Helping Out at Home

Blue Roof Clinic staff meetings are held every Friday, and they have proven to be a great place for everyone to share how their week went, what was accomplished, what we are continuing to work on, and so forth. The meetings begin and end in song, led by the nursing sisters and Moussa, our groundskeeper, which is a beautiful way to center everyone into the purpose of the meeting. These staff meetings are really valuable because they reinforce how much all the programs can support each other’s work.

I’ve been running every day since Saturday – I hope I can stick with it! After my run on Saturday, I showered and headed down to the beach. This was the first time I had to really spend some quality time on the beach, so I was really looking forward to it! I set up on my beach towel with my book for about two and a half hours, and it was glorious. The waves were good, so there were lots of surfers out in the water, and there was one guy on the shore with a long camera lens to catch some action shots of the surfers. All the kids on the beach were really excited about the big camera, and they stood in awe just watching the photographer work from behind.




When the sun got a little too hot for me, I packed up and took a walk along the shore, and then headed up to the seaside restaurant, the Green Dolphin, for lunch. After lunch, I returned to my apartment, and saw that Bucks had been by with the electrician while I was at the beach, and they hooked up my stove, which is very exciting! I can cook now!! The breeze was really nice out, so I sat out on the porch and finished reading my book, Race Against Time by Stephen Lewis. The book is a transcript of five lectures that he delivered for the CBC Massey Lecture series in 2005. I had the privilege of meeting Stephen Lewis and hearing him speak at the Keep a Child Alive Student AIDS Summit in November 2008, and so I could really visualize him delivering these lectures, with great passion and conviction.



The lectures relate his extensive experience working within the United Nations, and his frustrations with how policy surrounding HIV/AIDS relief is developed and never fulfilled, and the reasons why. These are five quotes I found very telling:

With regards to the negligence of the international community to effectively address the HIV/AIDS pandemic:

“I often wonder, in an increasingly jaded way, how long the children of Africa will have to wait before the world delivers.”

“I’ll devote every fibre of my body to defeating this viral contagion, but I cannot abide the willful inattention of so much of the international community. I cannot expunge from my mind the heartless indifference, the criminal neglect of the last decade, during which time countless people have gone to their graves – people who should still be walking the open savannah of Africa.”

“It is absolutely possible to turn the pandemic around. And please believe me, I know how tough it is: I spend a good chunk of my life at ground level watching the heroic battle for survival in the face of incomparable odds. But what continues to be lacking is the sense of emergency, the fire of effective leadership, the consuming passion to cut through the cerebral doldrums and save lives, save lives, save lives.”

With regards to how prevention and treatment services must be dually supported, because they are deeply connected when it comes to resolving the HIV/AIDS crisis:

“With treatment comes hope, and with hope comes testing, and with testing comes prevention, so that what we now have, in country after country, is the single-minded pursuit of keeping people alive.”

And finally, words from a woman in Swaziland, who is working as part of an income-generation project:

“We work so hard to keep the project going that we have no time for sex. That’s our contribution to preventing the spread of the virus!”

I find great value in reading works like Stephen Lewis’s Race Against Time, because they remind me of how multi-faceted the issue of HIV/AIDS truly is, and that while Keep a Child Alive continues to make a great impact in the life of individuals, much remains to be done to impact the millions of lives that have been devastated by this disease. We cannot do it alone. We need everyone on board. We need the public to care and hold our international community leaders accountable to do something about it. When international community leaders begin to actively develop attainable solutions to curb the problem, and hold country leaders accountable for seeing solutions through, perhaps then, we will begin to see a major difference in the global face of AIDS.

I spent Sunday afternoon laundry. I didn’t have a lot to do, but it took me a while because I went to the laundry and there was only one washer, and it was being used. The woman using it told me that the only kind of coins the machine took were old 5 rand coins, which I had none of, so I walked down to the Green Dolphin to ask for change. Then I came back waited for the machine to be free. When I brought my stuff to the machine, I realized that only one of my coins was an old 5 rand coin, so I used that one for the first load, and then had to go exchange money again! This time, I went to the hot dog stand down by the pool. Then, I had just enough to finish my laundry, or so I thought. When it was time to put everything in the dryer, I realized that I misplaced my last old 5 rand coin. So then I went to the neighbor’s house and exchanged more money for old 5 rand coins! I guess the upside is that I’m starting to get to know the familiar faces around the complex. Bill, the guy who runs the hot dog stand actually struck up a conversation with me, and I found out that his son lives in Wilmington, NC! It’s funny. As I begin to travel and see more of the world, I realize more and more just how small the world truly feels!

And then I think about how interconnected people in this world are with one another. Our every day actions – and inactions – directly or indirectly impacts the world around us, which grows smaller every day. So then why do so many of us still feel so disconnected when it comes to issues like HIV and AIDS? The disease is ravaging the African continent, large parts of Asia and Latin America, and has even established itself within the United States. So why do so many of us continue to sit idly? Would it be different if it were your brother or sister? When does a human life become important enough to fight for? For me, even though my time spent in Africa has been relatively minimal, I have never felt more at home. I resolve to do everything in my being to continue to help my African brothers and sisters overcome the devastation they continue to endure from disease, poverty and political corruption, and help renew the beautiful African spirit I know and love.