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Note #8731 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05143
May 9, 2005

Wheelbarrow Samaritans

A missionary letter from a land where death is everyone's neighbor

by Ken Jones 
and Susanne Carter,
PC(USA) mission co-workers
		   
PEFFERVILLE, South Africa - The Samaritan Care Centre here is not part of the
Joining Hands Against Hunger network (a program of the Presbyterian Hunger
Program), but it has nonetheless become an important personal involvement for
the two of us. 

	Initiated and maintained entirely by volunteers from nearby churches,
the Centre provides free hospice care for terminally ill patients, most of
them suffering from AIDS. We find that the Biblical name makes it almost
impossible for us to simply "pass by on the other side of the road."
	    
	So, when the nursing sister in charge, Sister Rosemary, phoned to ask
for help in transporting a very sick woman from a shack in Duncan Village to
the last open bed at the Centre, we agreed to bring our car and help.	     
	   
	     
	When we arrived at the Centre, Rosemary and a volunteer, Tesha, were
waiting with sheets of plastic to cover the back seat and blankets to cover
the passenger. Rosemary mentioned that there was only one pair of latex
gloves, which could be a problem. 

	We wound our way through the narrow alleys of the township,
repeatedly asking directions to number 765. In shantytowns like this one, the
streets have no signs and the dwellings have no number markings. Once we
found the shack, Rose and Tesha went inside. I (Jones) waited in the car. 
		   
	The alley was alive with activity: a scrawny cat leaping to catch
insects in the air; chickens pecking away at the barren ground; dogs barking
and drinking from puddles in the road; and people of all ages walking to and
fro along paths between the shacks. 

	Women lugged water in huge buckets on their heads. Children played
with sticks and stones. I was a bit self-conscious as the only umlungu (white
person) in sight, but a continuous parade of friendly greetings put me at
ease.
	    
	There were no visible electricity lines, and the pervasive smell was
proof that there was no functioning sanitation system. As the stench got to
me, I became increasingly angry that so many human beings have no choice but
to live - and die - in conditions like these. 
		   
	Soon, someone arrived and parked a battered wheelbarrow near the door
of number 765. A woman from the house next door came over with several
plastic bags in her hands.
	    
	After half an hour or so, Rose, Tesha, and several neighbors emerged
from the shack with the patient in the wheelbarrow. Nontombi, age 42, was too
weak to walk and too heavy to be carried. 

	More neighbors	gathered, all outfitted with plastic bags for gloves.
There was a great deal of conversation in Xhosa, which I could not follow. It
soon became evident that moving this very large and barely conscious woman
from the wheelbarrow into the back seat of the car would not be possible.    
	 
		   
	"We need something like an ambulance," I said to myself, and then
remembered where we were. We weren't in some middle-class community, in
Africa or in America, with access to emergency services, or medical
insurance, or anti-retroviral drugs. All this AIDS-stricken lady had were
some caring neighbors. 
	    
	After further animated discussion in Xhosa, someone brought a pillow
to cushion Nontombi's head, and the plastic-bag-protected brigade took off
down the alley with her in the wheelbarrow. 

	Rosemary got into the car, saying, "Let's go." I asked what was
happening. She said the neighbors would get Nontombi to the Centre somehow,
and told me to drive there.		       
	     
	As we arrived, Rosemary spotted the owner of a funeral parlor that
had recently opened next door to the Samaritan Centre. Switching to
Afrikaans, the mother tongue of this colored man, she asked if he would allow
his hearse to be used to move a sick person. 

	Yes, he said, he would - but he said he knew from experience that the
people of the township would accuse him of prematurely soliciting business.
This misunderstanding would be compounded by the differences between colored
and Xhosa cultures. 

	He did, however, promise to give the Centre several boxes of plastic
gloves for future use. Rosemary said it was good to have him as a neighbor. 
		   
	She then asked me to drive her into town to buy some supplies needed
for the new patient's care. By the time we got back to the Samaritan Centre,
Nontombi had arrived. The empty wheelbarrow rested just outside its door.
	    
	The parable of the Good Samaritan is about one person who decides to
show mercy for a battered traveler. One might say that a more comprehensive
concern for neighbors would include working toward safer conditions on the
Jericho road. 

	It is  good that Nontombi can be attended to by compassionate
caregivers, not left to die alone in a dismal shack. But the appalling
conditions in which her neighbors live have not changed.
	    
	Sister Rosemary called again Thursday night and said Nontombi had
died, of meningitis. She was one of more than 600 people in South Africa who
died that day (as every day) of AIDS-related causes - most of them women. 
	    
	The vision of the Joining Hands Against Hunger program is to
transform systems and structures of oppression. It is rooted in our Biblical
faith, which requires both justice and mercy. And it is continuously
challenged by the familiar question, "And just who is my neighbor?"
	    
	Information about and letters from Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
missionaries in South Africa and around the world are available on the Web
site, www.pcusa.org/missionconnections

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