Did you know?

So today was a heartbreaking yet heartwarming day. Today, I held my first HIV positive baby (who also happens to be TB positive). It was volunteer day today which means we go around and visit other projects that are going on in our area - meet other children and families and other projects from Be More other than ours; Agape.

First off we went to the Tree Clinic - it has been around for 15 years started by this women Jackie and it is a safe space for women and children. They all come on Wednesdays - some walk over 7 hours to get there - to come and talk about violence against women, disease because they will be banished if they do so in their community. 80% of the women there are positive (HIV positive) and they come to a safe space to sing and pray. We hand out donations of clothes, food and supplies to everyone that comes to the tree. It is literally just a massive tree that we all sit under right off of the highway. The Tree Clinic is also a place to get very very basic first aid care - volunteers bandage up cuts or give headache medication but sometimes they see heartwrenching things like yesterday. Yesterday at the clinic a little boy was brought by his neighbour because he was all bruised and she said she hadnt seen his mother in days and he was sitting alone in the house. We stripped the boy down to see the bruises and he was covered with much more than that - he had clearly been abused. Jackie - an expert in the field came over to check him out and knew right away he was HIV positive from the sores that entirely covered his body. She got on the phone right away to a clinic, said they were bringing him and contacted social work at the same time. He was taken by volunteers to the clinic where he did unfortunately test HIV positive, a tiny 4 year old boy left alone for days and clearly had been sexually abused. His mother was found later on in the day and she admitted she was positive also and had medication and was not giving it to him. These are the types of children we're seeing here, heartbreaking.

We moved on to another project also founded by Jackie called Bobbi Bear. This center is for rescuing children that have been raped, sexually abused and are reporting it to the police. Tiny children cannot tell their stories to the police so many times because they speak a different language, or simply feel uncomfortable telling a stranger what happened to them. Bobbi Bear steps in - the police, hospital anywhere when a rape is reported calls them to come and be the inbetween man for the child. What they do is give the child a stuffed bear and take them aside, give them a snack and say draw on the bear where you were touched - you should see the drawings on the bears, its sickening. This way there is proof at the time of the incident what has happened to the child because they cannot write it down, so when the court case comes months later on, the bear is their story and they can use that. It is a remarkable idea and has been working so well with the children. Once these children begin working with Bobbi Bear, they attend therapy sessions and the high risk children will often stay with volunteers to look after them and medicate them (because most often results in transmission of HIV). Bobbi Bear on a day to day basis serves to teach children in schools and educate them with a fun interactive program and song on HIV - and bad cells (once the HIV virus enters) and the good cells (C4 cells) and how to not let the bad ones invade. The volunteers travel throughout the area to teach children - it is a very intense program for them and they can be woken up at 4am with an emergency if a children or someone has called in a rape. They are a tremendous group of people and are helping children tell their stories all over.

So getting to my title..Did you know...today I found out something very interesting from Jackie that I hadnt known before. There are profolactic drugs out there on the market right now that can prevent the invasion of HIV cells into our C4 leukocytes if injected within a short amount of time (best if taken within 24 hours). This means that if doctors are treating patients positive for HIV and pricked themselves or an accident occured within 30 mins doctors can give themselves a profolactic injection to prevent the transmission of HIV. WHAT? So this is a drug out there that can stop this? I was AMAZED when I heard this - I literally didnt believe it and why did I not know about it before? Blows my mind. ARVs (antiretrovirals) work once one is already HIV positive and the body has tricked the C4 cells into thinking they are healthy when they are not and when they are exposed to other illnesses, the immune system crashes because the virus is actually in there and AIDS develops. ARVs work to stop the virus from replicating in the cells and spreading even further to help that person lead as normal a lifestyle as can be.

Even after hearing about these huge advancements and realizations today, we were driving through downtown Durban at about 10pm at night (with a driver, dont worry mum!) and the scene and state that the city is in, it is no wonder that HIV is still so prevelant. We could see kids sniffing glue and drugs everywhere - people shooting up - the city turns into some sort of sick town at night, as soon as the sun sets. We've been warned so many times to not go near the city as soon as the sun sets (which is 4:30-5pm) and especially after last night, theres no way we're going close. This weekend we've decided to stay around Durban for 3 nights - out in Bluff, the other side of the harbour. The 5 of us girls from Agape are staying at a backpackers on the beach for a weekend in the sun, surfing (well maybe for me...) and just relaxing! We bought tickets to go see the kids perform downtown on Saturday night at the International Conference Center so they are really excited we get to join them - they are rehersing at Agape tonight so we're going to go watch them. These children are unbelievable and make me smile more and more everyday. From when we arrive around 9am the tiny little preschoolers run up to us and all want to be hugged and held and the older ones off to school saying "Whats up Louise" or giving me a hug before getting on the bus; they have the largest capacity to love.

Tonight the older boys (16-18) are coming for dinner and we did some grocery shopping after dropping the kids off at school with them this morning. The bus fits 22 kids, this morning we fit 38 of us in there - not a comfortable or safe 30 minute drive. The older boys are hilarious and ask us about boyfriends back at home and if we're single. 4 of us are here and they said they're going to find some boys to fix us up with haha. They are so smooth and are always dancing around the center to Black Eyed Peas or Chris Brown.

The past 2 days have been so different but all in the same city - from realizing the danger and violence of the city, to holding my first HIV positive baby but then returning home to our little tikes at Agape and their smiling faces - its been a rollercoaster. I'm loving every minute of it here and cant wait to post more photos!!
-Lou xox

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