How Much Love Does It Take to Matter?
The sun did not sympathize with the winter season. What should have been alive was dead, and the only green we saw was sewn into the fabric wraps women wore around their midsections as they carried their babies along the dirt road. Three of us walked in a dusty heat from the footbridge across a dry riverbed to Lindiwe’s homestead at the edge of the village.
Lavumisa is one of the most remote rural villages on the southeast side of Swaziland, a South African country unfortunately known for its gruesome AIDS statistics rather than its grandiose mountain landscapes, warm hearts or flawless starry nights. Swazis are forgotten people in a forgotten country, and the more removed someone is from the capital city of Mbabane, the more forgotten they become.
At a church service the night before, my missionary friends, Melissa and Jim, had learned about Lindiwe from a local nurse named Lisa. Lindiwe developed breast cancer two years ago, and as the country’s standard treatment offered, she had a mastectomy on her right side. There is no chemotherapy or radiation available in Swaziland. Nobody can afford it, and the hospitals don’t offer it.
Lindiwe is a traditional Swaziland mother who lives in a stick-and-stone mud hut with a thatch roof. Most of her family lives around her in similar structures, but only one was to be found inside her home when we arrived…..
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