Dear mums, aunts, grandmothers,

Our family is enlarging, we have finally overcome all bureaucratic and cultural difficulties.

At the moment we are fostering five children, while eight attend our Day-Care Centre.

The culture of this people does not contemplate fostering abandoned orphans, even if this should be taken into account, due to the growing number of needy children. The Government of Botswana gives subsidies and food to all those families who keep orphaned children. However, these poor children are actually deserted in most cases, no-one cares for them for days, risking that their families spend the subsidies for wrong purposes, like buying huge amounts of alcoholic drinks.

This is a very sad, problematic situation.

However, social workers are busy sensitizing the people to the subject and we can slowly see some results.

Cecilia Malebocho will be 6 months old on 26th December. She is growing well, she is beautiful, healthy, strong and quick-witted.

Paolo Johannes was two months premature and was brought to us in very poor condition: he is the child who has made me worry the most. His mother had got AIDS and was in a coma for over 4 months. Finally the doctors opted for a Caesarean section; unfortunately, his mother died during the operation and when he was born, Paolo Johannes weighed only 1.5 kg.

Now he is quite fine. He immediately underwent the antiretroviral treatment and the result says he is HIV negative. He was 3 months on 7th December and now he weighs 3.5 kg. I have grown very fond of this baby, who looks like a little Chinese because of his light skin colour and almond-shaped eyes – he is a Bushman. 6-year-old Gaone has lost her parents because of AIDS. As a baby, she underwent the antiretroviral treatment, which caused her to be HIV negative.

She is a sad, timid little girl. It seems to me that this pearl of a child has been deserted a long time ago. She is now finding her feet at the home, she needs a lot of love and affection.

Charlotte and Theresa are two little sisters: the former is 4 years old, the latter is 14 months old. They are both healthy, happy little girls. Theresa is very lively, she is a bit of a devil!

They have been abandoned by their alcoholic mother and we do not know anything about their father (or fathers). Since they are not registered as orphans, the Government does not help them financially; for this reason, their relatives do not care about them at all and do not want to be in touch with them any more.

Do not forget our Day-Care children.

Our little bus picks up some ten children aged 3-6 every morning from Monday to Friday; the meeting point is near D’kar. We provide them with meals, medical treatment and clothing. I have done this on my own initiative: if I always waited for permission by the country authorities, the situation would never change for the better!! I sent an application for a day-care centre and a pre-school and the authorities assured me I will be granted the licence by the end of February. Let’s see. For now I keep on looking after my sweet children, who otherwise would have no-one caring for them.

The Day-Care children are all difficult to deal with, in different ways. Three of them had scabies two weeks ago, and I had to cure them at their home in the village: I cannot risk that other kids get infected.

And the same happened yesterday because of conjunctivitis.

As you can see, things are slowly progressing. This project gives me great satisfaction, but also a lot of worries: not only do we have to look after children, but we also have to educate the staff. AIDS keeps on killing people. The chief physician of the hospital in Ghanzi has told me that probably over 50% of the population are HIV positive.

The climate is unbearable at this time of the year. Temperatures are sometimes over 90° F and humidity is very high. Moreover, in this period there are a lot of snakes: yesterday we killed a 2-meter-long cobra and I found a viper in my room a week ago.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your close support and I wish you a Happy New Year.

Love,

Cecilia