Happy Seven seven! July 7th is farmer's holiday in Tanzania so I did not go to placement at Tumaini School today. Instead CCS took volunteers to visit Mama Sara and some of her group members living with HIV. Mama Sara and I (Catherine too) have become friends over the last couple because we have made a point to go do home visits with her in the afternoons. Getting to know Mama Sara and the other group members has been a moving and truly heart-wrenching experience. It has made the poverty and HIV problem in Africa real for me and made me aware of the how desperately these people need help. I hope to continue to keep in touch with Mama Sara once I return to the states, and continue helping her build her group.
Today we visited four group members that I had not met before. When we go to visit members of the HIV group we walk to their homes. It is very sad how many people are living with HIV in such a small area. It never takes more than five minutes to reach the home of one of the members. Mama Sara is working hard to create awareness and offer a support system for those effected by HIV. She is a great lady so today it broke my heat when I found out she was having trouble paying her rent. I asked her how she was feeling and she said something along the lines of stressed because her landlord has been harassing her to pay her rent. I asked her how much it was and she said 60,000 shillings (about 45 or 50 US dollars) for three months. I have been her in home and it is tiny. She supports three children herself because her husband died of HIV a couple years ago, needless to say it took all my energy not to just fork over the money. I just feel so bad because she keeps the donations people give her for her HIV group and doesn't touch that money for personal use. It is so difficult to see people living like this. We are all so blessed!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment