Swaziland. Rwanda. Pakistan. And elsewhere.

When Hoopoes Go To Heaven. A light-hearted, easy read, picked almost at random from the library display?  But no. Hidden in the story of a boy, beginning to grow up, but still seeing with the limited range and depth of background of a child, this is a story about Swaziland, country with horribly high rates of HIV/AIDS. That term is never used. What the author, Gaile Parkin,  enables  us to experience through  Benedict’s eyes is a beautiful, lush landscape, home to many fascinating birds and animals, which entrance him. We also experience a large family of children, and realize he and his siblings  are with their second Baba and Mama because their first Mama and Baba died, and that this is so common in his world that it is only mentioned incidentally. Each of his family reveals a little more of what life is like for grandparents bringing up large numbers of children, for women whose bodies are not their own, for those struggling with illness- clearly TB and AIDS, though Benedict is not aware of it.

And yet it is, because it is the young Benedict’s experience, a story of love, hope and joy. He meets the world with gusto, healing an injured duck, burying a hoopoe, saving his sisters from spiders and frogs- and finding a girl friend who shares his love for all creatures, even the scorpion. He begins to be a mover, a creator of ideas for the adults around him who need ways to earn money and prosper! But adult responsibility come early when so much of the adult population has died.

Reading this concurrently with a book which I picked up from the church library. The author, Michael Taylor has been the Director of Christian Aid, working in many countries, aware of the level of poverty, and the suffering of ordinary people trying to cope, and truly is thought provoking. In Poverty and Christianity, he gives a theological analysis of the ways of understanding suffering in the world, acknowledging that there is no convincing theodicy. In the Hebrew Scriptures Job never gets to understand why he has suffered and why God does or allows this. Taylor explores the life of Jesus in a suffering world. He remarks that theologians of the countries of the South do not ask this as intensely, but rather concentrate on what justice requires, how to be on the side of the poor, what can be done to improve. As a Catholic I have seen this in liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. Catholic Social Teaching is one of the treasures of my church to which I still cling.

The world is full of suffering, and no-one is exempt.There is a buddhist story about a bereaved mother who approached the Buddha with her sadness, and was told to go to every house and collect a grain of rice in her bowl from each house untouched by suffering. The bowl remained empty, and the Buddha had spoken through his silence.

In fact, there have been giant steps towards dealing with the suffering  in Swaziland between 2001 When Hoopoes Go to Heaven is set and 2012 when it was published. Christian Aid, in ways that are ad hoc and fumbling, continually and in many countries works on projects to make life safer and healthier, even though, in Taylor’s detailed background analysis, it is clear that there are no perfect or completely agreed on solutions to massive systemic problems of poverty and injustice.

Perhaps this is what we need to focus on: the message/sermon/gospel according to Mr Rogers. “When something bad happens, look for the helpers.” So many of the characters  in Parkin’s book are the helpers, not feeling like helpless victims, but sharing and helping and together creating and finding joy in life. And as in the novel, so in Taylor’s analysis of NGO programs and faith-based organizations, there have been major improvements for many people.  “When something bad happens, look for the helpers.”

Both books end with  hope.