I didn’t want to fall in love with Africa, but it’s impossible not to. Now, I can’t say with certainty that I belong in Asia. The only things I knew of Africa prior to a week ago were what I had seen on the Discovery channel or in movies. Things like deserts and tumble weeds, African women with huge rings in their lips and ears, and of course the children orphaned by AIDS. Obviously, I knew these things weren’t prevalent everywhere, but this was my limited knowledge.
We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa late Thursday night, so there was little to see. All twenty-six of us crammed into a mini bus with Tyler Black (Gary’s son) and the driver. What a sight to behold. We were so jam-packed in there that you couldn’t move without it affecting at least three other people near you. Minutes into the trip we were all asleep, though.
Friday morning I woke to a spectacular view—rolling, green hills everywhere, sunflowers, gerbera daisies, and various other flowers speckled the yard, and huge rocks mixed into it all. Not to mention the temperature being much more to my liking, a relief since I was suffering through my second cold this month. Around 9:30 we all piled back into the bus to head to Swaziland.
Though my body was exhausted, I couldn’t help but stare out the window as we drove. The landscape is breathtaking, and I kept thinking how God made this for us. He took such delight in us that he created scenery simply for us to enjoy.
Things were a bit different entering Swaziland, though. When we approached the immigration booth I noticed something odd on the counter. It appeared to be a tissue box, but when I studied it longer, I realized it was a box containing condoms. In addition, every third or fourth billboard I saw mentioned something about AIDS, condoms, or humanitarian organizations like World Vision. Every day I see people wearing t-shirts with different HIV slogans on them (ie: I know my HIV status. Do you?). AIDS is a tremendous problem here. I knew we would be faced with this head on these next few months, but I was somewhat taken aback by all of the public attention to it. I assumed that we would be hearing about it from people directly and personally, not like this. If nothing is done about the AIDS problem in Swaziland, the country will literally die off by 2050. According to our hosts here, the population last year was 1.1 million—the latest figures show the population dropped to 900,000. How can we help empower the Swazi people to change these statistics?
