Journal Entry
Day 1 Baylor Clinic
Today we visited the Baylor Clinic and it was emotional and heart warming experience for me and my whole team. It was a student led group under the supervision of a few adults, but the teens did most of the organizing and planning. All the students enrolled are HIV positive and Baylor is a place where they can come together to support one another, mentor to one another, learn about the medication process, yet and still have fun.
As we walked onto the clinics parking lot we seen all the kids in a big group playing games, and of course some of the team joined them as well. We went inside and they prayed,did their national anthem, and invited us to introduce ourselves. As I stepped forward to do my introduction this teenager stepped up to me with a huge smile and said "Auntie please come closer we do not bite I promise" lol and for some reason it put a smile on my face. Now I am not a person that likes to be touched I value my personal space. But for some reason I didn't feel like that in Africa. The girls rubbed my braids and my bun and would say it is very beautiful one even asked is it extensions lol. It didn't take me quite long to catch onto their accent because to us Americans it was just broken English.
We watched them make New Years resolutions and many of them wanted to live long, learn more about their medicine and proper ways to take it, and to continue to get an education. When they were done they all came together to share their goals with each other and sang R. Kelly's 'The World's Greatest' and so many tears were shed. You could feel the emotional energy as it traveled all over the room. It just amazed me how they little to nothing and are controlled by a disease for the rest of their lifetime, yet smile like everything is ok.
After everyone wiped their face we went outside and helped them pass out balogne and bread sandwiches with juice. We took tons of photos with everyone and kids steadily hopped into photos as we snapped them. We joked and had some good laughs with them and as soon as we got called to leave the tears came again. I will never ever forget the little girl that asked me to promise her that I would come back and visit again,and it made me tear up because I was not sure if I would be able to.In return I just told her I promise to try.