What Are the Villages Like?
Villages in this area range from 2,000 to 5,000 people. They consist primarily of children under 20 and the elderly. The generation from 20 to 60 years old have died of AIDS.
Michelle explained that most of the children are from families who have lived in these villages for hundreds of years. These orphaned children are left to live in the homes (corrugated steel huts) their parents provided while they were still alive.
Running water is extremely rare. Most villages have a central water source that is visited regularly with wheelbarrows and buckets. Two-car families in the U.S. translate into two-wheelbarrow families in South Africa. Our “rubberized” roads and landscaped medians translate into weedy paths and winding dirt roads.
Similar to Native American lands, all the land within the villages belongs to and is governed by the village. Each village has a “head man” who makes decisions. One Helping Hands facility is on land “loaned” to them by the “head man” of the village.
150,000 people make up the broad community that Mike and Michelle live in - 600 are white. Michelle grinned as she warned us to be ready for lots of curiosity – even to the point of the children wanting to touch the hair on our arms (something the children aren’t used to seeing) and playing with, what is to them, the long hair on our heads.
