Am I repeating myself

How do I describe the things I’ve seen in a place where the rich and poor collide? Can I explain the extravagant mall or the extremely powerful electric hand dryers in the restroom verses the shack made of whatever scraps are available? Or let’s move along to the house that is made out of brick-o-blocks and thus is a step up from the shack made of tarp and tin, yet it is still not much bigger than my parents’ bathroom. This supposed step-up with a thick cloud of flies circling about the heads of the inhabitants. What about the dog house just outside the door of another makeshift house with the dog house appearing nicer than the house. And then the man squatting in the doorway, with his cheekbones chiseling out from beneath his defeated skin. One hand lifted to his head, as if to run it through his hair, but paused in despair. Was it truly despair that I saw? I don’t know, but it did look like a defeated man to me with not much left to look forward to in this world. He has leather looking skin with deep wrinkles and clubbed fingers. The clubbing happens over time when a person’s body is not receiving enough oxygen. In his case it’s TB that’s affecting him. We’re here today, because we need to give him an injection of medicine. He’s now battling TB for the second time, and therefore, he is on a different treatment for more resistant strains.

We move along to another house, to a lifeless heap beneath a mound of blankets, but sitting in the doorway is her mother, who is five times my size. The heap is a seventeen year old girl dieing of AIDS, who is presently infected with TB, and just had a baby a few months ago. She tried to abort the baby by swallowing poison, which did not in fact do anything to the baby but did cause her to go into labor (but it was okay because she was at term, even though she thought she was only five months along) and then she had to have a hysterectomy and they sliced her wide open vertically with an incision much bigger than anything I’ve ever learned of. She then got an infection, and they had to do surgery again, and then she was sent home with tubes draining fluid from her chest. She came close to death, but I guess that it is not her time yet, because now she appears to be improving. She can’t take ARV’s for the HIV because the TB is in her stomach and she often vomits whatever she takes. She’s depressed, lacking the will to take care of her baby or herself. I can see why. Seventeen is such a hopeful age, but not for her. For her there are few dreams of what the future will bring.

Then there was the thirteen year old girl that came to the clinic today. She has TB too, and also just had a baby. Her boyfriend is in prison now. The nurse tried to explain the benefits of being tested for HIV, but that was beyond this young girl who cannot write her own name and has a baby of her own. It’s very likely that she has been infected given her situation.

Today was the first day for this clinic to ever offer testing. They had been advertising it for three weeks and telling all of their patients about the benefits of knowing their HIV status. Two people came to be tested. People just don’t want to know their status. Out of sight, out of mind. And why would it be any different with a president that doesn’t believe that HIV causes AIDs. With a vice president that has sex with an HIV + person without a condom but says that he showered well afterwards and so is safe. With a prime minister of health that advocates the use of beet root, garlic and lemon juice to cure HIV. Why would you want to be test if you risk losing your job, your family, and your friendships because of the status?