A difficult Christmas season for Bosom Buddies

Thuli, Frances, Zoleka and Liezl in December

The Thembalitsha Foundation is about people. We are about hope and love, about relationships and understanding, about giving but also receiving. At Bosom Buddies we are like a small family, a group of sisters working towards the same goal – to save lives, to teach mothers and to encourage our volunteers to reach out to those women they meet at the hospital.

Our breastfeeding peer counsellors, Zoleka and Liezl, are highly trained and have between them 15 years’ experience in breastfeeding education. I am a qualified trainer in lactation management and educate people who work with pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.

It is no surprise that we have grown very fond of each other in the time we've worked together. Zoleka and Liezl form an integral part of my vision and my dream of reaching all women who don’t have access to antenatal education and breastfeeding support. They are our hands and feet, at the clinics daily doing their thing in teaching and encouraging moms.

In December, we did an interview with Zoleka for this blog, whom I admire tremendously. We read there how Zoleka has had a very difficult childhood and was an orphan from age 15. How lonely and abandoned she felt at times. I felt proud of Zoleka for being so open and honest during the interview process and knew our supporters would be happy for her having a happy and fulfilled life – married with three children of her own, no longer lonely or abandoned. A life filled with family and her job her passion – to teach mothers (especially HIV positive mothers) on how to safely care for their babies.

Imagine my despair when I received a phone call in the evening of Friday 13 December that Zoleka’s family – her husband, three children, sister-in-law with her baby – were in a car accident on their way to Mozambique. That her whole family is gone in an instant, that overnight she is again all alone. Together with Zoleka we started a grieving process that is inconceivably painful, unbelievably sorrowful, agonizingly, excruciatingly long and sore. We have wept with her, not knowing how to console, what to do. We have attempted to help with the practicalities such as DNA testing, dealing with forensics and police. We have attended the memorial service at the school for Zoleka’s daughter and held little heartbroken girls. We ask many questions that will never have answers. This woman who has already suffered too much in her life. This woman who sacrifices daily in order to serve other mothers.

This week of 11 February Zoleka starts work again. She is determined to move on, to start again with an inner strength and faith that is to me, at least, almost astonishing.