One of the Tzaneen diocese’€™s ‘€œstalwart’€ caregivers, Shirindzi started doing home-based care in tiny communities with arbitrary names such as Calais and Balloon, communities that existed mostly because of the promise of work on fruit farms.

Shirindzi clutches the white van’€™s steering wheel as it bounces along the potholed dirt road to villages not indicated on any maps.

‘€œMany people around here believe their illness is caused by their ancestors while others believe it’€™s witchcraft, so it’€™s very hard to get people to disclose,’€ says the tall, slender woman.

‘€œPeople are still dying here even though we can offer them ARVs. The problem is that by the time they start the process of coming to Holy Family (ARV site) it’€™s too late and they die.’€

Shirindzi is on the road every Thursday by 7am to collect patients from various villages and take them to the Holy Family Centre, one of the church’€™s treatment sites. During the rest of the week, she visits families, child-headed households and schools.

She shakes her head as the vehicle turns down the wide dirt road to Balloon, a sprawling rural community with almost no infrastructure. ‘€œThere is no clinic in this community, no taxis, nothing. People have to get a lift on the back of someone’€™s bakkie if they need to go somewhere.’€

‘€œThere are many, many orphans,’€ she continues. ‘€œThere is a worry though,’€ she adds. ‘€œSome families are now very eager to take the orphans as they know they can get a foster care grant. So we find that the children are with family, but they never benefit from the money. The family uses it for their own things,’€ says Shirindzi.

Tzaneen Diocese HIV/AIDS co-ordinator Sister Sally Duigan shares this concern: ‘€œThe grants make a huge difference. As soon as the families receive a grant they have a chance to be independent and self-motivated’€.

‘€œBut the grants sadly sometimes have a negative impact on children’€™s lives because relatives who don’€™t really care about them and simply keep them in their care for the money. This is happening quite a lot,’€ Duigan says.

Shirindzi says they usually report these families to the social workers who investigate the individual cases, but this can take some time.

Just before sunset, Shirindzi pulls into a neat yard in Lenyenye. Several children run up to greet the car as the stocky figure of Pretty Phokula appears around the corner of the house.

Shirindzi is supporting Phokula who cares for eight orphans ‘€“ some of them children of relatives and others from deceased neighbours. The family lives off Pretty, her husband Samuel’€™s pensions and three foster grants.

Phokula sees nothing extraordinary in caring for so many children: ‘€œI took them because they had no-one, they had no-one to look after them,’€ she says simply. ‘€“ Health-e News Service.