Eshowe

These past couple of days have been full of really intense cultural experience.

We had a whole school day dedicated to HIV/AIDS awareness. It was really informative and we read stories about the way AIDS is affecting us in the U.S and here in Sub Saharan Africa, we also learned about medicine that helps HIV patients and how it is distributed in South Africa.

The next day we went to an orphanage in Eshowe (where you can ask me information about sponsering one of the children to provide them with a healthy life and education) where we got to play with children, many of whom were suffering from HIV or had parents who died from AIDS related illnesses. It was an amazing experience to spend so much time with them and get to know them and how hopeful they were in the face of such a difficult life. I will honestly never forget that day their.

Then we went to a traditional Zulu healing ceremony where we were able to join with local peoples and see the Sangoma (priestess) sort of heal people. We gathered into a crowded room, passed around all sorts of food and drinks, and sang Zulu hymns. The Sangoma greeted people individually, if you made a dontaion she woud grant a desire you had such as peace in your life or country, a wife, food, anything like that. It was really cool to just be part of the culture. At one point we bathed our feet in a pool and people actually DRANK that water for medicinal purposes.....Yea crazy. It was pretty eye opening to see their form of traditional medicine.

Today we went to a clinic for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS and we were able to interview people in groups who were getting medicaiton for this illness. Some people were very hopefull, had sucessfully had children and were looking foward to a bright future where they would help stifle the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Some people were not so hopefull, they were too week to work, but too stong to get government aid, they couldnt support their families, they had no families backing them up because they had abandoned them upon learing they had HIV. All of these people were reciving treatment for HIV and able to live a full healthy life. Others were not so lucky, they were in a hospital ward where they had little more than weeks to live. I can't even explain this experience, we met so many amazing people, and so many hopeless people. It is too much for me to handel right now, I can't believe how serious this epidemic is. One in every five people I see walking down the street in South Africa is suffering from HIV, 12.3 million orphans are living without homes in Sub Saharan Africa, and some people are doing nothing about it. It is such an awful horrible thing to happen to a persons life and I can't believe the courage of the people living with it. I hope that everyone of you will ask me about the stories of people I met, I can't really blog about it, it is too personal of a thing to make public.

I just wanted to let you all in on some of the things going on here and how much I am learning and growing. I can't explain how lucky I am to be here at the traveling school, honestly I am blessed.

Love Melissa♥♥

P.S... if anyone wants to fill me in on this whole economic depression thing in the U.S it'd be great. I feel so out of the loop, all i see is newspapers about president Bush embracing socialism haha, I have a feeling theres a lot more to the story.