|
|
|
July 25, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
HIV/AIDS: From Alabama to Africa Part 1
by Sherri Jackson
CBS 42 News
2007-10-29 14:47:53.0
|
|
| |
|
Day 1, Arusha Tanzania
I awake in my hotel room in Arusha Tanzania to the sound of a Muslim call to prayer in the early morning hours...I finally get back to sleep but two hours later. Then it’s the school children I hear.
 This is a shot outside my hotel room window in Arusha. I try to zoom in with my camera to see what the children are doing with the water pitchers they have in their hands. At first I thought they were watering plants and doing chores. The children are dressed in their clean uniforms and embarking on their school day doing what children do… except for the pitchers in their hands. On this day I still don’t know what the containers are for.
A drum beats and the children are off to begin their school day. Before long I hear them singing…then silence.
I glance up at the dawn of my first day in Africa. The hillside is beautiful...The people are beautiful...Soon I’ll go into the city center of Arusha.
First stop the church where the Mountaintop Mission team is conducting workshops.
That’s the team I am traveling with in Arusha.
When we arrive at the church, members attending this conference of church leaders from more than 150 churches in Tanzania are already worshipping.
There is singing and dancing and expressions of praise to start the day’s workshops.
Our team divides into two groups: a morning team to conduct workshops with Pastors, Pastor’s wives, Youth Leaders, and Women leaders of the church.
|
|
| Click play to watch the story. |
The afternoon team which I am assigned will conduct their workshops beginning at two. We will spend our morning on a fact finding mission visiting a hospital, orphanages, and schools in Arusha.
We load up in our ten-passenger taxi van and head to the Municipal Director for Arusha. We visit him first to get permission to visit the places we want to see.
After meeting for nearly an hour with the Municipal Director we are granted permission to visit a government hospital, two orphanages and their schools, and told not to get video of the place where they are holding tribunals. He speaks with us about the spread of HIV AIDS in Arusha explaining that they are encouraging more people to get tested emphasizing that the testing is not mandatory and he explains to us that the push now is on curbing mother to child transmission of HIV by getting the drugs to mothers who are both pregnant and HIV positive. He says the population of Arusha that is HIV positive is about 7 percent for those who know their status. Factor in those who don’t know and some have put the figures closer to 15% of the population who are infected and affected by HIV AIDS.
First stop the hospital. I’m able to get video of posters showing how healthcare providers in Tanzania are dealing with HIV AIDS...It’s listed right there with public enemy number one in the country, Malaria, measles and polio. There’s also this poster showing the prevalence of HIV AIDS in Tanzania. When the hospital Matron comes to get us we leave the administrative offices and go to the main hospital, where we see people lined up for appointments. As we stroll the outdoor corridor the matron stops me from shooting any video. Inside the hospital I see children two to a bed. Mothers who sleep at the hospital with their babies who have been admitted, then we go to a burn unit. What I saw there was horrific. Babies severely burned by scalding hot water. At first it doesn’t register. I’m thinking how could bath water create these types of burns 4th degree burns in some cases? But then our guide tells me that families boil water in their homes, which are often little mud and stone shanty’s to purify the water. This cuts down on waterborne illness, but it also creates a serious burn hazard for babies and toddlers in the home. When I met this next woman I had to get a picture. So this one we took with a still camera. You can see a Maasai Great Grandmother and her great grand son. In the picture I’m seated next to her and Hilda Rugano is standing. Hilda is a member of Mountaintop Community Church who is a native of Tanzania. She translates the elderly woman’s Swahili. She tells me that her daughter and granddaughter are both dead. Victims of HIV AIDS and she is the only one left to care for her grandson. She can not find the father. There is another great grandchild at home that she needs to go see about. Hers is my first encounter with the devastation created by HIV AIDS a woman much to old to care for herself is going through the sunset of her life trying to care for remaining descendants whose parents are gone because of HIV AIDS. When we leave the hospital and travel the streets of Arusha, things look different from inside our taxi van. We are all somewhat over the newness of being in Africa and suddenly dealing with the life the people face each day. We see some of the hazards of survival in a third world country. It includes water that either scalds the skin off the children or makes them sick with diarrhea and who knows what else from the parasites that exist in untreated water. Children too young to care for themselves left with a virus their mothers gave them at birth. Mothers who already lost the battle to this disease leaving another generation to fend for themselves unless someone much older is around...someone whose age may be the only reason they themselves have not contracted the virus that causes AIDS.
We travel to a place for the offices of Women in Action. A program that provides care for the widows and children affected and infected by the virus that causes AIDS. The operator a woman by the name of Elizabeth Mosha greets us with a big smile and begins to explain how their program was founded as a way to provide home based care to widows with HIV. Their program evolved to something that provides nutrition and monitoring of ARV’s ( these are Anti retroviral medications) that can improve the quality of life and helping with the children by getting them to and from school, providing after care and helping them find caregivers when and if their mothers pass away from this virus that causes AIDS. Many women in started in the program have already died leaving their children orphans. That’s were the first parent program from Women In Action steps in, training the equivalent of foster families in caring for the children and assisting them with education and transportation to and from school. Women in Action also empowers the widows in the program by teaching them skills so they can earn an income and learn about saving so they can invest in their own enterprises.
We follow Ms. Mosha from Women in Action to the helping hands school where the children go to class. When we pull up on the crater filled road to an empty field with a path I think to myself where is the school? Not long after that we get out and walk along a dirt path for about half a mile. I see some buildings that are a little small in stature being built. Some I believe to be homes, but one I can tell is a church. I see the sign that says it’s a church. At the path crossing there is a little corner store shack where we smile and say Jambo to the person watching us from the opening in the shack.
When we get to the school the children have just completed their lesson and are headed out to the courtyard. The children greet us with song. Saying we love you very much our visitors. These little ones are a treat to watch. They have bright eyes and smiles. Their enthusiasm for learning and meeting new people is almost contagious. I figure out how to turn my camera screen around so they can see themselves. As you can see that was a big hit. My favorite song was this one that seemed to bring them some joy too: OO  AH AH BABY, OO AH AH BABY. These primary school ones are 5 to about 8 years old. They seem rather typical in their behavior for children this age. Each one seems to have an unbridled energy as they race along the dirt path back to their school bus. Members of the mission team present Elizabeth Mosha and some of the Helping hands teachers with articles of clothing and shoes brought from the states. The children race off the bus doing the walk-trot-run. It’s something children their age master early on. They line up very orderly and in unison say thank you to the visitors from Mountaintop. Ms. Mosha shows the most sincere gratitude to the group and says good bye wishing them well during their stay in Arusha.
Our group misses lunch on this day. When we arrive back at the hotel we have 10 minutes to get changed and back on the taxi van for our drive to the church to conduct our afternoon workshops. We make it back to the church where a praise and worship session is going on to get the afternoon started. This is my other job on the mission trip. I’m conducting workshops on programming. I serve on the programming committee at mountaintop community church in Birmingham. On this particular afternoon I address the youth leaders and pastors. I explain how on our committee we find ways to illustrate the stories our pastor tells during his sermon. It’s sort of what I do here at CBS 42.
By the evening I’m exhausted. We make it back to the hotel for a group dinner and I’m beat. I realize after day one that I have my work cut out for me. I’m not only exhausted physically on this day, but emotionally as well. I see the devastation caused by HIV and AIDS from the great grand mother at the hospital caring for who is left of her descendants, to the children at the Helping Hand’s school. I fear these may be the lucky ones. This even though I don’t know what they will face when they get to their homes. Is there dinner, electricity, an adult to care for them? Or are they the ones who live along this row which is like so many others I saw in Arusha. Dukas, or little stores, in the front and mud shack villages in the back, where you can see there is no electricity or plumbing. Whether that is the lot these children face I don’t know, but I know as I lay my head down after my first tour of Arusha that countless children do live along rows like this. I say a prayer and close my eyes on a day that I know I’ll always remember.
Sherri
Arusha
October 2007
|
| |
+More News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
