We visited one of the villages where we are supporting their winter harvest. They use an irrigation system because we are now in the dry season. Pictured is the irrigation pump. The crazy thing is, at home, I paid $150 a month to do this in a gym. Who would have ever thought that I could be losing weight AND productive at the same time. Now if I could only work making money into this, I would really be onto something here.
On a side note, I looked up from the planting to see these two guys on the irrigation pump pictured above. It is almost comical how anti-gay they are (sometimes I feel like I stepped back into 1952), but then they pull stuff like this. I have seen more straight men holding hands here than I have seen in the Castro or Chelsea. They think it is odd for a girl and a guy who are dating to hold hands. Go figure.
Now I am a big believer in the old saying, "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story", but folks, I ain't lying here. I went to buy my friend a birthday card, an/;d for every birthday card, there were 100 "with deepest sympathies". Now as I have said before, I am a self-proclaimed birthday grinch, but I just did not feel the "with deepest sympathies" was totally appropriate, even though that is exactly how I feel with each uptick of that damn number.
I cannot even begin to tell you how much time Malawians spend going to funerals, visiting someone in the hospital or visiting someone suffering from malaria. It is pretty shocking. I have not gone through one week without hearing about a funeral or someone I know down with malaria.
I spend at least one day a week taking one of our kids to the clinic to get tested for malaria (we are at 100% at this point) or visiting someone suffering from malaria. I have been here long enough to see some kids on their second bout of it since I arrived. I mistaking started to think of it as if it were something like the flu as everyone I know has had it since I have been here. I had a huge reality check when we visited one of our boys in the thick of it. It was awful! I was convinced he was dying and of course mike was saying he's "just ok". I was wondering if we were looking at the same thing. He could barely breath or recognize who I was. To add to the disturbing scene, there was no adult there to take care of him in this small, dark and dusty room without any ventilation. I left very concerned, disturbed and more religious about taking my malaria prophylaxsis. I am now deathly scared of malaria, and I would say rightfully so. You should see how neurotic I have gotten when I see a mosquito. All I see is death flying around and I cannot relax until I get him first.
Pictured is how you need to sleep if you want to stay alive. If only I had video of me waking up at 3am with one in my net. It gets crazy. I would definitely again, be an Americans Funniest Videos winner no doubt.
Currently I am working on a proposal to start a HIV+ Teen Group. Meeting with the kids, writing the proposal, researching how to run an effective and productive teen group for positive kids. This has been a very eye-opening and emotionally draining experience to be honest with you. I sat down with 5 kids last week to talk to them about who they are, their lives, when they found out they were positive and what their dreams and aspirations are. One of the kids is a lot tinier than he should be. He is about the size of my 5 year old nephew but twice his age. As he sat in the oversized chair, swinging his legs around as they were not even close to touching the ground, smiling like he just won an award, I found it so hard to ask any question related to him being HIV positive. As I would ask, I would stop myself, look at the translator and say "wait…you are sure he knows he is positive"? I found it very hard to even mention the word HIV. I stumbled around these questions, thinking how "unfair" this all is, wondering how he could even understand what he is up against. One thing I do know is that none of these kids knew anyone else who was positive. That was a killer too. How are these kids going through this without having someone else to relate to or understand what they are going through?
As we were driving home, all I could think of was "there is no way I can leave here anytime soon". How could I leave here after meeting these kids, who now have names and the cutest faces, and realizing how much they need a group like this and how much I would like to be a part of starting it for them.
