News from the Thembalethu Orphanage

Vic and Lorraine Parsons, the founders of African Aids Angels, are currently in South Africa, working at Thembalethu Orphanage, one of the four projects supported by the Angels.

Here is a note from them:

We are taking a couple of days off from the children's shelter at Shelly Beach which is on the Indian Ocean so thought I should e-mail you. It has been very difficult getting to a place with internet here and the telephones have been out at Assisi for more than a week due to severe thunderstorms.

I wanted to tell a bit about the kids. We are being very well looked after here, and the kids are great. They run to us now with great excitement(when we arrive each morning.

One of them, Siyabonga, which means :We thank you, is HIV positive and had to be taken to hospital at 11 p.m. about two weeks ago. He was severely dehydrated but has returned in much better shape.

Two little girls who were afraid of our white faces have become close buddies now. One, Amahle, meaning Beautiful One, is about three. No one really knows her name and parents as she was abandoned on the street until someone turned her over to the Sisters for care.

A second one was Sanelisiwe, who is very thin, and probably HIV+. She cried about 75 p.c. of her waking hours and the first time we saw her smile was when we took her into the play area and blew bubbles with the kids. Now she giggles and plays with toys all the time, and really brightens up when we come near. The Sisters were very concerned about her because for a long time she refused to eat, but now she feed happily.

Another little girl is Nomussselelo, who is six. She just came to the shelter last week. Her father has died of AIDS and her mother is quite sick, and she came to the shelter with her own meds, and is HIV too. She is quite a talented artist for a girl her age and speaks English quite well.

When Lorraine asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said: "Happy."