rural districts of the province, the epicentre of the pandemic, is none the better. No food, no money, no medi-cation and, in many cases, no hope.
A lonely, unkempt mound of earth behind a family’s humble shack in the Ezikhaleni informal settlement outside Richard’s Bay, and a solitary latex glove hung out to dry on the washing line in front of the shack, are the starkest reminders of what the HIV/Aids pandemic has done to rural KwaZulu-Natal. Buried under the mound is Xolani’s mother, who died in March from an opportunistic tuberculosis infection that her HIV-racked body could not fight off. Xolani holds out a picture of a slim, jeans-clad laughing woman in a leopard-skin cap who is posing behind a group of smiling toddlers. Nonhlanhla died before her 25th birthday. His father is buried under a mound nearby. The family were too poor to afford burial in a cemetery, or even to erect the simplest of tombstones. The latex glove is used by Aids caregiver Sindi Xaba during her regular visits to check up on Xolani’s three-year-old sister, Lethiwe, who was born HIV- positive.
The little girl is very attached to Xolani, and refuses to go to anyone else’s arms when he is around – to the point of screaming when an adult attempts to pick her up. Xaba explains that Lethiwe’s condition fluctuates so much that she has to be regularly monitored. The lack of a proper diet exacerbates the child’s symptoms.
The entire household is maintained by a tiny stipend from Xolani’s aunt, who is herself HIV-positive. Nomvula, a shy girl who is reluctant to speak about the burden placed on her shoulders by the death of her relatives, is also the mother of a four-month-old infant, who she cares for while minding the other children.
A caregiver says the children’s relatives have refused to take them in, fearing that they will contract the virus from the baby. Nomvula was forced to leave school last year to stay at home full-time. “I really miss it when Xolani is at school, because he helps me so much,” she says. The boy fetches water from a nearby river, washes the family’s clothes and looks after Lethiwe, especially when she is sick. All the children know about Aids. “They say it kills people,” says one – but it is not clear that they realise that it is the same thing that killed their parents. Ndlovu says the social workers’ greatest fear is that the children’s aunt, and their sole supporter, may also soon die of Aids, leaving them destitute. “The biggest threat to them is poverty,” she says. At nearby Ovondlo, Aids counsellor Nancy Khuzwayo’s lounge is full of giggling, pigtailed girls, ranging from age four to 12. Queen Sibiya, four, dressed in a short dress with daisy print, has hurt her hand, and the first person she runs to for comfort is her older sister, Thembeka (12). The girls are spending their school holidays with Khuzwayo, but most of their days are spent in a humble, one-room shack in the nearby informal settlement. Both their parents died of Aids-related complications two years ago, and Thembeka is the new breadwinner. Unlike Xolani’s family, where money, albeit little, is still available, Thembeka and her sisters have nothing. They rely entirely on handouts from neighbours, who donate an occasional loaf of bread, or some potatoes. The girls’ day starts at 6am, when Thembeka wakes up to warm their bath water, baths, dresses and feeds them for school. A social worker says their situation is particularly sad because the neighbours all know they are girls living alone. “I heard a man say the other day he wanted her for his wife,” says Khuzwayo, pointing to Thembeka’s five-year-old sister. Despite their desperate circumstances, and the even bleaker-looking future, Aids orphans like Xolani and Thembeka behave like grown-ups, perhaps less out of choice than necessity. Social workers say they seldom cry or break down and handle the stress of their circumstances with an adult resilience. Despite the hardships they have had to endure, their childlike simplicity is still there. “The one thing I miss is playing a lot after school,” says Thembeka.