Monday, October 17
Monday
A woman came in today who found out she was HIV positive last week and her friends brought her to the church because they know about our program. One of her friends brought us to another friend a few weeks ago and now we are assisting her. She was very upset. At first telling us about her story. I love Mrs K. She has such a gentle and firm counseling style. She started to cry when she told us about finding out the news, and then more tears came as she was talking about her family. She started to get sick last April, and got medication for some symptoms but never really recovered. She has a 4 year old little girl. Her mother came to live with her when she found out she was sick. Her mom has told her she needs to accept her situation and figure out what to do (this is a good word). She was 25 years old. She had not finished secondary school because it for a variety of reasons was not a good situation for her, so she left her village and came to Dodoma maybe 5-6 years ago. She started to work in a bar, met a man, had a child, the man left her, she continued to work in the bar to support herself, and then got really sick, and as stated before only last week found out she was positive. We tried to encourage her to leave the bar business, and she nodded in agreement, but if she can’t find other work I don’t know what she will decide. She was so thin, she was so young, her smooth light brown skin and her short, tinted hair was wrapped with a bright blue cloth. The curtain in the room kept blowing against the back of her head, like it was trying to grab her and hide her sad face.
So we advised her to go for a full examination this week and then to see what we can do to assist her…we can definitely assist with food, although she said she usually has enough…she had a bit of a tough exterior but that melted when she started to cry….but by the end, she was smiling and chuckling at some comments Mrs K was making…We told her, don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We will help with what we can, we want to support her, and she is welcome here if she needs anything. Mrs K kept telling her, don’t cry, don’t cry…God will help you, he is helping you now….
I took her to the clothes room, store where some clothes from Canada had been donated. I asked her is she was afraid of rats since I just found out they are now eating the clothes in the room, or attempting to…I gotta get some shelves or something and get rid of these stinkin boxes…Anyway I think she was encouraged to get some clothes and shoes for her body and her child…she seemed happy when she left..
A woman came in today who found out she was HIV positive last week and her friends brought her to the church because they know about our program. One of her friends brought us to another friend a few weeks ago and now we are assisting her. She was very upset. At first telling us about her story. I love Mrs K. She has such a gentle and firm counseling style. She started to cry when she told us about finding out the news, and then more tears came as she was talking about her family. She started to get sick last April, and got medication for some symptoms but never really recovered. She has a 4 year old little girl. Her mother came to live with her when she found out she was sick. Her mom has told her she needs to accept her situation and figure out what to do (this is a good word). She was 25 years old. She had not finished secondary school because it for a variety of reasons was not a good situation for her, so she left her village and came to Dodoma maybe 5-6 years ago. She started to work in a bar, met a man, had a child, the man left her, she continued to work in the bar to support herself, and then got really sick, and as stated before only last week found out she was positive. We tried to encourage her to leave the bar business, and she nodded in agreement, but if she can’t find other work I don’t know what she will decide. She was so thin, she was so young, her smooth light brown skin and her short, tinted hair was wrapped with a bright blue cloth. The curtain in the room kept blowing against the back of her head, like it was trying to grab her and hide her sad face.
So we advised her to go for a full examination this week and then to see what we can do to assist her…we can definitely assist with food, although she said she usually has enough…she had a bit of a tough exterior but that melted when she started to cry….but by the end, she was smiling and chuckling at some comments Mrs K was making…We told her, don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We will help with what we can, we want to support her, and she is welcome here if she needs anything. Mrs K kept telling her, don’t cry, don’t cry…God will help you, he is helping you now….
I took her to the clothes room, store where some clothes from Canada had been donated. I asked her is she was afraid of rats since I just found out they are now eating the clothes in the room, or attempting to…I gotta get some shelves or something and get rid of these stinkin boxes…Anyway I think she was encouraged to get some clothes and shoes for her body and her child…she seemed happy when she left..
posted by Jo at 7:17 AM
1 Comments:
jo, you're poem is ... i can't think of the word but this is what it makes me think of.
when i think about education i think my goal is to make people sad. w.e.dubois wrote a short story once called "on the coming of john" and in it the main character goes from a happy go lucky, naive, the world is my playground kind of a kid to a really serious, sombre, unhappy man. most of this is because of his schooling. if education does not teach us to be sad about this world then i think it's missing something. i read your post on janet to my 8th grade today and it was perfect. we were talking about issues facing tanzanian women today (both rural and urban). i think i made them sad. yes! this poem makes me sad but that perfect.
meg
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