It Really Does Take a Village ...

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

You know we all make fun of the Hillary Clinton axiom, but we have seen the real thing in action with real people, and I now know it to be true. We headed south about an hour and a half today to visit one of the village AIDS support organizations that GAIA supports. We were up in the hills a bit, on a single track dirt rutted road, passing through one small poor village cluster after another before reaching our destination. We were greeted with singing as we decamped from our vehicles. Much handshaking, smiling, "Mule bwanji (mooli bwangee)" (Hello/How are you). Many "welcome, welcome"’s, and "Thank you"’s from the adults. Curious children - some wary, some gregarious - all pretty fascinated gather around us, and their numbers increase as stragglers come running in. We’ve learned the best thing is to take their picture and then show it to them. That brings the bigger smile, a giggle or a full laugh. They are enchanting.

We are escorted inside the Mission, a small simple building and there is more greeting from yet more villagers. We are seated in a row along the front, facing the congregation. Mostly children on our left, and adults on our right. The two young men who run this program explain some about their work, the orphans, the guardians and how very much they appreciate the support of GAIA. We provide funds which allow a vehicle to come and transport the HIV+ children to the Baylor Clinic (which is back up in Lilongwe where we came from) for treatment. Jimmy, one of the young men, says that "There were many problems, but now the problems are reduced." We learn that he attributes several factors to the increased health of the children: access to medical care and the wonderful guardians [these are the adults who care for the orphans - sometimes they are family members, like a grandmother, but many times they are simply villagers willing to take an orphaned child and care for him or her in addition to their own children]. Moises, the other young man in charge of the organization, adds that in 2007 they had 7 HIV+ children in their care, now they have 21, all doing well in school. He said that they are very proud of these children. They had the children stand up. There was rousing applause for them, and we beamed encouraging and proud smiles at them.

And then it hit me: Each of these children is HIV+. Not only that, each of these children have lost their parents and are depending on the kindness of others to take care of them. And these children have nothing. Compared to our frames of reference in the western world - no i-pods, no designer jeans, no house full of furniture and TV... you get the idea. And yet each of these children smiled at us and thanked us. Take a minute to think about that. It’s nearly enough to knock the wind right out of your heart.