i’m going to miss beautiful moments like these.
i am sick and need to get out of the bed i’ve been in all day. i walk along the red rocks and turn a corner to find a little boy in a sea of many others that look like him. he comes up to me and reaches up his tiny hands to be held. i scoop him up and he never lets go.
he clings to me like i’m his safe haven, his mother, his home. each time i look down, he has the biggest grin on his face i think i’ve ever seen, and it never tires. his bare feet wrap around me tight like a belt. though the weight of him starts to make my arms ache, i cannot fathom putting him down. i sit on a tire painted red at the playground and his grip doesn’t loosen, nor does his smile fade. an older boy closer to my age comes by and starts speaking to me in Saswati. we stumble through the rest of the conversation in broken English. all the while my little boy rests his head against me, wide-eyed and smiling from ear to ear. all of this is happening as the sun bleeds orange and deep red into the sky. i rub his back the way a mama would and hold him tight as if i were his sister. the wind sweeps my hair and does nothing to the tiny islands that sprout from his head. he has on a dirty teal shirt, dusted with chalky earth and what looks like snow pants with thick elastic suspenders. i try to put his suspenders on his shoulders but he smiles at me while he takes them off and lets them hang loose alongside his legs. no socks, no shoes, like most of the children here who walk upon their native rocky ground the way we walk on carpet. i ask him simple questions in English and tried some in Saswati. he never spoke. he just smiled at me with a toothy grin. i don’t know his name or his story and probably never will.
most of this kids that hang out here are orphans. most of them eat one meal a day here at the care point we stay at run by Adventures in Missions. 60% of people here in Swaziland are victims of HIV. mothers cannot afford to have kids so they often abandon them, leaving them to be raised by siblings and grandmothers.
i don’t know if he’ll remember me next week or next year. new batches of missionaries come through here all of the time. i don’t know if he’ll grow up with the loving affection he deserves or if he will ever make it past the age of 45. i don’t know when he’ll get a pair of shoes to wear or clothes that aren’t broken. but for small moments like these, it feels like i am his whole world and he is mine. moments like these, i could never compare any other trip to. moments like these make me question why i ever have times on the race that i want to go home—when I could be deep in the valley of the most beautiful sunset i’ve ever seen, loving a little boy i’ve never met and having him melt my heart, hoping that he feels loved the way that he is loved.
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Swaziland Photo Diary Part 1
the following images were taken one typical dusk with some kids at the care point we stay at while the trash pile was burning. part 2 to come soon!
