July 29, 2001: Opened Eyes: A Report from the Field

Vol. 9.5

Greetings.

This week has been the best yet--feeling as well as I've felt since long before i was diagnosed, and enjoying the time off to take long walks and run errands and fix up the apartment, as well as some early prep work for the work I will do with Eastern College in the Fall when I'm not being sick/doing the transplant. thanks for your prayers--they mean the world, and seem to be working.

This update is simple--i'm forwarding a note from Dwayne, a good friend who works in Africa doing development work to drive home the points I've been making about the millions who suffer silently around the world, especially with HIV/AIDS.

Please keep praying for me, and when you do, remember these two nameless--but loved victims.

dwight

Dear Dwight: This week has been one in which the reality of HIV/AIDS has come closer to home than ever. I have been puzzled by how even though I live in Tanzania, I seldom hear anything about this illness. I remember reading a Newsweek article last year on the epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa and being completely blown away by the stats. But, I thought, I'm living right in the middle of it and no one ever mentions it! What's going on?

I started to seriously doubt how well I knew anyone here, but then I realized that people generally are not talking about it all, even though they are going to funerals of people who seem too young to be dying of anything else. If they do refer to the disease, we've realized that it is often through code language --- that "fever", the "modern flu", "he got electricity" -- as there is still a lot of shame and stigma attached to this illness. Even the government in the country has only just started to address it more seriously in the past 8 months, and I have only recently seen public signboards warning people about the disease.

During this past week, though, two people that I know have announced their HIV positive status. One is a friend in Uganda, the other is a neighbour who has been confiding in my wife . Two very bright and articulate woman, one very educated, the other very poor -- this disease doesn't discriminate, and now they are facing what amounts to a slow death sentence. I feel helpless in the face of their future. I'm hoping that like a lot of people here, they may live for a while without great sickness and suffering. That is just hope, though, as many are caught up by the opportunistic infections that prey on them. The one friend in Uganda will probably get access to anti-retro-viral treatments from the USA through her partner, but our friend here in Dar will not likely have the same options unless we can locate some for her. I have no idea what that might cost or even if it is available here. Where to start?

So, my friend, I'm afraid to say that only now are my eyes opening up to what is going on. How many other people are infected whom I don't even know? What can be done? Please keep my friends in your prayers.

Thank-you for your letter and your stiff-upper-lipped-ness. You are ministering to many people through your letters.

Glad that you had a good session of chemo. Give'm heaven.

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