Moments in South Africa

I recommend getting your heart grabbed by as many people as you can fit into your schedule.

Before I left America, I was volunteering for a hospice in Arizona. In America, HIV is manageable and people are living very long lives because of proper medication. In turn there are not many AIDS infected individuals in hospice care.

I told them if they come across anyone with AIDS that I was their person.

They called me up one day and said that they had a young woman with full-blown AIDS for me but that she lived far away. I didn't care and went to see her a couple dyas later at her father's home.

-Her name is Traci.

She was quite thin and was recently blinded by the disease. I walked in and said, "Hi" expecting a small voice if any voice at all. This beautiful and full voice came out of this 32-year-old woman. She talked and talked. So happy and alive despite not being able to get out of bed and/or see.

She mentioned that she would love to work with beads.

After she was finished talking for the day, she asked me about myself. I told her that I was leaving for South Africa soon and that I would be volunteering at adult and children hospices. I told her that in a couple days I would come again and bring beads to work on.

She piped up and said, "Do you know what would be great? If we made bracelets and you took them to South Africa and gave them to the children with AIDS." "They would like that wouldn't they?"

A life came across her and you could see that she saw more reasons to live until the next time I saw her.

My best friend and I found great beads and string and I brough them the next week. She was quite weak and because she couldn't see well, she would work on the bracelets the best she could, then I would take overr.

We made a nice bag of colorful bracelets.