AIDS haven experiences

So today I trade places with Bruce. I went, as we usually do for ½ a day at the AIDS Haven where there are older people (over 18) and children. The children are orphans of AIDS parents. Right now there are approximately 6 infants, 7 or 8 preschoolers, about 5 school age kids and maybe 10 adults, many of whom are hospice patients. The college students often take the nursery kids and the preschoolers to play. Other students were working in the kitchen and in a house on the compound that we are preparing to paint. Each Monday morning there is a little religious service attended by the children and their caregivers. I love the music involved as the children get right into the swing of things and the caregivers are good singers. Even when they sing in Khosa it is great to hear. It would take you back to your Sunday School Days (or Religious Education Days). “Jesus Loves the Little Children”, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” and one that I didn’t know “Telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus everyday” and then all the children say HELLO! I discovered that one of the infants died. She was extremely emaciated and her mom is here as well but appears to be reacting well to antiretroviral drugs.

What I usually do at the AIDS Haven is give hand and arm massages to the adults. Some will have none of it but some find it nice. The object is to soften up hardened tissues, promote circulation and the one that motivates me…the healing powers of touch. I have no thoughts that I am actually “healing” but I hope it is doing the other two and that the patients find it comforting. Today I stopped a room I had not been before. I asked the man if he would like a hand massage…now you have to understand that many of the patients speak minimal English…He appeared to say, “Yes” so I commenced. He was seated on the edge of his bed and I also rubbed his feet as I had too much cream on my gloves. I asked if it hurt and he indicated that it did…His hands were starting to curl…first the little fingers and progressively through the index fingers is common…he had only two fingers involved. He looked at me intently at times and other times stared in a vacant, lost way. It wasn’t until I was doing the hands of his roommate that the first man was blind. I knew that there was a blind patient but I never guessed it was he.

The blind man’s roommate didn’t feel like he would probably be there next week. He was very thin and weak. Bruce and I did actually get to take one patient, Dion, home to his family after his TB was under control and the regime of HIV antiretroviral meds was in place. ND

The grey man

The man was all shades of gray and brown such that he blended together from his curly hair to his shoes. He was just walking below us as we were standing on our balcony in the deepening twilight. Where he was headed I do not know but it prompted me to write this short piece. This is a homeless man who I first saw at the little mall in Summerstrand where we go to the grocery store. He was in at the mall parking going through the garbage searching for cigarettes, some remainder of a soft drink, or whatever he could find, I presume. But I have never seen him begging. Begging is very common here. I don’t know how he survives. Now this man is white, most are black, but with all the dirt and grime on him and his clothes it is a hard to tell. Some how he is getting food for he is not getting weaker but he is not getting fatter either. Recently, I saw him coming from the downtown area headed out along Beach Road toward Summerstrand Mall. How does one get to this point in one’s life? How does one survive?

Begging is very common in P.E. and I presume in South Africa in general. It was in Cape Town but again that is a large city which tends to attract the homeless as in any country. It was in Graaf-Reinet where a man saw when our tour bus came in and who followed us for some time hoping someone would relent and give him money. Frankly Graaf-Reinet was not that large so it must be all over SA.

One young man (I would estimate in his teens) begs at the intersection at a robot (stoplight in S.A.) coming from another smaller shopping center. He clasps his hands as if in prayer and rubs his stomach. I have not seen anyone give him money but he must get something for he persists nearly every day. It is one of the most difficult things that I do - is to drive on. Of course, if he were the only one, one would give him something but he is not.

There are certain intersections that attract a large contingent of “sellers” and beggars. The sellers will be offering auto plug-in rechargers for cell phone, a package of garbage bags, a newspaper (in the mornings), and whole array of other items. At the same intersection, I have seen an older white man begging and all he does is have a cardboard sign that he has his short story printed on it. He unfolds it for people to see and stands between lanes while the light is red. He moves to the side once the light changes and starts over again. I have seen someone give him money.

At another intersection on an off ramp, which I take to go to Pendla Primary School in the township, I find there are always men selling newspapers, begging, or simply hoping for a job for the day. The light is long and one can spend a seeming long time not looking at them in order to not attract their attention. It is something that I will not miss.

I didn’t know how much this bothered me until I sat sharing this with Norma. I guess that not being able to help hurts. But I think that it is also the realization of just how precarious life can be. I could be the grey man some day. (B)

While Bruce was pondering on the “need” on the street, I was reveling in the gifts of the street. In the Humewood Hotel next door there was African music and dance presentation going on their veranda and I was leaning over balcony and moving to the beat. It is such richness, a gift and it is tumbling out into the night for my pleasure. My heart was made glad! (N)

Such a contrast! (B)