Elaine’s Back From Zambia
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We got this email from superstar ONE volunteer Elaine Van Cleave this morning. My favorite part: “If I ever in the past for just one second thought advocacy was useless, I can never have that thought again.”
I am back from Zambia. What a long trip home that was!! We awoke Sunday a.m. and rode in a jeep, a ferry, a bus, and 3 airplanes. You could even say we rode on a train if you count the rail in the Atlanta airport that gets you between terminals.
The experience was incredible. The extremes we encountered were mind numbing - from the incredible wild life in Botswana’s Chobe National Park to a dusty, barefooted orphan in tattered clothing beaming at you and asking you to be his friend.
One day, I tagged along on a trip to an outreach clinic 65 km into the bush. The trip was 2 hours each way on the worst sandy, bumpy road I have ever ridden on. There were 11 of us in a Land Rover provided to Mwandi Mission Hosptial by Catholic Relief Services with money from PEPFAR (US funds for AIDS relief)! The “clinic” was a two room mud hut (about 8 x 12) with a thatched roof - no electricity or running water. The clinic ended at dusk because the medical personnel could no longer see to examine patients and fill prescriptions. I mostly observed and got to see how PEPFAR money is providing medical care and drugs to people in remote rural areas who would die without it. The nurse practioner from Mwandi who goes on these weekly outreach trips into the bush told me that these clinics would not be possible without money from PEPFAR.
I also learned that Kandiana, the “old folks home” at Mwandi Mission, receives $600 a month from the Zambian government - money that is available because of debt relief. These funds also provide students at Mwandi Mission’s school with free examination books.
It is a trip I have been needing to take for a long time. I really can’t adequately put into words how powerful the experience was.
If I ever in the past for just one second thought advocacy was useless, I can never have that thought again.
If you want to read the daily blog written by Rev. Susan Clayton who lead our trip, go to www.ipc-usa.org. There are about 7 brief entries with pictures. I haven’t read them all myself and am looking forward to doing just that and to reflecting on our trip.
–Elaine Van Cleave, ONEBirmingham
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August 19, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Awesome entry! Thank you!
August 19, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Thanks Elaine for your post. I’m glad that you came away from your trip to Zambia renewed for the battles that we all know will come in the months and years ahead in our movement to end AIDS and extreme poverty. You are a true and loyal cohort in our movement and I know that your words come not only from your heart but from a strong resolve within your soul to make extreme poverty history.
Whether or not people get the chance to visit Africa themselves to meet some of these courageous and beautiful people, we can still assist them out of poverty by our advocacy for them here - through ONE and its partner organizations.
So please let Elaine’s experiences motivate you to DO MORE in your community for ONE so that some of the stories that Elaine sha(red) in her post will not have to continue - that people will continue to have better healthcare in Zambia and elsewhere in Africa.
ALWAYS FOREVER, ONE - debbie
http://www.mpwn-uganda.org
August 19, 2008 at 11:18 pm
It’s great you could put it so eloquently. I wish the people who don’t believe in this cause or other organizations like ONE, would take a trip like yours or one I experience a number of years so they too would see the honesty and purity in life. Sometimes it’s hard to relate unless you’ve seen, even for a short time, that people desire our kind thoughts and hearts.
August 20, 2008 at 9:02 am
Way to go Elaine! You are a wonderful person doing wonderful things! Go ONE!
August 20, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Thanks Elaine for making the bridge between being on the ground and advocating here in the US. I think that it is important to know that we are all working in this together, for one goal, to make sure that people around the world have the chances that we know and are familar with. I’m so glad you had this opportunity!