It is amazing what a shower can do for the spirit. In fact after this I intend to write a million dollar series of books called shower time for the soul. Not really of course, but you get my drift. After two days of delivering school supplies to families with HIV my head almost exploded. The first child we saw was at a school not far from where I lived. When we asked about her the teachers reported that her mother and father had died from AIDs and that she had no living family. Instead a friend of the mother’s took care of the girl. When the guardian came to help bring the girls school supplies home (the teachers had had the girl go and get her) Benen asked her how she came to be in charge of the girl. She replied that she had also lost her parents at a very young age, and when she say this girl having a hard time (and being a friend of the deceased mother) the young women felt the need to take this girl in and care for her, even though she is positive. The next was a young boy with a large family. We have him so many books and pens/pencils that they were falling. My partner Jenna and I (it was just us, Benen, and Robert the driver today) decided to help him bring the books to his classroom. As we entered the class stopped. The teacher even looked at us as we crossed from the thresh hold into the back of the class. She came down the rows to thank us for bringing books to the class. How can you look a women in the eye and tell her that the books were not for the class, but for that one child and his family?
In town Jenna and I had another awkward moment. When we were getting books women from the nearby were talking to the person Benen was talking to. They then said they would help with the books then ran off. After a while Benen got the books back when he realized what had happened. Jenna and I were mortified we had made that mistake, but he and Robert our driver just laughed. I’m glad they did. As I sat in the car though a cloud of guilt settled over me. I know why we gave children with HIV the books, but I could not help but feel guilty that we could not give books to everyone. The women in the town had wanted the books as well, badly enough to take them from a neighbour. I wished there had been enough to give out.
I am not a claustrophobic person. I can fit into any space, but when those women were around the truck I felt claustrophobic. They swarmed the truck like bees asking for books and pens and pencils. I had the same feeling in another village. This time, however, it was kids. They hung onto the edge of the bed of the truck their little hands reaching for the pencil box. I felt like I was in a horror movie with zombies’ hands reaching for my brain. They needed the pencils like a zombie-needed brains, but I could not let them take them. Benen then cleared the kids away so the two girls who were positive could collect the supplies for their family.
By the last stop I could not take anymore. The hour approached five, and we had given our last books to a boy who to other women in the village had identified as an orphan living positively with his grandma. The last house, though, broke my heart. We pulled up to a collection of mud huts down a small hill. Goats climbed in the slanted garden as kids ran around the dry and dusty yard, and the mother sat in the shade weaving a basket. Benen explained that we needed to take pictures of this family. As he told us the story of the family I could feel someone start to drive a chizle into my heart. The mother had epilepsy, and because of this the father felt he had to leave her and the five children. He believed her to be cursed, and though that his only chance to escape it the father had to leave the family. Salama Shield had provided the family with goats, and helped the girl with surgery. Just over a month before we arrived Salama Shield had taken the girl to the hospital and arranged for a doctor from Lyantonde to operate on her in Masaka. She had had an STI that caused her immense pain, and discomfort. Benen seemed pleased to see her because when he had seen her last she did not smile and had no hope. Today that had changed. She smiled and laughed. Benen said that Salama still had much to do for the family. Between five of them they only had one blanket. No mattress, not nothing just one blanket.
On the walk home I felt week. I had seen so much sadness in two days that my brain could not process it. It swirled in confusion as I walked home. I wanted to go into my room and shut my self away to process all I had seen as soon as we got there. But I didn’t. Instead I sat down to tea with one of my jasmine lemon tea bags, and let myself unwind. Eliza said she desired to shower. Orgionally I hesitated to do so, because I felt so sick, but eventually I caved. Even though the shower was me washing with jugs of water and a loofa, it could not have been more cleansing. The simple act of cleaning ones body can do so much for a person’s moral. Since then I have been able to face things more head on and cope with what I am faced with. I am ready for the next 11 weeks.
