“Maybe the one thing, if you could come and see me for a day, would be in only six months, how accepted I am in the community. I talk to people in a different language, acting like a doctor. I know a world’s more knowledge about HIV than I ever knew. “The responsibility, the power we have as volunteers on the ground. That’s the most surprising thing.”
From his 150-square-foot, tin-roof hut in the mountains of Swaziland, Adam Kohlrus reflects on what has surprised him most, among many surprises, in the six months he’s worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa
Paul Povse Column
SHG graduate part of Peace Corps in Africa
Published Sunday, December 03, 2006
From his 150-square-foot, tin-roof hut in the mountains of Swaziland, Adam Kohlrus reflects on what has surprised him most, among many surprises, in the six months he’s worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.
“Maybe the one thing, if you could come and see me for a day, would be in only six months, how accepted I am in the community. I talk to people in a different language, acting like a doctor. I know a world’s more knowledge about HIV than I ever knew.
“The responsibility, the power we have as volunteers on the ground. That’s the most surprising thing.”
Kohlrus, 22, is the oldest of two sons of Chris and Betsy Kohlrus of Springfield. Corey is a junior at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Adam is a 2002 graduate of Sacred Heart-Griffin High School and Springfield College in Illinois. He signed up for the Peace Corps straight from Loyola University, from which he earned a psychology degree.
Today, he’s an HIV/AIDS prevention instructor in the tiny, southern African country where he’ll do volunteer work until August 2008.
On a typical day, Adam spends several hours at a clinic counseling women on how to avoid contracting the HIV virus and, if they already have tested positive, how to avoid passing it on to their children.
“First we encourage them just to know their status. There are a lot of mothers who will refuse to test.” After that, “the most important preventive thing (for a young mother to minimize transferring the virus) is breast feeding.”
Communication and trust between mother and volunteer is paramount and often elusive. “My siSwati is not that good. But English is the second language. It’s taught in schools and in businesses.”
One reason for the inherent gap between Swazi and volunteer is basic and cosmetic. Kohlrus is white, the only Caucasian for miles around. The Swazis “are suspicious of whites. They come from a background where they really trust the traditional healers. They believe it (dying young) is God’s will. ‘If I am going to die, so be it.’
“There are times things are great. We have conversation, and I feel like I am really making a difference. Other times, it’s really disheartening. There are so many cultural areas you don’t even consider until you get here.”
Many factors contribute to an AIDS epidemic that limits life expectancy to the mid-30s for much of the Swazi population.
“A lot of these women do not have much of a say in a relationship. There are girls I’ve talked to about testing for HIV, but won’t do it. They think, ‘If I tell my husband about the test and it’s positive, then he knows.’ The biggest thing is the stigma, the denial, the ignorance and complacency.”
Most of the women Adam counsels are in their late teens to early 20s. “But there were two (pregnant) girls at the primary school who had to quit” - a sixth-grader and a seventh-grader.
“Safe sex has not really been practiced here whatsoever. A lot of Swazis consider themselves strict Christians and have been told using condoms is not something that should be done. They are told that at church and elsewhere.”
There are 3,000 traditional healers, or “sangomas,” in Swaziland, in contrast to fewer than 200 medical doctors. Meanwhile, the number of orphans and “vulnerable children” has reached 145,000.
After a day at the clinic or a school, Kohlrus returns to his hut on a homestead in a remote area halfway between Manzini and the capital, Mbabane. There, he can call home on his cell phone, use his computer, listen to his iPod or lift weights. He charges his devices using a car battery and solar panel. Or he’ll read the many medical books he’s been given. By candlelight.
“We do not have electricity. We recently got a tap for running water, which is nice.” Obtaining water previously required three daily hikes to a river.
Adam lives next door to his Swazi “family.” He is particularly close to the grandmother, known as “my go go,” and his “sister” or “sisi.” She is 30 years old and has a 13-year-old son. The boy’s father, Kohlrus fears, may have died of AIDS.
Life is not altogether bleak. Kohlrus’ soccer prowess - he starred in the backfield at SHG and SCI - has helped endear him to the locals. A tournament in September - 12 games involving seven church teams and nearly 300 players - was “a great way to get in touch with a group of boys.”
“I was really nervous. Girls were cheering my name. It was a blast. So many people wanted to see if a white guy could score a goal. But I wanted to play defense.”
Swaziland nature and topography are a mixed blessing. “The mountains and sunsets are really cool, like Colorado, without the snow.”
But then there’s the wildlife. He recently picked off one of the bats that tend to fly at his head. “The centipedes, those are gross. And I have run across a couple of spinning cobra.”
Not to mention the presence of the dangerous black mamba. “You don’t want to go outside at night,” he said, “and if you do you make a lot of noise.”
There are approximately 40 Peace Corps volunteers in Swaziland. The nearest is Californian Kate Andersen, about half an hour away. Sooner or later, nearly everyone wants to bail out.
“No matter how you think you’re doing, everybody reaches that point. A lot of times it’s (the breaking point) the kids, kids with huge goiters, boils, 4-year-olds totally wrapped in bandages. Some of the worst is the stuff that happens to kids on every level.
“But you can call somebody, meet them in town, and you talk it out. The staff has told us you can’t sit here and bottle it up.”
Is there a message Adam Kohlrus would like to send to the rest of the world?
“There is no nice answer I can wrap up. The answer isn’t money. People think if you pump money into the government, you can bring change.
“It’s the human capacity, the need for doctors, nurses, people on the ground to show that they care about somebody, not just a white person running through here throwing money at them and leaving.
“The best-case scenario is, get more people to come to countries like this.”
In a letter he wrote to his parents and another journalist in July, Adam closed with “Ungalahli litsemba” (don’t lose hope).” Friday, he pointed out, was International AIDS Awareness Day.
“We’ll go on a walk,” he told his father. “They’ll take us to a school, and we’ll walk all day.”
Paul Povse can be reached at
788-1531 or paul.povse@sj-r.com.
