Friday, February 16, 2007

we are lanterns and you are the light

i am visiting a family at their little farm shack...jerry the mother went to the kijabe clinic for tuberculosis...tested positive for HIV...so did her husband...so did 4 of the 5 children...including the two youngest...twins...jean and solomon...they line up their antiretroviral drugs on the table...and pose in front of them for our cameras...miniature white skyscrapers of pill boxes...

we hand them gifts and pray for them...the oldest son george is 21 years old...he looks no older than 15...a family of sickness and poverty...

they say they are stronger now with the medicine they have received as a result of bush’s faith based initiatives...there are over 1,500 patients on ARVs through kijabe hospital’s project AIDS relief...153 new patients in the past month alone...

the father cannot work—he takes care of the family cow...the mother takes care of the children...God takes care of them all...and they are together...

blanche, the health care worker in charge of the family talks about how she cried when the second oldest son tested negative after everyone else had tested positive...HIV patients within big families have a higher rate of survival...a serious implication for care of patients...

diane from our team gives the youngest girl a ring from her hand...she is holding the girl in her arms...everyone else in the room is lost to me for a while...

we also visit a young man dying of AIDS in his one room house...it smells terrible...he looks like death...he can hardly talk...he has meningitis in his brain...

it’s hard to pray or think...he would be in college in the states...and his life is being snuffed out...the good may die young...but it’s not good to die young...

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