“gogo (plural: gogos)(South Africa) Grandmother; elderly woman.”
South Africans are bravely bracing for a third wave of the COVID -19 pandemic. South Africa has been the worst hit country on the African continent. These two sentences appear on the page in front of me with a few effortless strokes of the keys on my laptop, but the lived experience of these few words for millions of South Africans is incomprehensible for us. Our longing to embrace our African team is strong, imbued with the knowledge of the many unimmunised, immune-compromised souls shivering in the early snows of winter.
We are thankful for the few vaccines which have made it into the arms of people we know and love. Yet we are saddened that since February 2021, only 2 million people (out of a targeted 40 million people) have been vaccinated against COVID-19. This, in a country where the immunity of millions of people wanes under HIV/AIDS and lockdowns have interrupted the supply and compliance of ARV treatment. Stark medical facts reveal that, as at June 2021, new COVID-19 cases have decreased in every region of the world except Africa. Concomitant evidence shows that Africa also has the lowest share of COVID-19 vaccines in the world (less than 2% of available vaccines are in Africa).
Many friends in Australia have asked us why we continue amid such hopelessness. They murmur about scooping ocean water out of sinking boats with thimbles. I’m tempted to give mental assent to their rhetoric… until my heart overrides with my own African experience.
My memories are long and vivid, often centred around the soft pink palms of Gogo hands that I have held. Wrinkly finger pads chipped by the cold and abrasive action of scrubbing school shirts white with sunlight soap in chocolate river water. My heart quickens, reflecting on how these Gogos are the backbone of Africa (the grandfathers have not fared as well, I strain to recall the Zulu name for grandfather). The Gogo is often the sole adult survivor of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She knows the scent and shape of grief, but she refuses to linger on its familiarity as she gathers her grandchildren to her heaving bosom… the soft place where grandchildren the world over can safely land.
She sings hopes such as ‘thank you Jesus, amen’. She grows food in gardens provided by AAF to feed the hordes of hungry growing orphaned grandchildren. She sells extra food for firewood or clothes. The gift of her garden has granted her self-sufficiency and provided her an outlet to model hard work to her horde. Our team are labouring to teach young boys how to break their personal cycles of poverty by rejecting passivity, embracing responsibility, and expecting a reward. However, it’s the Gogos who provide the homes for these lessons to be taught. It’s our Gogos who give AAF fertile ground to plant seeds of hope.
As at June 2021, new COVID-19 cases have decreased in every region of the world except Africa
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.