Hope where least expected

I work as an advocacy and communications specialist for Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Uganda (Baylor-Uganda) and I love what I do. I have always wanted to work for women and children, particularly African women and children and this is a big part of what I do at Baylor-Uganda.  I think I expected to see the sad aspects of my work but I do not think I dwelled much on that. I was more focused on all the wonderful things I was going to do, all the wonderful lessons and practices I was going use to fix everything. I now find I am learning much more about real life than I imagined I would.

I work next to the Mulago hospital, the national referral hospital where I was born. My mother worked there as a physiotherapist and my father worked there as a radiographer and here I am working in pediatric AIDS.  I feel at peace working here, but every morning as I go to work, I ride past a makeshift coffin carpenter shop. I wonder what a patient coming to the last point of referral in the country or what their relatives feel when they see them. I grew up in Uganda in the nineties at the peak of our fight against HIV/AIDS. Coffin shops were everywhere; in fact there are a lot less coffin shops today then there were then. So why did it bother me so much? Is it because for many years while I lived in Europe I rarely heard of death and suddenly it was in my face, in my ears, in my home, and at my place of work? I began to despair.

The first few days of work I would walk into the clinic at Baylor- Uganda, look at the clients, and feel a sense of purpose in life. I would  then go upstairs, sit at my nice desk with a window overlooking the children’s play area, and plan make their lives better, like my education and experience made me some kind of god. I now realize I was looking at them as a mass, a project.

Some people working in development manage to completely detach themselves from the people they work for, because emotions are not “professional,” but how can one work in development without empathy?  I know I can’t.  As the days went by, I started to focus on individuals. I would look at a young mother and imagine what it must be like for a young mother to bring her child to a clinic every month in order to save his or her life. I imagined what they think about as they wait between the different stations; testing, weighing, counseling, doctor, pharmacy, nutritionist. I wonder who shares their burden with them? From whom do they have to keep the secret? What’s changed in their lives? Then suddenly it’s too much; I switch off and go to my desk.

One day, a young woman, only 21 came to me for advice. We had in a very short time developed an open and sisterly relationship, but what she told me I was not ready for. She told me she was HIV positive but did not have the courage to tell her partner. For a couple of days, I shared her anxiety, worried about his reaction, worried about her 18 month old, and I worried about how she was dealing with all this. One day he came to me and told me she had told him. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to deal with the situation as she did. All is well now.  Every day I watch them play with their child, laugh, juggle timetables to make their doctor’s appointments, and stay alive together as a family. It gives me hope.

Part of my job as I explained it to our youth peer group at Baylor-Uganda is to ensure that the people that make the decisions about their lives are aware of their needs. Baylor-Uganda holds youth peer meetings once a month. I wanted to meet the people I work for, get to know them, and understand their needs, so I went along. That was an experience I will never forget. I must confess I expected a grim setting but was met by a group of 16 to 20 somethings jamming to some Afro-Ragga with an in-house DJ between information sessions.

I had planned to sit quietly in a corner and listen, but that was wrong. They had a right to know who was listening in on their group, and so I was asked to introduce myself the “youth way.” I happily obliged but wasn’t sure what I had to do. An introduction the “youth way” Baylor-Uganda style starts with the youth choosing a dance style for you and a song, and that’s how I found myself dancing to some ragga song in front of about a hundred youths laughing their cheeks off.  After that, I was accepted into the group . Their humor, giggles, teasing, and mutual encouragement gives me hope.

At the youth meeting, I met a young man. I wanted a photo to represent the youth for our newsletter. We take confidentiality very seriously at Baylor-Uganda so I decided I needed a symbol of youth that wouldn’t violate their confidentiality. I decided to take a photo of the funkiest shoes in the room. I approached a few young people explained what I needed and the majority agreed as long as I didn’t take a photo of their faces. One youth who I will call King Suwaga had the coolest shoes in the room so I approached him and asked to take a photo of his shoes. He said no. I took the photo with the other youth and showed it to King Suwaga. He later came over and asked me an avalanche of questions; what do you do? How do you do it? Why are you interested in us? We exchanged numbers and it turns out we have a lot in common. We are both HIV/AIDS advocates; he does his advocacy through his music singing about prevention, care and treatment. He told me about a young boy he met after a performance who had stopped taking his ARVs, and how King Suwaga’s message made him change his mind. I plan on working with King Suwaga and young people living HIV/AIDS on spreading prevention, care, and treatment messages. People like King Suwaga give me hope.