Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Helen in Africa
Yesterday we met a really amazing woman called Jayne. She has been running mobile VCT clinics for four years and has given us so much great advice about ours. She has all the necessary equipment including tents and is willing to come with us so I'm very happy as she also has us all in stitches of laughter for most of the day.
We have decided, instead of going to Uganda this weekend to go to the very south of Kenya in Masailand to the site where one of her mobile clinics is taking place for 4 days. We'll be camping with a group of about 22 staff and volunteers and cooking the food for 500 Masai people. It is as rural as Africa gets and will really give us an idea of how the clinics are run successfully.
Life is very difficult for the Masai people, especially the women. Men as old as 60 marry girls as young as 11 and the girls have no choice or the mother is beaten. She will then spend her life as one of many wives of a man who controls everything she does. It is common for HIV to be spread by men sleeping with prostitutes and then infecting their wives. One of our challenges will be to convince these women to come and be tested as they do very little without their husbands permission.
So we leave in our Suzuki at 8am tomorrow and will get back late on Sunday evening, no doubt in great need of a shower. I wont have internet access so I'll speak to you all next week.
xxx
- comments