Samantha Gets Wrapped
AFA President Li in Kenya garb
Saturday was World AIDS Day and I was attending a course in “Fundamentals of Grant Writing” at North Essex Community College with my young friend Samantha.
That’s Sam getting wrapped in a Kanga during an opening day ceremony at the new Bailey/Whaley Health Clinic in Esabalu, Kenya. Sam turns 21 this week and last year she and her friends raised over $8000 to buy school uniforms for 400 AIDS orphans in Amesbury’s sister village of Esabalu. Then last January, Samantha, Jackie, Colleen and the others distributed the uniforms at three primary schools in Esabalu and at the Ebukuya Deaf School, where many of Esabalu’s deaf children attend special school. Even though primary education is free in Kenya, a child can’t attend if she doesn’t have a uniform to wear. Imagine what life would be like if you were that child with no parents. Every day you see the other kids on their way to school. How lonely and hopeless you feel. What can life possibly bring for you? Sam & Friends are changing lives from hopeless to hopeful one kid at a time.
“Hi Mark,” said Sam as we seated ourselves in the NECCO College classroom. “I brought you a present.” And she handed me an AIDS pin – made in Kenya by our friends in Esabalu. That flashed me back to January of 2007 when she and I and 13 other members of Amesbury for Africa were visiting Esabalu. So here is my story for AIDS Day 2007.
***************************
Through an organization called Sister Cities International our small town of Amesbury, Massachusetts (pop. 13,000) has been linked to the small farming community of Esabalu in Western Kenya since 1987. For the last 20 years New England Yankees have been exchanging home visits with Abaluhyia farmers in Esabalu and their husbands. Our visits are usually 2-4 weeks and promote individual friendship and cross-cultural understanding. We call this rather unique relationship “a friendship-based development partnership.”
Last January 15 of us including Sam and Amesbury for Africa President Li were in Esabalu at the opening of the new health center. Before the speeches, singing and dancing, Li and I were chatting and a woman of perhaps 40 years old approached. She looked me in the eye and addressed us in very good English.
“You don’t remember me do you?” she inquired.
I looked at her closely and all of a sudden I saw something familiar. “Nancy, is it you?” I flashed back even further to 18 months earlier – June 2005
It was my first visit to Esabalu in a year and I was spending my first two days visiting all the compounds where a family member had died. People of Esabalu bury their dead in the yards of their home compounds (shambas) and not in cemeteries. That way the deceased are still part of the family. Visitors stop first at the graves of the newly dead for half a minute to pay respects, before they move on to the front door and greet the living.
So I walked with some friends from shamba to shamba looking at fresh graves and having sad thoughts. It was painful to do it but very bad manners not to make these obligatory visits. There were so many calls to pay because of AIDS. People in the rural villages like Esabalu knew that there was now treatment for the disease but no one knew anyone who had received it yet.
Nancy Otwoma was still among the living but just barely. Nancy had been one of the founding members of the Esabalu Health group back in 1991. She was so energetic with loads of enthusiasm and had become a trained community health worker. Now it took two people to get Nancy out of her bed in the morning. She was short of breath with slight exertions. Her smile was as bright as ever but the rest of her was melting away. The HIV virus had changed her from a fat jolly sparkplug to a thin weak skeleton.
I thought at that time that this was the last time I would ever see Nancy. Before returning to the states, I left a card and some money with the family for the funeral. And now here she was greeting me at the dedication of the Health Center which had been her dream since she started the Health Group so many years ago. We hugged and laughed. “Mlembe mno, mno, mno, mno, mno,” is what you say in Kiluhyia. “Greetings again, again, again,again” We said it over and over.
It seems that shortly after I said my last goodby to Nancy in 2005, the Global Fund and the Gates Foundation in cooperation with the Govt. of Kenya had established a network of 400+ clinics in hospitals all over the country to diagnose and treat victims of HIV for free! Nancy had been one of the first. It was truly a miracle! Now thanks to their efforts everyone is under treatment at one of three hospital clinics near the village. More people know their HIV status then ever before and the rate of new infections is below 1% per year. Kenya is one of the 10 hardest hit countries in the world which are being targeted to roll out these programs for getting control of this horrible tragic epidemic. Fewer orphans, not more uniforms is the real solution to HIV!
So on this, the 20th World AIDS Day, I give thanks every night for Bill and Melinda and their family members; also for Bono, Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. They have brought new life to my friend Nancy Otwoma. Thanks also to Samantha, Colleen, Jackie, Irene, Annette and the Amesbury High School Interact Club for providing AIDS orphans in Esabalu with a uniform and hope for the future. Best wishes on World AIDS day,
Daktari
To see more about Esabalu go to the Internet at www.amesburyforafrica.org
That’s Sam getting wrapped in a Kanga during an opening day ceremony at the new Bailey/Whaley Health Clinic in Esabalu, Kenya. Sam turns 21 this week and last year she and her friends raised over $8000 to buy school uniforms for 400 AIDS orphans in Amesbury’s sister village of Esabalu. Then last January, Samantha, Jackie, Colleen and the others distributed the uniforms at three primary schools in Esabalu and at the Ebukuya Deaf School, where many of Esabalu’s deaf children attend special school. Even though primary education is free in Kenya, a child can’t attend if she doesn’t have a uniform to wear. Imagine what life would be like if you were that child with no parents. Every day you see the other kids on their way to school. How lonely and hopeless you feel. What can life possibly bring for you? Sam & Friends are changing lives from hopeless to hopeful one kid at a time.
“Hi Mark,” said Sam as we seated ourselves in the NECCO College classroom. “I brought you a present.” And she handed me an AIDS pin – made in Kenya by our friends in Esabalu. That flashed me back to January of 2007 when she and I and 13 other members of Amesbury for Africa were visiting Esabalu. So here is my story for AIDS Day 2007.
***************************
Through an organization called Sister Cities International our small town of Amesbury, Massachusetts (pop. 13,000) has been linked to the small farming community of Esabalu in Western Kenya since 1987. For the last 20 years New England Yankees have been exchanging home visits with Abaluhyia farmers in Esabalu and their husbands. Our visits are usually 2-4 weeks and promote individual friendship and cross-cultural understanding. We call this rather unique relationship “a friendship-based development partnership.”
Last January 15 of us including Sam and Amesbury for Africa President Li were in Esabalu at the opening of the new health center. Before the speeches, singing and dancing, Li and I were chatting and a woman of perhaps 40 years old approached. She looked me in the eye and addressed us in very good English.
“You don’t remember me do you?” she inquired.
I looked at her closely and all of a sudden I saw something familiar. “Nancy, is it you?” I flashed back even further to 18 months earlier – June 2005
It was my first visit to Esabalu in a year and I was spending my first two days visiting all the compounds where a family member had died. People of Esabalu bury their dead in the yards of their home compounds (shambas) and not in cemeteries. That way the deceased are still part of the family. Visitors stop first at the graves of the newly dead for half a minute to pay respects, before they move on to the front door and greet the living.
So I walked with some friends from shamba to shamba looking at fresh graves and having sad thoughts. It was painful to do it but very bad manners not to make these obligatory visits. There were so many calls to pay because of AIDS. People in the rural villages like Esabalu knew that there was now treatment for the disease but no one knew anyone who had received it yet.
Nancy Otwoma was still among the living but just barely. Nancy had been one of the founding members of the Esabalu Health group back in 1991. She was so energetic with loads of enthusiasm and had become a trained community health worker. Now it took two people to get Nancy out of her bed in the morning. She was short of breath with slight exertions. Her smile was as bright as ever but the rest of her was melting away. The HIV virus had changed her from a fat jolly sparkplug to a thin weak skeleton.
I thought at that time that this was the last time I would ever see Nancy. Before returning to the states, I left a card and some money with the family for the funeral. And now here she was greeting me at the dedication of the Health Center which had been her dream since she started the Health Group so many years ago. We hugged and laughed. “Mlembe mno, mno, mno, mno, mno,” is what you say in Kiluhyia. “Greetings again, again, again,again” We said it over and over.
It seems that shortly after I said my last goodby to Nancy in 2005, the Global Fund and the Gates Foundation in cooperation with the Govt. of Kenya had established a network of 400+ clinics in hospitals all over the country to diagnose and treat victims of HIV for free! Nancy had been one of the first. It was truly a miracle! Now thanks to their efforts everyone is under treatment at one of three hospital clinics near the village. More people know their HIV status then ever before and the rate of new infections is below 1% per year. Kenya is one of the 10 hardest hit countries in the world which are being targeted to roll out these programs for getting control of this horrible tragic epidemic. Fewer orphans, not more uniforms is the real solution to HIV!
So on this, the 20th World AIDS Day, I give thanks every night for Bill and Melinda and their family members; also for Bono, Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. They have brought new life to my friend Nancy Otwoma. Thanks also to Samantha, Colleen, Jackie, Irene, Annette and the Amesbury High School Interact Club for providing AIDS orphans in Esabalu with a uniform and hope for the future. Best wishes on World AIDS day,
Daktari
To see more about Esabalu go to the Internet at www.amesburyforafrica.org
No comments:
Post a Comment