I can hardly believe that this will be my last post from Zimbabwe! As italways seems; some days here have dragged out for what seems like forever,but most of them seem to have flown by without my consent! I will leave Bulawayo early Saturday morning and return home on Sunday afternoon. I have one more day in the hospital and then an evening to say goodbye to friends, and I'm off! I will post pictures after I get home, but now, what have I been up to this last week?
I have spent this last week at the hospital and AIDs clinic as well as with friends. Monday and Tuesday were holidays here in Zimbabwe. The days are called "Heroes and Villains day" however, I have yet to hear a solid answer on what exactly these days off mean. But, regardless, they were nice days off where just about everything in the city completely shut down (kind of hard for many of us to imagine; even on Christmas Day we can usually find some grocery store open at some point!). But this gave me a good chance to visit with friends I've made here and get out into the fresh air as we climbed the hills surrounding the dams of Bulawayo.
The hospital and AIDs clinic continue to both bless and break my heart. Seeing the things that go on daily here are difficult to stomach sometimes. Caring for a set of 5 year old twins with the flu seemed pretty run of the mill, until I learned their story:
I learned that their father works at the hospital, making a ridiculous 60 US dollar a month. This is hardly enough to feed him with the country's high inflation rate on food, I thought, much less his two daughters, and now they are sick and needing medicine too!? I hoped their mother had a well paying job. As the consult continued, however, I learned that their mother had died of AIDs several years ago. Their father was HIV positive too as was one of the twins, and these girls were not the man's only children, not to mention the nieces and nephews that had begun to collect in his house as his siblings passed from the disease. Several, if not all of the other children were likely HIV positive as well. My heart burned for this family as I pictured the medical bills to keep these children on the proper drug regime,the tremendous cost of food that would incur to feed these children even one meal a day, and the heartache that loomed in this family's all too near future. How long could he provide the medical care they needed? How long would he survive as he more than likely neglected his health out of necessity to provide for his children? And what would come of the lone little girl who, by some miracle, had not been infected as her twin, siblings, and parents were? These are the questions that, as the days go on, I sometimes must prevent myself from asking.
Now I share this story, with much hesitation. Not because it is or should be hard to believe because it is happening and is incredibly real for so many all over this country and many others here, and not because I am reluctant to paint this grim picture before the eyes of any westerners; this is the truth and it is irresponsible and, plainly, stupid to ignore it or pretend it's not happening. I hesitate because I don't wish for my life or my words to be another feed the children commercial. I don't want to make you feel sorry for them and guilty about your life as you are reading this; sorry and guilty but still so far away. I don't wish to flash images across your minds of naked African children with swollen stomachs and flies all over their faces (FYI, the flies all over is really unavoidable in most parts of Africa I've been to; there just seem to be more of them here! don't let those pictures fool you; we all have flies on our faces here! You get used to them; ;-)
So then, why do I share this with you? I watched a movie not too long ago that made the statement "We each have to find a purpose in this war, because neither side is going to win." The first part of that I agree with wholeheartedly: We each must find a purpose. We are all here; all on this planet. Whether you're in what the west considers THE world, or the third world, whether you cry yourself to sleep over the heartache we find on this planet,or ignore it completely from the comfort of your own home; you are here and you must spend your days here doing something. There are plenty of causes to fight for, plenty of goals to achieve, plenty of trophies to win, and we have a choice, we have been given our free will by Him who created us, to choose as we please. The difference between the world war of this movie I saw and real life is that one side IS going to win! It seems to me that the difference in the 2nd line of this quote makes all the difference to the first. We still each have to find a purpose in this life, we each still have a choice; but doesn't it make sense to base that choice on who the winner is going to be?
And, saying that, I am brought to the reason I share my stories with you. Am I asking you to end world hunger? Cure AIDs? Send money? No...no to all of those. I am asking each of you still reading to look around at the truth of this world, realize who is going to win the war, and make your choice. What will your purpose be? Where does your purpose lie? What does this world need of us, or rather, who does this world need?
