Tea Time

Who would have thought that I would become a tea drinker? Tea time has become two of my favorite times of day (there are two of them) firstly because I’ve fallen in love with Rooibos tea (which means Red Bush in Afrikaans) and secondly because it’s a break that promotes fellowship and gets us all out of our rooms so we don’t get completely immersed in our homework. That’s not the only thing that that has changed in my life recently. I feel like a melting ice cube… made of the same substance, just changing forms. I’m doing homework during the day now and attempting to stay on top of my work. But it’s more than just lifestyle changes. I see people differently now, smile with more love in my heart and enter into conversation with better intention that I ever have before. It feels like my senses have been sharpened. Colors are brighter here, the smells are more pungent, and I notice the things going on around me with more precision.

Thursday we went to the clinic for the first time and I can’t quite find a word to describe it, so I’ll just explain how it went. I was at a small medical clinic outside Pietermaritzburg called Mason’s clinic and was able to work with HIV positive patients who either had high CD4 counts(the white blood cells that HIV attacks and eventually kills) and needed Vitamin B and Bactrim to prevent minor ailments or had very low CD4 counts and were on Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) that fight HIV. It was amazing to talk to the nurse about what she had seen here in the past 20 years or so as the AIDS epidemic came in full force. She kept saying that it was such a blessing that the government gives people the medication for free now because before they were accessible to the masses, people were dropping like flies. I talked to a girl my age who came in with a CD4 count of 7 (a count of 200 or below is considered AIDS defining and a person who is not infected with the virus has a count of 500-1500) and she was one of the most fragile and weak people I have ever seen. She could barely walk and couldn’t get out of her chair without help. It was one of those defining moments for me. I’ve talked about working with the HIV/AIDS population for so long, but that day I was able to put a face and a story with this burning desire in my heart to see lives changed and an improved quality of life for God’s children. In the clinic I was able to interact with many other people… some who looked healthy and others who did not. Another one of the hard cases for me was a 5 year old boy who came in needing his first CD4 count after being diagnosed as HIV positive. He was so tired and scared and he screamed his head off while we took his blood, but same time was so precious and beautiful that I knew God could not have abandoned his little son.

Life around African Enterprise (we call it AE) is strangely normal. Besides the monkeys running around outside my window (one tried to attack Teresa and I today) and the hot water heater going out on us every other day, we do mall runs, go out to eat, and watch movies just like we do at home. After a week here I feel perfectly at home. We have breakfast at 7:45 every morning, lunch at 1 and dinner at 6 with two tea times thrown in there. There’s chapel twice a week and classes in between the meal times ; ) And I get to go to the clinic twice a week. We’ll be rotating clinics every three clinical days, so I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. I love you all. Praying for you ; ) I want to hear about your lives too!