Day 3: Cait, Where Are You Going?

The Clinic isn’t usually open on Saturday but we headed on over at 7:45 to get things opened and started for an interview process to take place. A grant was given to help children in the area whose families are affected by HIV get money for school. (Something most people don’t realize about Nigeria is that the public school system is far below normal standards and the only places worth getting an education are very pricy. It makes you appreciate free education a little bit more.) Adrie and I worked as the receptionist and secretary to allow the fifty students an interview with the Faith Alive panel to see if they qualify. We weren’t in with the rest of the staff so we tried our best to make small talk with the people in the waiting room and catch up on life with each other. After six hours of interviews, documentation, and storytelling they decided that most of the kids qualify for financial aid.

 

            After heading back to the apartment for another nap (we are trying to work them out of our daily routine!) I was able to talk with Biana for a while in our living room. She shared some of the stories she heard today of children who had lost one or both parents to HIV and wanted so badly to go to school. They have a yearning for knowledge and understanding, something I think we sometimes lack in our world of high-speed internet and video games. Some of the children are already taking the drugs necessary to kill off the infection spreading in their own little bodies. It breaks my heart that the problem is so much bigger than can be fought off by a group of sacrificial doctors and nurses, by financial support from wealthy countries, or even by Bono making it known to a naive planet. Biana said many who know what she is doing thank her for having to courage to come over to Nigeria and work with these people. But what they don’t know, she told me, is how much I struggle against what looks like a hopeless situation, a system that has entangled so many in this world and is slowly killing a whole generation. I think too many write it off as a disease for homosexuals in San Francisco or poor people in Africa without taking into account the millions of lines leading directly into this one problem. What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go to make this suffering end? All I know is that God has called me to come and love people over here. Touch the hand of a woman who prostitutes herself despite her condition in order to feed herself, hold a baby that has a 60% chance of getting diagnosed like her parents, and smile at my brothers and sisters who try so hard to hold on to hope. Adrie and I will only be here until December and what after that? Who knows. I am doing my best to live in the here and now and God is bringing up things inside me that I didn’t ever fully explore.

 

            Luckily the day ended on a beautiful note since Dorothy, her sister, and her two-month old son came over to visit Auntie Biana. The baby’s name is Morning Star, which suits him well considering his favorite thing in the room was the light bulb over our heads. I got to hold him for a while, talk with the women about life in Nigeria, and sit with friends. I think that is the sort of thing that should give us all hope.