Sister Abegail Ntleko - Empty Hands, a Memoir: One Womans Journey to Save Children Orphaned by AIDS in South Africa

I always loved the smell of fresh cow dung. Some families preferred mud, but we always used dung. To keep the floor of our hut tidy, we would rub in a new layer of manure every week. Id sit on my knees and spread the dung in wide circling movements and then press and rub it in until the floor became all smooth and shiny. There wouldnt be a speck of dust on it! To this day, I love that rich, earthy smell.

Our rondavel, or hut, consisted of just one round room made from mud blocks with a thatched roof. It needed constant maintenance. When a mud block would split, we had to smear in fresh mud to patch it up. When the roof started leaking, we would gather green twigs and then have somebody bend them into form and weave them onto the thatch where the hole was. All the families had to do that.

We didnt need much furniture. All we had were a couple of tree stumps for chairs, which my dad would cut according to the childrens varying heights, and a pillar post with cracks, where we would stick our spoons and knives. That was very practical because the knives could be stuck in high enough so that the smallest children couldnt reach them. In the center of the hut was the fireplace with a large cooking pot over it. Rondavels typically didnt have windows, and since the fire was going much of the time, it was always pretty smoky.

We lived outside a place called Harding in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, just about fifty miles from the coast. Today, Harding is a small town with a number of shops and even a golf course, but back then it was pretty rural. My mother gave birth to thirteen children. I was the twelfth. The baby who came after me died as an infant, so I was the youngest in the family.

My mothers name always makes me smile: Mancini, which means small girl. When I think of Mancini, my heart opens wide.

Shortly after giving birth to her last child, my mother died. Of course, all of us children had been born at home. I dont know if there even was a hospital, but if there was, people were too scared to go. The bleeding from that last delivery never really stopped, I was told, and my mother eventually died from anemia. I was three and a half years old.

I dont recall her face, but I am very lucky to have a photo I can remember her by. It shows a tremendously kind face with large dark eyes. It is also fortunate that she had a twin brother who looked just like her, so I could always see a bit of her in him. She was from the same area I grew up in and was one of nine children. My relatives spoke of her with great fondness. Though she wasnt educated, it seems she was a kind person, quiet and loving, ready to help wherever and whenever she could. She not only took care of her own children but also looked after other peoples, just to help out. And she worked very hard to support our family. Besides running the household, she baked and sewed and did other handwork for ladies who were getting married, and she also did the washing and ironing for a nearby farm. It couldnt have been easy for poor Mancini. She had married young, probably at age sixteen or seventeen, and by the time she passed in her early forties, seven of her children had already died. But the people she left behind remembered a woman who was dearly loved.