its not every day a friend is able to mobilize a bunch of other friends and get $1300 in 7 days. when i got the news that dan had gotten this much money together, i was completely floored... i still cant really get over it still. after reading my last post about prince, and talking to me over msn last week, he decided he wanted to do something. he thought that he could maybe get 300-600 together over the weekend... that alone surpassed all my expectations. i talked to my sister on the phone on sunday night to hear that she'd noticed this facebook group that had already raised over 300 in like a day and from that point on, i only got more and more excited. i've spent most of the week trying to remember all the people on camp who i've had to say sorry but i just don't have that kind of money to so that i can find them and tell them that now i actually can help them out. i was all giddy just thinking about it... a welcome change from last weeks mood and series of events.
today, once i had the confirmed number in donations (which is actually now $2000 because of donations made from my family), i got to start spending! imagine how many people i can help out if $5 is all most are asking for. i had a quick moment of panic when i was like shit, what if i cant spend it all... what if i dont know enough people to give $2000 out to... then i realized that was totally ridiculous. i'm pretty sure somebody will be willing to accept money. the first person i helped out was a woman who did a bit of washing for me when i first got here. vivian is maybe in her mid-fourties and has been sick for awhile now and it has recently gotten really bad. i'd already agreed to get TB and malaria tests for her. today she got the results back, with positives for both of the diseases. instead of my usual 'ahh i don't know how i'm going to afford treatment for all this even though its only $17' and attempts at finding somebody to go halves on it with me, i could tell her htat it was no problem and we went to get treatment right away. $20 later (we got food so she could take her billion pills), she was at home with her two sons, hopefully on the path to recovery.
next on my to do list was to visit renato, an AIDS patient i've been going to visit for the past few weeks (months now actually..). he went to the clinic a few weeks ago to get checked for opportunistic infections and walked out with a $500 medical bill. obviously treating all of these diseases is not only unfeasible but slightly impractical... renato, sadly, is on his last leg i think. he's been on and off ARVs for so long now that they have limited effect... what i decided to do instead is treat the ones that cause him the most pain (syphilis and gonorrhea). those two cost $50 to treat and hopefully that will make his last little while more bearable. the stigma against him is really bad in camp and has the ability to totally crush him when he isnt feeling well... he says that getting any treatment at all makes him feel stronger and more ready to fight. i think that for him, there isn't a lot more you can ask for.
i know that just throwing money at people doesn't solve any of the underlying problems, and that people might be critical of what i'm doing right now. the thing is though that this money is able to make the people in the middle of this crisis a little bit happier, and make their lives a little bit more bearable. its not always a sustainable problem (although i do try to give money to people will be able to get a long term benefit out of it all - education or buying seeds to farm or something like that) but for them today, its enough. i wish so badly that there was a way i could capture the reactions that i get from people when i give them hassle-free money. i personally find it all a bit unwarranted, but its nice all the same (i dont know that renato's promises of a 11 story house, a rich husband and three children is something that i'll get for giving $50 that isn't even mine to him). a lot of the time on camp i feel like i'm not doing much and i start to doubt why i came here at all... some how though, between running this summer school and the ability to give out an incredible amount of money, i've become more sure of myself. that alone, to say nothing of the people that really do benefit from the money, is pretty incredible.
i flat out don't know how to get across how grateful i am to every person that helped out with that money. all of this has meant so much to me and to people around camp and i just don't know how to translate those feelings over a blog. i'll be sure to take pictures and write down exactly where all the money spent so that everybody can see, but even that just doesnt seem like a big enough illustration of what you've all pulled together to do.
thank you again.
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