The Deep End

The kids only get to go on outings outside the orphanage if there are enough adults around to take them. In December, Corine took a small group to look at all the Christmas lights and decorations. They got so excited, they were cheering at every traffic light because they thought they were seasonal, too. As Corine put it, they don't get out much.

So we took Cluster One to a very nice public swimming pool in a nearby suburb. You know times have changed when suburban parents allow their kids to swim in a pool with 20 AIDS orphans. The pool probably knows Sparrow, and the families may or may not have recognized the van. Regardless, the kids did look like ragamuffin orphans, wearing ill-fitting “bathing costumes”, or t-shirts because they don’t own a suit. Many appear ill and almost all are underweight. And none of them could really swim.

We accompanied Caroline, a volunteer who is allergic to chlorine, and Mama Gogo, head of the cluster, who does not swim. Once we got everyone changed and were perched on the edge of the pool ready to plunge in, Gogo told us the youngest had never been swimming before. Then we asked how many others had never been swimming before, and one by one about half the group raised their hands. Some were dying of excitement to get in, while others seemed scared to death. There was a kiddie pool but the smallest ones refused to swim there, because they wanted to stay with the other children, petrified and panicked as they were. One girl, Phindile, visibly trembled with fear and clung to the wall even while obstinately refusing to get out of the pool. But by the end of the day, we got everyone in the water, everyone having fun, and everyone at least making the motions of a flutter kick.


The children's wiry delicate frames get so cold so quickly, and it was a breezy afternoon. They started shivering right away and after just 10 or 15 minutes they were climbing out one by one to lay out on the sunbaked concrete deck. They looked like turtles to me, all lined up under towels for shells, scrawny and vulnerable. When taking individual children for a "swimming lesson" across the width of the pool, you could feel the shivering of their bony bodies and the palpitations of their racing hearts -- probably equal parts cold, excitement, fear, chronic lung disease, and deconditioning.