Back

I'm back in the U.S. now, but I still have several posts already written that I haven't uploaded and even more that are still just in my brain. I'll try and get them all posted in the next week or so.

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?

Nature vs. Nurture

So, It's really hard to remember that the driver sits on the left hand side of the car, and that people drive on the left hand side of the road, and that when you walk on the sidewalk and someon else is approaching, they are going to take their rightful place on the LEFT side of the sidewalk. It's so hard to change this automatic pattern of thought. Makes me think of how hard it is to change someone's actions when from the moment they've been born, it's all they've ever known. Sleep around. Do drugs. Get drunk. Don't trust doctors. Be in a gang. Having a kerosene stove in your house with all the windows and doors closed is okay. ARV's will not help you; they will make you die. There's a lot of unlearning to do.

Captivity

So I went to the bathroom, and while I was in there a security person came and locked the gate into the bathroom. Luckily, the people I was with were within earshot. So, one of them went and found the security person, while the other took my picture during my brief moment of bathroom bondage.

Chocolate

I wanted to learn more about the local culture, so I decided to conquer the native chocolate.

Already conquered:




















Yet to be conquered:


It's a hard job, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice. :)

TAXI

I am becoming quite the little rider of taxi vans here in South Africa. They have the traditional taxis here, too, but they cost a whole lot. However, for about 60 cents I can ride on a taxi van all the way from Delft to Bellville (where I'm staying). I know that means nothing to you, but it's about a 20-30 min ride. Then I get off at Bellville and walk for 30 mins to my house. I like riding in the taxis for many reasons: 1) I don't feel like a burden to my host family, 2) I can leave when I want because I'm not waiting on a ride, 3) I get to be more in the every day life of a large portion of the population, and 4) it shocks everyone every time they find out I'm riding in taxis now. Well, apparently the taxis are supposed to be quite dangerous, and there are even richer people around here that say that you couldn't pay them enough to ride in one. Well, I have had no problems, and in fact the first time I rode in one from Nelson Mandela Peace Park to the Delft Clinic, the driver asked me when we got there (because I had a seat right up front next to him) if I was working there. I told him yes and started to get out some money (R4 to be exact), but then the driver told me to keep my money! Not only was I not mugged, but I didn't even have to pay for the ride! I really like the people here. I know there are bad people too, so don't think that I let my guard down, but there are also just a lot of really nice people. I figure riding taxis in the day time should be perfectly safe... the worst that would happen is that I would be pick-pocketed, and I 'm careful, so I don't see that happening. Afterall, nobody is going to actually just rob you in broad daylight with tons of people around (most likely as long as i'm not TRYING to be robbed by doing stupid things), and I resist my temptation to take out my digital camera and snap photos the whole way, so I should be fine, as long as it's not one of the days when the taxi drivers are having their wars and gunning each other down, and I would probably know beforehand if that were to happen b/c people have a tendency to know these things and tell each other if it's not okay to take the taxi. not that i would actually be in the loop on that, but i'll just make the committment now, not to get on a taxi van if nobody else is on it. so yeah, apparently there are different companies of taxi van drivers that are very similar to gangs and they have had some wars in the past. but you wouldn't know it now by the looks of things now, and so I ride happily along in my taxi van, crammed in a tiny space with 15 other people.

Frustration

A woman has AIDS. She is told to take ARV’s (antiretroviral drugs), use contraceptives, and use a condom when having sex. The lady shows up Friday with shingles (a normal occurrence with HIV+ people) and she thinks she’s pregnant. This means that she is not using contraceptives or a condom! Aaahhh! And guess what! She has had two other children already that have died of AIDS. Two dead children haven’t taught her a lesson yet! You can teach and teach and teach, but there are still people that do stuff like that. Even if the baby is not born HIV+ it will eventually be an orphan. Uuffff. Depressing. Just the tip of the iceberg.

One of the home-based healthcare workers was being assigned HIV+ patients to care for, and they came to a name, and she recognized the name. It’s the name of her mother’s boyfriend. Her mom doesn’t know that her boyfriend is HIV+. The law says that the healthcare worker cannot disclose a patient’s medical information, but it’s her mom. She talked to the RN about it and the doctor. Then she happed to run into the man in the hallway of the clinic. He didn’t greet her. He just turned the other way and walked off. Well, she has told her mom now, and she’s going to get and HIV test on Monday. Scary.

A man hasn’t told anybody yet that he is HIV+. Every person is supposed to have a treatment buddy, so that when they get sick, there is someone who knows how the medication is supposed to be taken and can take care of them. Plus, when the patient gets sick and has to go to the hospital, it’s always a bad situation when the family comes to the hospital and wants to know why mom/dad/sis/etc is there, and the healthcare workers can’t tell them. The family gets really frustrated and angry. Anyhow, this man has 3 kids, and his wife is already dead. If nobody knows he has HIV then who’s going to take care of his kids when he gets sick? Who’s going to provide for them?

Some patients to come to get tested until very late, and then they start taking ARV’s when they are already very ill. They die, and then the family thinks that the patient died because he/she took the ARV’s. The healthcare workers try and explain that it was already very late in the disease and that’s why the patient died, but some people will only believe that the ARV’s did it.

On the radio I heard the prime minister of health promote the use of beet root, garlic, and lemon juice in order to combat AIDS instead of ARV’s. No wonder family members blame ARV’s for their relative’s death.

What needs to be done? TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, and then teach some more. Then scream in your room alone, then cry, then pray.

Describing South Africa

It’s difficult to describe this place. There are contrasts all around me. I am staying in a house in an upper middle class neighborhood here, and I travel 30 minutes to the town, Delft, where the HIV home-based healthcare program is. It’s not safe for me to take a taxi to Delft alone. But there are not bars on all the houses' windows (only some of them) like in Honduras. On the way I pass by shanty towns made of tin and cows feeding on grass in the median of the highway. At the same time, it seems like this place is very similar to the U.S. Nice roads, nice neighborhoods, traffic laws that are obeyed. There is the occassional horse drawn cart on the highway though. There are three race classifications here: black, colored, and white. The word colored sounds so ugly to the American ear at first, almost hurting to say it. It has been a bad word in our culture for so long, that it feels weird that these people here should claim that label with pride. The colored people are exactly as the word sounds—colored. They are people of color that are not black, so this includes all kinds of mixtures that can include blacks, whites, Indians, and Asians. The government is full of contrasts… putting up a front of being forward thinkers, yet the highest government officials do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. The prime minister of health says that “nutrition, nutrition, nutrition,” is the answer. The vice president raped a girl who was HIV + (but he was acquitted, so I guess I should say he had consensual sex). He did not use a condom, but claimed that it was okay, because he took a shower afterwards and washed off real well. A South African female is raped every 3 minutes. One-year-old baby girls are not safe from this atrocity. You see there is a myth poisoning the minds of desperate and depraved HIV+ men that if they rape a virgin, then they will be cured of HIV/AIDS. The younger the girl, the more sure you can be that she is a virgin. Many rape victims are between the ages of 1 to 5. ARV drugs are available for those with AIDS, but distributing the drugs is problematic, and many do not even get tested for HIV because they fear being ostracized by friends and family. Another mother is HIV+ but she still wants to have more children—children that will grow up without a mother. Hospitals are good here—for the rich. They tell the women in the general public to get a PAP smear once every 10 yrs! It’s not that doctors are ignorant to the benefits of yearly PAP smears, but that the government needed to make budget cuts, and so they made them with women’s lives. Once every 10 yrs is a joke. You can very easily get cervical cancer and die during the 9 years in between. There’s this beautiful ocean here and nice skyline and then there is the wasteland of tin shacks that sits on the outskirts of town. Out of sight. I haven’t gotten to do much in the way of direct patient care yet, but I have gotten to see a lot, listen to a lot, and learn a lot. I love these people. They are so nice. I have a million ideas racing through my head, and I don’t know where to begin. I feel so helpless. How can I ever make a difference? Things are so screwed up. How will they ever get better? How can I wait 3 more years to come back here? It seems weird that there are so many problems in this country because there is so much potential here, and because at times I feel like it is not a developing country at all. It’s definitely not the place with the starving children on the TV screen with the flies swarming around their faces. I’m sure there is a lot of malnutrition and starvation at times too, but not like other parts of Africa. Yet, they have a real crisis on their hands: AIDS. This slow killer. Not only will it kill individuals, but it has the power to bring down a whole nation if nothing is done.

Off to South Africa!

I'm leaving today for South Africa! It feels so weird to be going to a non-Spanish speaking country! In fact when I imagine conversations and encounters that might happen in SA I find myself thinking about it in Spanish. Hehe. Guess that won't help me much there. It also feels weird to be so dumb about a culture... I know all about Latin American culture, and people ask me about it all the time, and now I'm having to ask others about a culture. I'm so excited and nervous! I don't know what to expect... as far as the country goes, as far as the city goes, and living with my host family, the church there and the work being done. I'm trying not to have any expectations one way or the other! But... you know you, find yourself imagining... or at least I do. I have an over-active imagination. Gotta go now. Off to the airport!

My God is So Big

Things are changing so much in my life right now, but God is SO GOOD, and he is taking care of me every step of the way, even when I was stressed out and doubting. God has absolutely amazed me in the past month in how he is working in my life, and all the loose ends are coming together. There are still a lot of unknowns, but it’s okay. It’s just a big adventure awaiting me, and I know that God is going to give me the support I need for whatever comes my way. He has given me full support to go to Africa in only a month’s time, and he gave me a roommate for San Francisco that loves Jesus!

This song sung by Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales expresses my feelings tonight perfectly:

My God is So Big

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do.
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do.
The mountains are His,
The valleys are His,
The stars are His handiwork too.
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do.

"For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:8

I must say that I have been very doubting in this in the past. Not on purpose…. But the reality was that I felt like if I asked, God might just say no, and then I wouldn’t receive… which can still happen, but it won’t happen if what I am desiring is God’s will. I was so afraid that I wouldn’t get enough funds for Africa… I was afraid of that 6 months ago even, and then when God finally moved me to action this summer to go, he then made it where I would only have a month and half to raise funds. I was really scared that it wouldn’t happen, but God is good and wanted to show me that it is not by my own strength or ability that I do anything, and that everything is because of HIM. I am so blessed! God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.

A Few Things

Why do people ask questions like, “Why don’t you have boyfriend?”? What exactly are they expecting you to respond with? “I have this really bad rash all over my body and it tends to scare people away?” “I have a horrible personality.” “I’ve only met loser guys.” “Actually, right now I’m stalking Mr. Perfect.”

Yesterday, two people asked my sister if she was my mother. Hahaha. Poor Andi, she really doesn’t look old enough to be my mom, just old enough to be my older sister. Which by the way is pretty stinking old, because I turn 24 this week!

I suspect that I might be a disgrace to my generation, because I don’t know anything about downloading songs from the internet. Oh well.

Where do I start...

Today was my last day working on the Infant Unit at the hospital this summer. I have spent 172 hours there, and I was surprised to find myself sad today. I’ve grown used to the way things are done there, and I like the nurses, but most of all, I love my patients. I love all my patients, but they come and go, and that’s not a big deal. But there are some patients that are long termers and will be in and out throughout childhood. It’s these children that you grow very attached to. You start to feel like they are a part of your own family. People have stories of patients they’ll never forget. I have one such story now.

I’ll go ahead and say it: It’s not fair! What’s happening to her is not fair! What her parents are going through is not fair! She was a normal little girl until age 4. She had her immunizations and then shortly thereafter things started going wrong. The first time she came to the hospital she walked in. Now she will probably never walk or talk again. She has severe spasms that have broken both femurs a couple of times. She cries out in uncontrollable pain. What’s happening to her is called degenerative encephalopathy, but the doctor’s don’t really know what caused it. Maybe it was a bad reaction to the immunizations. Maybe a virus. Now she’s six and the nightmare only worsens.

Her screams haunt me. You can hear them from down the hall. It sounds horrible and like someone is torturing her, but it is her own body that is her enemy. There is almost ALWAYS a parent with her… 4 months, night and day. That’s how long this stay in the hospital has been so far. Her mother stays with her all day, and her father stays with her at night. I was alone with her for about 30 minutes the other day while her father took her mother to the doctor. She began to go into her spasms and scream… it is the most helpless feeling in the world. And so I prayed. I just begged and begged that God would take the pain away, stop the spasms, bring peace, and cure her! But she continues on in this state. Why did this happen?

It seems easier almost, to have a child born with a disability, than to have a healthy child and suddenly have that taken away. You look into this little girl’s eyes, and it seems like she is still there, behind them, longing to speak, to tell us what hurts. She looks around the room from behind her long black eyelashes, and her mother talks of how it used to be. This precious little girl that loved horses and swimming. She is having fewer spasms these days than she once had, but it’s still really bad. And now, she does smile in response to questions sometimes. I know that little girl is still there, trapped in this tormented body.

California

I went to California last week to see if I wanted to move there or not, and then I took a little vacation with my parents down the west coast on Highway 1. It was so beautiful! On Friday I accepted a job offer from UCSF Medical Center! CA here I come!

Want

I want to do an internship in Africa for the month of September!

Extraordinary

I love getting to visit my parents. They’re also my friends and my teachers. I love the way we can sit around for hours talking, the conversation often turning towards spirituality, church, missions, etc. I love the way it just naturally happens and how they are truly living their lives in God and so, topics that have to do with our Creator come up constantly.

My dad gave me the book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, to read. He said that I wouldn’t be able to put it down once I started. I took it dubiously, thinking that I would be able to put it down, because I had a midterm to study for and a lot of other school work. I was wrong. I finished the 214 page book in one day. I could not put it down. It is the story of a woman that survived the genocide in Rwanda. Immaculée Ilibagiza is her name, and she wrote her story in English (which is her third language), and Steve Erwin fine-tuned it/rewrote it with her in order to truly capture her story so it could be published. It is AWESOME to hear about her faith in the middle of the horrible atrocities that took place. What awesome faith! She spent three months hidden in a tiny bathroom with six other people (all sitting on top of each other) while the genocide was taking place. During that time they only dared to speak a couple of times and they did not dare to move except for every 12 hours, lest they make some noise and be discovered by the killers. At that time old friends and neighbors had converted into killers. She spent her days in constant prayer from the moment she woke up until she went to sleep. Her faith grew even to the point of forgiving her family’s killers, the killers that didn’t merely shoot her loved ones, but chopped them up with a machete. Her story is extraordinary. I highly recommend this book.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

“Of all the world’s errors, he [Paul Farmer] seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the ‘erasing’ of people, the ‘hiding away’ of suffering. ‘My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember,’ [said Paul]” -Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains p. 218-219

“I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can’t buy them. You CAN feel ambivalent about that, because you SHOULD feel ambivalent.” -Paul Farmer quoted in Mountains Beyond Mountains

“Giving people medicine for TB and not giving them food is like washing your hands and drying them in the dirt.” -Paul Farmer quoted in Mountains Beyond Mountains

Moutains Beyond Mountains is a great book, and I highly recommend it, especially for anyone interested in medical missions and humanitary aid.

Change the World

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have." -- Margaret Mead

Invisible Children

I WANT TO GO AND DO SOMETHING!!! When will preparation ever end? I want to tell you all about the Invisible Children of northern Uganda. In order to avoid being kidnapped out of their homes at night by rebels and forced to fight, these kids walk miles to stay the night in a safe place (it’s been a while since I watched the film but I think it was in the basement of a hospital or maybe it was a warehouse, either way the conditions were bad and everyone was crammed into a space not nearly big enough for them all to sleep on concrete floors). Many children have already been kidnapped, and many more will continue to be, unless the world takes a stand. And the world starts with each of us. I know it’s hard, sitting here, to see what we can do. I feel that way to. What can I do right now? Well, what I can do is continue to tell their story, so that they won’t be quite so invisible, and I can give money to help support the cause, and I can pray for them. Some guys went to Uganda to find the story and ever since have been spreading it across the country. I saw the film at the World Missions Workshop at Harding last fall. The film is AMAZING, and you can’t walk away without having been profoundly affected. You can learn more about the cause and can purchase the movie at www.invisiblechildren.com.

Evolution of Dance

This site is so funny! Have a great day and enjoy!

Getting over it

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I have plenty going on in my mind to write about, it’s just finding the time to figure out what exactly is going on in my head to write about it and the will power to focus. I have a million things racing through there these days. But one line of thought clouds over everything else and keeps me from being able to sit down and write about other stuff. Life is exciting and I’m getting ready to make some big decisions about where to move to, but at the same time, that’s really stressful! I have to make decisions about where to move to! On the plus side, I am well loved, and so I have lots of friends and family in different places around the U.S. that are putting in their bids for me to move close to them. Of course, I’m only having to make this decision now, because one person didn’t want me to move to where he is. And that’s how this all began. I was going along, thinking I knew where I was going (at least in the immediate future), and then *wham* the breath was knocked out of me, and suddenly I only know where I’m going in the way off future and don’t have a clue as to where I’m going in 3 months. Funny how life goes. I’ve read more craziness in the news, but I just haven’t been able to focus myself to write about them. I hate that I have been so incapacitated lately by my own disappointments in life! It makes me mad at myself for being so wrapped up in me! One of my friends assured me that it is perfectly fine for me to be wrapped up in this right now, because it is important to me… but that doesn’t really make me feel better. I just want to get over it. Life goes on! Big fat hairy deal! People are dealing with a lot worse stuff. I know that 4 months from now I’ll be over it, so why can’t I do it right now!? Gggrrrrrrrrrrr.