what he did for his summer vacation

My friend, AY, is working at an AIDS treatment program in South Africa this summer and i wanted to share his recent experience - so well written and very touching. it's a pretty amazing, life-changing experience...

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I have been running around like a crazy man, and absolutely having the time of my life. Because my organization is a start-up and short on staff, they have sent me all over this beautiful, beautiful country. It’s like a vacation every week! The natural wonder here is totally out of control. You can hardly turn a corner without running into an unbelievable expanse of mountains, or breathtaking views into tree-covered valleys, or the sun setting over pastoral hills. At night: a sky full of stars.

Okay where to begin. First, I never thought I’d say this, but “work has been incredible.” The founders of my organization are pioneering a new, community-based approach to healthcare. Our organization doesn’t rely on big, shiny hospitals to provide AIDS treatment for our patients. Hospitals, (particularly shiny ones), are in very short supply in Africa. Rather, we organize poor communities to provide medical care for themselves. We go to a community and 1) find the best community doctors, who usually operate one-room practices out of a shopping mall, and we give them the tools and training to treat AIDS. 2) We supplement the doctors by training and organizing a network of community support leaders, who provide the patient follow-up and support that is critical for AIDS patients. We basically organize poor communities to look after themselves, and these communities are able to mobilize a stunning array of resources. I believe that this concept is the future of healthcare in Africa.

The most gratifying part of my experience has involved actually implementing this healthcare model, and getting ground-level experience with these communities. It has been a great opportunity to learn about the lives of AIDS patients, poor people in general, community leaders, local politicians, and community doctors. The highlight was definitely last weekend, at one of my main sites. We held a “patient enrollment,” a three day education and enrollment session for patients starting in our AIDS treatment program. We were expecting about 50 people. But *200* people showed up. It was utter, utter chaos. There were people milling around everywhere, we had nurses drawing dozens of vials of blood, we ran out of three different kinds of forms, babies crying, and we had to scrounge up more than a hundred additional meals! But when the dust finally settled, my coworker and I had educated and enrolled 140 patients onto AIDS treatment over three days.

I simply cannot describe the emotion I felt. The life expectancy of these patients is less than 12 months, and I saw in front of me an ocean of people, choosing to live. Each one special. There is this amazing little boy I have gotten to know, Mbuso, who has these horrible open sores on his face. Yet he is strong like a tree. Standing on a chair, he spoke in front of his community members about the importance of taking his medicine every day so that he could live, all in his tiny tiny voice, and … I felt so alive to be able to witness him. It was an amazing feeling.

Thankfully, I haven’t had to digest this all alone. I have had a great South African friend to share these experiences with, Zanele (pronounced Zanelay) - we have been a two-person team, traveling together for the last two months. This amazing human being is absolutely full of life. Zanele is the fourth and last sister in her family, and her name means “enough girls.” She is a fiery lesbian African woman who lost her partner to AIDS in March, and is on a personal mission to end this disease. I doubt anything will stop her - she lives in the Johannesburg townships, and was once shot in the chest, while arguing with three armed men who wanted to steal her car. Amazing. Personally, if anyone ever tried to steal my car, I’d hand over the keys before they could finish asking. I’d also take off my shirt, in case they wanted it too.

Zanele educates our patients before they begin treatment, and can tug at the heart of a crowd of people like you wouldn’t believe. She has amazing charisma, and wields emotion with great skill. She is absolutely tireless, and keeps patients on the edges of their seats, listening and participating and laughing, even at the end of seven hours of training. Zanele has this fire within her that doesn’t feed off of any fuel I know of - rather, her fire grows stronger with every person she passes it on to. She is a born educator and leader.

When Zanele talks about her partner Daisy, who passed away from AIDS, it is readily apparent that most people don’t experience this kind of bond with someone in their entire life. For me, Zanele’s story serves as an important reminder. With all the death here, it has become easy to forget the moral value of life - instead of creating a sense of emergency, one becomes used to it. Zanele counters this, and is a daily reminder to me about the value of life - both in her partner’s death, and in her own bright aliveness. We have been through a lot of very emotional things together, much more than I was expecting, and she has taught me a lot about myself.

my thoughts are with you mirza...

one of the board members i'm working with this summer is pulling her husband off from life support today. it's the most tragic thing and she's the sweetest, sunniest person i know on the board.

it's crazy to think - i mean, we all know it - but to realize that life is really this short. her husband was riding his bike with their little girl and fell off of it and hit his head in the wrong spot. had enough perserverance to get up, take his daughter home and call his wife. by the time they got to the hospital, he had full brain damage and today, two days later, they are taking him off of life support. they are holding services for him this sunday. he was to start his new job on monday.

it's so tragic, it breaks my heart just thinking about what she must be going through right now. it must have been such an ordinary day and an ordinary moment until he fell.

it makes a lot of things we worry about feel so trivial and it makes me scared to death to think that something can happen to one of my loved ones at any moment. but my boyfriend is right - you can't go through life worrying about if and when these things can happen. the only thing you can do is live each day of your life to its fullest - the way you want to live it, to treat people well and to surround yourself with those who love you and whom you love. and to know that if and when that moment were to come, you'd have no regrets about how you've lived as a person...

canada's looking better every day...

should this make me laugh or cry that he's our president?

http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/18356

happy monday

you know how some mornings you wake up and you think, "man, i'm looking good, i'm feeling good, i'm feelin' it - today's gonna be a good day."

This morning was not one of those.

i woke up this morning in that not-really-woken-up feeling where i still had this heavy fog of drowsiness over me and could not shake it. then i forgot which block i parked my car, made a wrong turn on the way to an important meeting, showed up late, started to fall asleep during the meeting, got lost on the way back to the office and then had a dumpster lid close abruptly in my face (long story). And it's not even 11 am yet!

good times. good times.

something tells me it's gonna be a long day...

the older, the wiser?

i'd like to think that as i get older, i get wiser and know better what to expect out of relationships and life. what i don't realize sometimes is that as i get older and wiser, life and relationships get more complex and challenging (maybe they shouldn't...) and then the question becomes not only how i should best deal with it all, it's also what i'm willing to invest in these situations. as adults, we are more critical and have a lower tolerance for things and people than we did as kids, and we are more suspicious of people's motivations than we ever were as kids. but if all adults believed that, how would we get anywhere? (i suppose that's how things like war and divorces happen...)

maybe that's just a result of learning from your experiences as you get older. maybe it's just about getting more jaded as you experience more sadness, pain and disappointment throughout your life and become more guarded to prevent you from feeling those things again.

it's almost too bad, because it would seem that we should be the better for having these experiences, right? either way, i think i still have a lot to learn about relationships - what i want out of them, how to deal with them, what is considered having too high of expectations and what is considered compromising too much of myself - it's a fine line, a fine line...

Stuck in the Moment

my boyfriend's ex-coworker came to dinner the other night. she was complaining about hating her job and how she should quit (like she has said for the last two years), how living at home was not great, but that she couldn't afford to buy a place (she's looking at $1M houses) and she could only afford a place if she got married (she just accepted the fact that she's dating this guy after 1.5 years).

i really didn't have much to say to her because, honestly, i don't know what to say to people like that. the U2 song, Stuck in the Moment came to mind:

And you are such a fool
To worry like you do
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
....
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

i have no patience for people who are stuck in the very situations they put themselves in and do nothing to get out of it. in my opinion, everyone has the ability to live deliberately, purposefully and make decisions that take control of their own lives. there's no reason, especially in this person's circumstance, that would prevent her from fixing all these things and getting on with her life and making things better for herself.

sometimes i think people just like complaining about their situations for the sake of complaining. they derive some sort of fulfillment/satisfaction from it, makes them feel like they are in this big life struggle (note: this is different from venting, which i think is a healthier way of talking through one's issues).

in reality, people know what's best for them - what decisions they need to make. they usually either don't want to confront those decisions or trick themselves into believing they don't have control over those decisions. and 9 times out of 10, they are usually wrong.

if you don't like your job, your significant other, your attitude, your friends - do something about it! life is short and here for your taking - no excuses.
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doh! wait a minute...did i write about this in an article already? the rerun themes of my life...sigh. http://www.recesstime.net/ArchiveDisplayAction.do?articleId=70

Anyone can make it if they learn how to shake it!

For those of you who have already heard me rave about this movie, you're gonna have to hear it again. I saw Mad Hot Ballroom last Friday and it was such a great, fun, inspiring feel good film. As my friend Kenny said, "those kids got soul!"

So i don't have the latin blood in me, but I am not only going to watch it again, i am totally inspired to take dance lessons now - if these 10-year-old kids from the NYC public school system can do it, why can't i?

Tango anyone?