Each child in an African mud hut moves with his or her own language across the clean dirt floor of a Gogo’s home. Indeed, I’ve watched little children manoeuvre to stop rags of clothes from falling off their bony frames. Children learn. Broken zips are joyfully clutched. A pair of old jeans are boisterously hooked up by a dirty fist clutching excess fabric so bare footed feet can dance in hope. Bony little fingers clasp falling necklines to maintain shirts in a state of modesty and cover skeletal frames which shriek with laughter.
These children’s losses are beyond calculation to me, yet so is their joy. That a child can delight in the hope and joy of a hand-carved truck from a grandfather in Camden across a dirt floor swept clean by a Gogo with a grass brush, is worth pondering.
When the proverbial dust settles from the coronavirus in South Africa, the landscape will be different. Many facets of life will be changed, and resourcefulness will be rebirthed. The one constant, praise God, will be our Gogos… and our commitment to her will stand.
For now, our Gogos wait patiently for our team to advise them of a clinic, a days’ walk away, where a vaccine may be obtained. With hope injected, she will shuffle down the mountain babies strapped to her aching back singing her familiar refrain, ‘thank you Jesus, amen’.
This end of financial year, will you consider donating to AAF? As a supporter of our work you are placing your own generous hand under the warm elbow of one of our Gogos and lifting her to her aching feet. On her feet, she will know best how to do the work of saving her own family. And in that, we rejoice.
Long live the warm hug and hope in our countless Gogos.
Warm regards,
Jane Gray.
