Elizabeth’s story

Elizabeth is an HIV+ woman who Janice has looked after for a while she has 4 kids, 2 older boys who are not infected, and then 2 younger children Sizwe and Charmaine who are infected. The picture above is her and her 2 youngest. They are 14 and 6. Elizabeth works 12 hour days 6 days a week (it used to be 7, but she has recently been able to take Sundays off to go to church.) They pay her 500 Rand a month, that’s around 71 American dollars, which is basically crazy.



She and the 2 children go to ACTS clinic, which is dedicated to the care of patients with HIV/AIDS; they have over 25,000 patients, whom they care for on a monthly basis. There are adult and children’s clinics, and OBGYN services for the infected as well as a Hospice. They also have a Home Based Care service, where they provide care for patients in their homes. They provide regular check ups, lab work, support groups, ARVs (Anti Retro Viral drugs), and testing at their facility. They have several doctors on staff, as well as nurses and social workers. Janice takes Elizabeth and the kids there every 3 months to get checked as well as to get their ARV supply. This last time they were short on ARVs, and apparently the entire nation is also short, so we’ll be going back at the end of this month to hopefully get the rest of Elizabeth’s meds.



Anyway, Mercy Medicine usually subsidizes the meds and Elizabeth gets a small stipend for the children, but still $71 is not nearly enough to even begin to feed 5 people! It’s not like she can get another job either, as basically all her time is spent on this one. We are trying to get some supporters for this family so that they Elizabeth can stay home and take care of her kids, and take care of herself!



It’s a very sad thing, Elizabeth is not an IV drug user, she didn’t go out and have crazy sex with multiple partners (I’m sure that last sentence will give some lovely sickos courtesy of Google!), she was faithful to her husband, and he gave her this disease in return for her faithfulness. He’s probably off infecting other women or dead so he’s not there anymore to provide support for the woman and 2 children that he infected. I think of Sizwe a young man who doesn’t seem bitter about the disease that he didn’t do anything to get, but whose whole existence will always revolve around his HIV status.



It doesn’t help that in Africa being HIV+ is still considered a shameful thing that is not talked about, which is crazy because the majority of people are infected. When I’m at home, I don’t really think about these things except in abstract conversation, but here it’s so present, it’s a part of almost everyone’s life and nobody is talking about it! Don’t even get me started on the PSCA (poor starving children of Africa); it is so hard to even begin to think of solving these problems because they are so vast and so common here. I just have to know that I am helping one Mama and her children who are HIV+ to survive, to have a decent life, and to not be hungry this month. While the solution isn’t Americans throwing money at the problem, because eventually the money will run out, it also isn’t we who have so much abandoning those who have nothing to their own devices. I agree with Obama that it has to be Africans gaining the tools they need, and the courage they need to do something about their own nation! I struggle with how to do this, the balance of feeding someone for a day or giving them the tools to feed themselves for a lifetime. It is impossible for me to allow someone go hungry in the meantime, though.



Incidentally, if you would like to throw money at Mama Elizabeth, please be my guest, e-mail me, and we will arrange it. She’s a good woman who works hard and is trying to help her family. I guess I will step off my soapbox now and get back to work! My time here is already half way over! I'll leave you with a picture of Elizabeth and I, she isn't so sure about having her picture taken : )