Orphans, orphans, orphans..

We had another orphan day on Friday and I think in a weird subconscious way it is getting easier. The kids are wonderful, tragic little human beings. The grandmothers who occasionally accompany them to the 'orphan day' are saints. We are compiling a list of those in the program who are HIV positive so that those that need treatment can start on ARV's. A pediatric HIV physician from the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation was at the hospital last week. He asked if we could produce a list in the next month or so of children for him to see in May on his next visit. We tested 10 children who lived the farthest away from Kilema (ie. they had walked more than 5 kilometres on mountain roads to see us that day). These children I chose to test all looked relatively healthy and only one of the 10 we tested was positive (I was overjoyed). We made a list of those who had already been tested over the last few months and have 56 children. We have about 40 more to test from this group. We are at the tip of the iceberg as this group has already been identified as the high risk group (in need of as much care as we can provide right now) but, there are hundreds more that we see on the roads everyday who are not known to us. There is one orphan, Augustina (see picture) who is two years older than Hannah and a waif of a thing. I fear she will die in the next year if she doesn't start treatment soon. She has recently been sponsored by a Canadian woman who purchased foam mattresses, clothing and food for the family and plans to provide money for food so that nutrition for the whole family can be improved. Augustina cannot be started on ARV's until she is 'healthier' ...a crazy irony I guess. The little girl with that looks like a baby Aunt Jemima (picture) is also positive and I had to try really hard to not bring her home with me. She came with a kind hearted neighbor who has taken her and her older sister in after the death of their mother and father this past year. I was thinking yesterday about what North America spends on doggy beauty parlours....it is a crazy, crazy, world.