A day too awful to remember
Our team went to the Women’s Prison with a team from Singapore and both teams did their best items for the 300 or so prisoners. This was followed by a talk to the prisoners from the local Pastor, a youngish woman, and a time of great blessing, which has left her with so much follow up work that she will be busy for a year.
Our mini bus left and went through paddock after paddock of sunflowers. Both teams were quickly off the bus and in amongst the beauty of the sunflowers, dancing, laughing, photographing, playing like kids. Only God knew what was to follow, He gave them a good dose of joy and laughter first.
The Kiwis and the Singaporeans were all mixed together as they scrambled off the bus and surveyed the HIV-AIDS HOSPITAL. It was a very pleasant setting with gardens, paths, individual chalets, and big, well kept, hospital wards. The approximately 20 enthusiastic young people needed to be reminded, as they wandered down the sunny paths to the first building, that they should be a bit quieter as this was a hospital.
Did we speak again that day?
I suppose we did but I don’t remember.
Are some things too awful to blog about? Should I keep this experience to myself? Everyone has already heard of AIDS now I have seen it.
You could stop reading here if you wish.
The first building was an open hall, we all went in and froze. We are westerners; we cover over scenes like this! Here, in about a dozen, probably more, sealed glass cases were the naked, embalmed bodies of AIDS patients preserved just as they were at the moment of death; men, women, small children.
On each glass case was a photo of the person as they had been in life, written permission for their body to be displayed in this way, their age and how they had caught the HIV virus.
There is no respectable way to catch AIDS, I understand babies are safe from their infected mothers while in the womb but can catch it in the mingling of blood as they take that short journey to life down the birth canal, that’s grim beyond belief! They can then live for several years.
I stand looking at a tiny 7-year-old girl, whispy hair, skeletal thin. A teenage Singaporean girl sobs at a glassless window frame looking away from the scene. No one goes to her. Everyone is too shocked by what they are witnessing, all their leaders are very young themselves and they can’t handle this. When I realise it is more than they can manage I go to her and hold her, there is nothing I can say. She gains control.
Leaving this place, where surely nothing can be worse we go down a corridor. Here are 8 incinerators. The bodies are burned the day they die, or if the relatives wish to be there, then the following day.
There seems to be no escape.
There is more but that is enough for today.
It was so hard to debrief. Keren, aged 17, chose to write her reaction and with her permission I print it here:
Your Souls
Who are you
depraved corpses
that adorn the entrance hall
The smell of death
i didn't recognize
but in your bones i saw it's face
I looked upon
your savaged form
your names fractured my heart
No tears to shed
a frown to wear
and a stirring anger i came to bear
Who are you
trapped in the ward
awaiting the arms of death
Stripped of dignity
they call it reality
as i witness your cold suffering
Life holds pain
there's no peace in death
truth is forbidden by the merit makers
Diseased flesh
will fall away
but your souls will die for eternity
Will hope come
before that time i'll pray and cry, but never know
Our mini bus left and went through paddock after paddock of sunflowers. Both teams were quickly off the bus and in amongst the beauty of the sunflowers, dancing, laughing, photographing, playing like kids. Only God knew what was to follow, He gave them a good dose of joy and laughter first.
The Kiwis and the Singaporeans were all mixed together as they scrambled off the bus and surveyed the HIV-AIDS HOSPITAL. It was a very pleasant setting with gardens, paths, individual chalets, and big, well kept, hospital wards. The approximately 20 enthusiastic young people needed to be reminded, as they wandered down the sunny paths to the first building, that they should be a bit quieter as this was a hospital.
Did we speak again that day?
I suppose we did but I don’t remember.
Are some things too awful to blog about? Should I keep this experience to myself? Everyone has already heard of AIDS now I have seen it.
You could stop reading here if you wish.
The first building was an open hall, we all went in and froze. We are westerners; we cover over scenes like this! Here, in about a dozen, probably more, sealed glass cases were the naked, embalmed bodies of AIDS patients preserved just as they were at the moment of death; men, women, small children.
On each glass case was a photo of the person as they had been in life, written permission for their body to be displayed in this way, their age and how they had caught the HIV virus.
There is no respectable way to catch AIDS, I understand babies are safe from their infected mothers while in the womb but can catch it in the mingling of blood as they take that short journey to life down the birth canal, that’s grim beyond belief! They can then live for several years.
I stand looking at a tiny 7-year-old girl, whispy hair, skeletal thin. A teenage Singaporean girl sobs at a glassless window frame looking away from the scene. No one goes to her. Everyone is too shocked by what they are witnessing, all their leaders are very young themselves and they can’t handle this. When I realise it is more than they can manage I go to her and hold her, there is nothing I can say. She gains control.
Leaving this place, where surely nothing can be worse we go down a corridor. Here are 8 incinerators. The bodies are burned the day they die, or if the relatives wish to be there, then the following day.
There seems to be no escape.
There is more but that is enough for today.
It was so hard to debrief. Keren, aged 17, chose to write her reaction and with her permission I print it here:
Your Souls
Who are you
depraved corpses
that adorn the entrance hall
The smell of death
i didn't recognize
but in your bones i saw it's face
I looked upon
your savaged form
your names fractured my heart
No tears to shed
a frown to wear
and a stirring anger i came to bear
Who are you
trapped in the ward
awaiting the arms of death
Stripped of dignity
they call it reality
as i witness your cold suffering
Life holds pain
there's no peace in death
truth is forbidden by the merit makers
Diseased flesh
will fall away
but your souls will die for eternity
Will hope come
before that time i'll pray and cry, but never know
posted by ElizabethB | 5:16 PM
1 Comments:
God has given each and everyone of us compassion. Some choose to ignore the cry from within, some procrastinate with it's yearning, but some choose to feel, to go out into the world and recognise. To choose to do something. You are one of those people Elizabeth. And God smiles down on your life because of it.
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