Pre-Thanksgiving Feasting
The last Kwejuna Project Food Distribution . . . .116 HIV+ mothers, half our team, more than a dozen neighbors hired to cook hot porridge for the waiting moms and help them heft the heavy bags of food away, in short a crowd. Again the Community Center was filled with noise, babies, laughter, life. The face of HIV is not all bleakness and suffering I realized as I looked around. No one would pick most of these women out of a crowd, at least not yet. It was one final opportunity to call them all together, preach the Gospel, love them practically, rejoice over babies not infected, counsel some to bring their husbands for testing, encourage those who have been left alone or are struggling on with care. Like the pilgrims we sailed into the PMTCT work and imposed ourselves and our programs on these women, so at the end of the year it is a joy to invite them to a feast.
A treat for me was to reconnect with Robbinah, who came to me over a year ago tearfully pleading for help with her baby. She was articulate and aware of the risks, one of the few with some education, pregnancy made her leave school, the father of the baby did not marry this teenager, and she knew she increased her baby’s risk by breast feeding. Though we promote exclusive breast feeding as the safest option even in HIV infection . . . Something about Robbinah led me to go against policy and take a gamble and supply her with the baby formula she so much wanted, perhaps her determination to save her child. After a few months Karen was able to supply her with a dairy goat. Now a year later she has a healthy toddler. Another facet of the public health/private health dimension, her story is not replicable for all 114, but sometimes an individual case can be different.
World Food Program officially ends all food distribution to Bundibugyo this month. What feast now for the poor?
The last Kwejuna Project Food Distribution . . . .116 HIV+ mothers, half our team, more than a dozen neighbors hired to cook hot porridge for the waiting moms and help them heft the heavy bags of food away, in short a crowd. Again the Community Center was filled with noise, babies, laughter, life. The face of HIV is not all bleakness and suffering I realized as I looked around. No one would pick most of these women out of a crowd, at least not yet. It was one final opportunity to call them all together, preach the Gospel, love them practically, rejoice over babies not infected, counsel some to bring their husbands for testing, encourage those who have been left alone or are struggling on with care. Like the pilgrims we sailed into the PMTCT work and imposed ourselves and our programs on these women, so at the end of the year it is a joy to invite them to a feast.
A treat for me was to reconnect with Robbinah, who came to me over a year ago tearfully pleading for help with her baby. She was articulate and aware of the risks, one of the few with some education, pregnancy made her leave school, the father of the baby did not marry this teenager, and she knew she increased her baby’s risk by breast feeding. Though we promote exclusive breast feeding as the safest option even in HIV infection . . . Something about Robbinah led me to go against policy and take a gamble and supply her with the baby formula she so much wanted, perhaps her determination to save her child. After a few months Karen was able to supply her with a dairy goat. Now a year later she has a healthy toddler. Another facet of the public health/private health dimension, her story is not replicable for all 114, but sometimes an individual case can be different.
World Food Program officially ends all food distribution to Bundibugyo this month. What feast now for the poor?
No comments:
Post a Comment