Community Care & Birthday Cake!

(Thursday) Wow. How do I even begin to describe the things I have seen today? If you sit at home & think about what you think Africa is, what you will probably think is what I have seen today. Being out with the community team has been such an amazing privilege, a real eye-opener of how these people I have been seeing REALLY live.


The first lady we visited had a CD4 count of 1 (usual for us is around 500ish) when she started ARVs a few weeks ago. Yet today was her birthday, and she was doing incredibly well. The ladies I was out with said you would have never thought she was the same lady they had seen a few weeks ago, who could barely sit on her own. & there she was when we turned up dancing!! Amazing (: we had the honor of being able to sit down with the family after seeing how she was doing, and have birthday cake they had bought! It probably cost almost half of what she gets to feed her family, yet after we had sung some songs and said a prayer we all got to sit down and have some. About 12 of them live in the house, & as we ate all the chickens, dogs and new baby goats were running around us! Was great to see! Such a privilege and something I certainly won’t forget for a very long time to come!!


The next person we managed to find in was the man I had seen in the clinic the other day, who had lost all his skin and turned white. It was great to see him doing well at home, & his son was staying with him to help him out on a few things! The sense of community in the rural areas is really something (:


The last patients we saw were very cute! They were 2 little boys of 5 & 7. Their mother had died, and their father doesn’t want a lot to do with them so they stay with their grandmother. Despite being very old she looks after them very well. We asked the 7 year old about his ARVs and asked him to show how he takes them (this is to check his adherence and understanding!) & at 7 he could place out all the pills correctly, & say how often he took them! It was amazing. He reminds his grandmother of the time when he has to take them! It was amazing to see, & it really made it hit home what life is like for these children. They were lovely little boys, & when we left ran to the gate to wave to us as we drove off. So lovely to see 2 very happy little boys!