A candle for Mthobisi

Siteki, Swaziland
6/04/09
03:35 am

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep”. – Rumi

Its 3.35 am and I am keeping watch. I wish I meant that metaphorically. “The brave young doctor, keeping watch over his patients”.

But the far less glamorous and infinitely more pathetic truth is, I am keeping watch for bugs.

I had been resting quite contentedly within the warm arms of the African night, until my slumber was interrupted by the sight of giant black armoured insect walking across my floor. Three times the size of a cockroach, more sinister looking than a dung beetle, (although I am beginning to think it might be from that family of creatures. Perhaps an uncle twice removed or a brother recently escaped from prison.)

I jumped off my bed and mustered enough courage to ambush it in mid run (and I use the term ‘ambush’ generously), which succeeded only in causing it to pause for a moment before continuing to saunter straight underneath my bed.

It is upon that self-same bed which i am now preecariously perched as I write these words, poised at any instant for a quick and shameless get away.

As the sages would say “There are no accidents”. So I am taking this mysterious guests entry into my life as reason to take a few moments now to write to you.

It has not even been 24 hours since I returned to this town high in the mountains of Swaziland, and yet I am brimming over with excitement, heartache and a pervasive sense of urgency.

I am honoured once again to be working with a host of real life angels. Their passion, commitment and deep unvarnished humility are constant sources of refreshment and inspiration on this journey.

There is need everywhere.

In every cold corner of every hut.

My young friend, Mthobisi, an AIDS orphan who just a few years ago told me he wanted to be a doctor some day, has been having trouble paying his school fees.

Thankfully he has found a sponsor through the young heroes program www.youngheroes.org.sz and has had this year of school fees paid in full.

Mthobisi, lives in a little hut with his brother. After school they work in the fields to earn enough money for food and clothes and all the other basic necessities of life. Their parents died of AIDS.

His only time for study is deep in the night, by the light of a little candle.

Recently though, he has found that he has run out of money to buy candles.

Have you noticed that you only truly realise the power of a candle when the lights go out?

When the world is so black that you can’t make out your left foot from your right?

In that moment, the soft light that a candle brings, is as powerful and beautiful as an orange sun peeking its head over the sleeping mountain.

I start work today. I will go to the hospital and visit the children. Go out with homebased care team to visit the homesteads around these beautiful wild Lebombo mountains.

Here in Siteki, there are tears everywhere. But like my beautiful friend Susan once taught me, “ Why curse the darkness, when you’re holding a candle?”

Why indeed.

I will go to the shop today and buy a candle for Mthobisi.


From Siteki with love,

Maithri