HIV Testing

Today Eric and I went into the village and helped at a rural clinic. Eric help see patients and I help with the HIV testing. It was an amazing experience. They are very somber about testing and sit quietly waiting for the results. We tested 70 adults and 12 children out of that group 12 adults were positive and 3 children were positive. It was a somber moment as a young very beautiful woman about 24 tested positive and then they tested her baby. It was so sad as the children get it from their mothers either during birth or through breast milk. i cry for the children here. The life expectancy with HIV is 20 years that is if they get medication everyday. Which almost never happens because of travel to get the medication and then when they get there the medication is gone. They need one wife and fidelity to keep them safe from this disease. The people here need the gospel so badly to help them with their issues of poverty and health. We saw woman at the clinic that were my age but looked to be 25 years older. The woman work hard here usually without a man by their side so they provide for their children by themselves. Eric spoke lugandian to them and they love him for that. He took lots of vital signs and talked to the people to find out why they were sick. They gave him some avacodos in bag. At the end of the day some children came and looked at me so I looked in my bag and all I had were some carrot sticks. I gave them one and they tasted it and threw it on the ground. The man we were with said that I had betrayed them because they thought that I would give them sweets. We laughed and laughed about that. they are use to white people giving sweets. We came home to Tim trying to make pizza (adding yeast instead of flour) with a man who was going to propose to a girl in the ward with pizza and some spiritual thoughts(so sweet to see how childlike they are with relationships. Also had a 23 year old woman over who wants to marry a white because she does not like the african culture of men making the woman do everything. Change will come but it will be slow here.