A Tribute to Gogo Anna Zwane - Dr Maithri Goonetilleke

I learned this morning that my great teacher, beloved colleague and friend Gogo Anna Zwane had died.

I find it almost impossible to believe, because when I close my eyes – There she is – On a red dust road shouldered by silver aloe. Sparkling in the sunlight. The road is empty – apart from an occasional bleating goat or a dusty barefoot child. But Gogo is there... And she is dancing.  

I have danced with Gogo at the births of slippery babies and the funerals of dignified women and kind men; In the backs of white utility vehicles in need of several washes; In thatched brown huts where the light is hard to find; In the ruins of dreams shattered by pernicious poverty and disease and the soft hope of new homes, and vegetable gardens, and tanks full of clear, limpid water - built by Swazi hands - for Swazi people. 

Gogo Zwane was unapologetically human. Deeply alive. And this made her utterly extraordinary. 

As a clinician, I have never met a health care worker with such courage. Courage to enter the deepest corner of a person’s suffering. To silently take their hand in that moment. To sit with them. For as long as it takes. 

Over the decades, she trained her mind to find splinters of hope amidst the glowering darkness. Her pragmatism. Her vision. Inspired us all. Indeed, it kindled an organisation called Possible Dreams International -  a bright flame of kindness that continues to burn in the rural and remote communities of Lubombo. 

Her legacy is a global community of hearts that understands the true meaning of the words “Umuntfu, Ngumuntfu, Ngebantfu” – I exist because you exist, I matter because you matter. I am because we are. 

When I heard the news this morning of Gogo’s passing, these words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning sprang to mind:

“Guess now who holds thee?’

“Death” I said. 

But there, the silver answer rang …

“Not Death, but Love.”

Rest in love dear Gogo Zwane.

Nkosi Busise,

Maithri (Vula Bevalile)