Mzungue Give me Money.....

So, the past few days i have been spending a lot of time with our HIV Support Group. Let me give you the background of this group because i don't think i have yet. When i was here last year with Kara and Holly and we did the HIV testing day, (if you have read my blog before im sure you read that post) well, having the aftermath of trying to follow up with everyone that tested positive proved to be much harder than i had anticipated and we struggled a lot. So what holly, Kara and I decided was that we would create a support group. This was towards the end when we were leaving so we just got to have a lot of meetings about it and weren't able to really get the support group up and running.
Well, since holly stayed behind miracles have happened. We have officially begun our own support group called HIV Aids Support Network Namatala or for short HASNN. When i got here this year Holly have finally just registered the group and so we have been having meetings, we started a SACCO which is a savings and loan program so that the woman can start saving their money and then do micro-loans... its AMAZING!!!!! we had a meeting a few days ago where the members asked if they could sign their children up for a SACCO too because they want them to have a better future. It has been fabulous and i have loved it! we had another testing last saturday and it was great! we had 200 people come and there were 13 people that tested positive, but because we have the support group it is a good thing that they found out because now they can take care of themselves and make sure that they can continue to have a bright future!!!!! Its the greatest!!!!!

Some of the HASNN executive board members and Holly!

But i had a very humbling experience a few days ago. We had just had a board meeting where our HIV board was hounding us asking when everyone was going to get their "appreciation" which means paid. They have been working for free as volunteers but we promised them that we would give them an appreciation until we found proper funding so we have been trying to hash out how we would do it and how much is acceptable and affordable by us and i was feeling INCREDIBLY overwhelmed and frustrated because by the end of the meeting we had still not come to a conclusion but everyone was getting frustrated so we decided to call the meeting and meet again the next day. So as i was walking out of the building i run into this woman who in a very quiet voice says "excuse me, can i ask you a question?" Now, i was feeling really frustrated at the moment and said " if you going to ask me for money i don't have any" yeah i know, really really rude, but thats how frustrated i was feeling. Immediately after i said it she was like "No, No, No, nothing like that. I was just wondering if you could get me connected up with the woman that do the beading because i want to be a part of that"
My heart IMMEDIATELY melted. How could i be so rude. i feel stupid even thinking about it right now. So i said, 1000 Shillings will be coming back in the summer and i can bring them to you to get connected with them because i don't have the ability to do it myself. She was so grateful! So we continued to talk and she introduced her self to me as Katherine, and she thought my name was hard so i just told her to call me Cam. And then she began describing how to get to her house, so that i could take 1000 Shillings there in June.

Ado, One of the beading ladies kids, I heard her speak english the first time yesterday and it was SO cute and clear! love her!!!!!!!

It was such a humbling experience to remember that the people i work with really don't have much and they are trying to provide for their families. And this great woman was getting out of her comfortable zone for her family in asking a Muzunge to get her connected with the beading ladies. I could tell she was a little embarrassed and im sure it didn't help that i was abbrasive at the beginning but the love for her family gave her the courage to talk to me and it has reminded me to remember why i am here and how incredible these people are! no matter how long i am with them every day they seem to amaze and surprise me! I am going to make sure to listen to what each person has to say before i jump to conclusions!