Samson. An 8-year old boy with a contagious smile despite his thorny circumstances. Infected with HIV by his now dead mother. Abandoned by his father. Now cared for by his grandmother. Attending P2 (second grade) while taking a nauseating three-drug antiretroviral cocktail twice a day.
Though he became HIV+ long before our Kwejuna Project began, Pamela met him on a site visit to one of our farthest outlying sites where the Medical Assistant in charge highlighted his neediness to her. She invited him to our food distribution yesterday.
As a pre-adolescent boy, he stood out from the standard profile of pregnant women and infants who populated our Community Center yesterday. So, when I saw him I was curious and took him aside to hear his story.
He demonstrates the complexity of the situation of those infected with HIV. Much more than just a medical problem, it triggers a cascade of social fallout. Stigma, abandonment, poverty, hunger. All these factors exacerbate the fact that the HIV virus has spliced itself permanently into his own DNA. He’s holding his own against the virus (for the moment) evidenced by a high CD4 Count. The beans, corn-soya flour, and oil he received from us yesterday may strengthen him as he battles the infection, but it is a battle he cannot physically win.
His smile, though, for me was a brief triumph.
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