The Latest

Lovely day today. Worked at Chreso clinic again. It's been an incredibly fascinating experience. I've been reading this book on cancer by Andreas Mortiz and I'm really starting to understand how the metabolic processes get shut down in the body, and how the cells respond when there's poor nutrition, no oxygen and loads of toxins present. Maybe it was this new understanding that helped generate such an intense response from the patients. Last week when I was doing the Access techniques, several of the patients started sweating profusely. It wasn't hot out, and if anyone should have been sweating it should have been me, because I was doing all the work! They would really start sweating during Hydration, and then during Body Chemistry these smells would poor out of them that were so strong I had to turn my head away. One woman's face was completely numb afterwards and her eyes were twitching. Today I worked on a woman who had burns on her breasts because her 21 year old daughter was angry and poured burning hot porridge on her. She told me the story with her eyes turned downwards towards the floor. Later I saw her twice in the waiting room and she looked me right in the eyes and smiled. I followed up with a staff member at Chreso today who healed nearly instantly from a sore throat and a cough with blood last week. We did some Access, and then she helped me plan an Access class this Saturday at Chreso. I confirmed it with Fred the programs director, and the class will be announced at the meeting tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to it! So many staff members have shown interest in learning the techniques, so we'll see who shows up at the class. Oddly enough, Saturday is World AIDS Day, so the timing couldn't be better. All the staff will go to the building next door after the class at 13 hours for the AIDS education events and the candlelight vigil. How neat that I get to teach Access on World AIDS Day. I couldn't be happier with how it has all turned out. I will be contacting two local orphanages tomorrow to sort out bringing Access there, and then I leave on Tuesday.

I'm so excited to go home, but also saddened. It hit me that I'm leaving tonight when I realized I won't get to see Tuesday market again. It was so beautiful. The female vendors shouting "Madam, potatoes", squatted next to piles of vegetables in the dirt. Children munching on stalks of corn and tiny babies hanging off large black breasts while their mothers cleaned vegetables. Young boys carrying baskets of produce for whites, Asians, Arabs and Indians all mingled together. Young women with only their eyes revealed behind long, black cloaks, purchasing tomatoes next to aged Indian women wrapped in white linen with exposed midrifs.

It's no wonder so many people want to live here. At first I couldn't understand it. Besides the safaris, gas and imported specialty items everything is so cheap. Everyone has a maid or two who prepare their meals, do the dishes, clean the house, manage the laundry, care for their children and their property. After work, they can just sit around like kings and enjoy the day. And in the cities and the rural areas, their needs are met, they have running water and electricity, and everything is provided. No wonder. Tonight at dinner Robb told me that after 2009 the US is doubling what it is now giving to the AIDS epidemic. 30 billion dollars will go to Asia, Africa, and other epidemic sites. Robb said the goal is to replace all international workers with local people, and at the rate that they are doing it, he'll be out of a job very soon, and will have to move to a more dangerous, or rural area to stay in Africa. Interesting how quickly it will all change. I wonder what I'll be doing in 2009. 2008 is just around the corner.

I had another moment today, where the air was knocked out of me and I realized, my god I'm in Africa. Who knows if I'll make it back this lifetime, who knows where life will take me, or why I'm here in this moment. What am I doing in Africa? Why does this feel like home? When I just let the images fly through my brain, it's almost too much. All the colors and the smells. And the sweet, sweet children. We learned yesterday that there was a huge fire in Macha. The restaurant and the radio station and the school and gift shop all burned to the ground. Many things were rescued though. The fire began in the radio station and with no fire department to stop it, it burned as it pleased. Gertain sent us pictures online, and we watched with open mouths and gasps. It was all gone. What was there last week, is gone today. All that is left are the pictures I took. Unbelieveable, isn't it? It's like a hole inside of me, a missing piece. Where did it go? Perhaps it was meant to burn; the end of a chapter in Macha. At least the community center is okay. And really, who knows what will rise up from the ashes. Who knows what tomorrow holds for Macha or for Africa.