The Poverty Curse

This weekend has been nonstop cultural integration. I spent most of Saturday with Ben who leads a support group in the town of Ronda for people who are living with HIV. He brought me with him to do house visits where we prayed with families and try to educate them about HIV. Ronda, from my understanding is a slum.... the majority of people living there are in severe poverty, living in mud huts and most are HIV positive. Many of the people living in this slum are uneducated and this leads some of them to be in denial of having HIV. That is the story of Moses, He has 2 daughters and a wife, all of them have tested positive. Yet, he still is sure that he does not have this "sickness" and refuses to get tested. His daughters and his wife all are secretly taking medication  (Anti-Retro Viral) to keep them from getting diseases that could be fatal, due to their compromised immune systems. Moses, did welcome us into his home and ask us to pray for his diminishing health (even though he denies having HIV) and so we prayed with his family. Here in Kenya prayers are long and they say AMEN throughout the prayer (so I always think its over) but, they are passionate prayers where they plead with God and raise their voices to show important points. I find it refreshing to be surrounded by people with such faith and passion for God despite the seemingly dim lives they lead.
Next we visited the home of a little boy named Gillie, he looked about ten years old (he's actually 18) and was walking around in an empty dark room with his legs tucked up into his shirt. The people in his town think that he is possessed by the devil. Gillie is deaf, mute, apparently hears voices and probably is mentally handicapped. All of these afflictions could be due to psychological conditions yet, this child is treated like a demon. His family has to move constantly and he has spent most of his life separated from the rest of the world. I gave him a lollipop and he smiled.... he is not a demon... just a misunderstood human. We prayed with his family and I attempted to communicate with him.... not so much luck with that... but, it was worth a shot.
I completed my day in Ronda by joining Ben for the HIV support group. I was asked to speak and tried to think of what I could say that would help. My brain was tapping into things that I have read about foods that are good for you immune system and hygienic practices that would keep the spread of disease low. Then, I realized that many of the people that would be attending this support group might not have access to these things. So I resorted to the speech about keeping your mind, body and spirit healthy to remain viable. Overall I think that was the best thing for most of them to hear and I felt well, intelligent or rather useful to them.
On my way back to the van I was listening to a speech about how poverty is a curse when I stepped into the grossest muddiest marsh that I could have ever imagined. I was wearing my Keen SANDALS! not my best choice but, this event made it more obviously clear to me. Poverty is not a curse but, when you step in it... I mean really step in it.. you get sucked in and its hard to get out. The people living in this town, in these terrible conditions are in the mud and living with HIV makes it that much harder to get out. If they get sick they fall farther into the mud and they can't afford food to keep them healthy which puts them back into the hospital! its a never ending cycle that always comes back to the grossest, heaviest, dirtiest mud you could ever sink your feet into.

The power is out right now so the internet is to slow for me to edit this post so please excuse any misspellings or grammatical errors (this safaricom thing doesn't work that well)  :-)